Förberedelser 

I´ve always been interested in traveling through the world´s longest railway that goes through several continents. It crosses six time zones such as the lowlands of Eastern Europe, the Urals, wester Siberia´s forest-covered terrain, taiga, Lake Baikal and hundreds of towns and cities.

Before the trip I read the part primiraly on the Internet because of people in just my friend circle has not such trips. 

That matters is which train you go with. The standard of the trains varies a lot, which is due to a large extent on the service is privatized at this moment and that different companies hold different standards. The slightly better trains tend to labeled "firmennyj" which means they hold a "business standard". More over, one can use price as a certain indication. The more you pay the more you get.

If you take the route to be operated mostly by Swedes, the Moscow-Perm, there is a qualitative company called "Kama" which only runs with new trains, pretty goog housekeeping and more. Contrast with the cheap companies, the same trip cost a third as expensive, but it´s hardly worth it when dinner service is a real "Eastern European level".

No matter how you supposed to go, you should get your tickets in advance through a good travel agent. Howewer if you buy your trip in Sweden it costs more.

For those who plan the trip with the Transsiberian, I strongly recommend an approximately 7-minute long film about how the trip can be done. The film is on link is a joint project of the Russian Railways and Google. The film is in English. 

www.google.ru/intl/ru/landing/transsib/en.html

Visas to Russia

The visa cost about 600-700 SEK if you buy it via the tourist trade. To fix it yourself can become quite complicated. First you have to get a "voucher" sent or faxed statitng that you will be visiting Russia, first of all you have to book the accomodation then you should also specify the address where you will live on. It also importand to check if the hotel has a so-called visa service before you start filling out forms.

In addition, the visa will be activated after arrival. Cheap alternatives may be related to one often arrange vouchers for a fee of approximately U.S 30 dollars. This fee must be paid in advance. When the accomodation is arranged and your voucher remains is to fill out some forms at he embassy or konsulat. The price difference for organizing the visa yourself is not so much against the travel companies. The highest season to travel is of course the summer but it can get very hot in Russia and it is not certain that you have any AC at the train.

For a while you would swith to USD before departing in Russia, it was said, but during my trip, I noticed that there were rubles as coveted most. During entry to Mongolia as well as China, you must have their respective currencises to be allowed to act in the restaurant.