I visited Russia during the war… THIS IS WHAT HAPPENED

in today's video I'm going to be covering what my experience was like visiting Russia during the war as a Brit in 2023 what the process was like before I went what I needed to do what it was like when I arrived in Russia how the people treated me what the streets were like what the culture was like things I enjoyed about being there maybe the things I didn't enjoy so much and ultimately my opinion of visiting Russia and maybe whether you should visit Russia as well based on my own experience so your first question is probably like why did you decide to visit Russia during the war very good question so my girlfriend's Russian and her parents wanted to meet me so they invited me over to Russia to go meet them and visit them for the first time I had some free time over the summer so I decided to go over now your next question is probably like well how do you get over to Russia as a Brit what's the process do you need visas things like that so to go over I went on a tourist visa and I was a bit apprehension before because I thought that as a Brit especially you weren't allowed into Russia you know they'd ban you but actually they're very welcome into letting you in you just need to go to the Russia visa center in London give them your documents and then essentially after that once you've got that and they've approved it you've given them the passport you can get your visa and you're done so I went down to London to do this process the lady there was very friendly after about a week they accepted my Visa and they sent me my passport back with the Russian visa inside and as long as you've got the Russia Visa inside your passport with the dates that you want to visit you're fine to get into the country and there's no problems so the next challenge is what do you do about fly when going into Russia because if you live in the UK or in Europe there are no direct flights because of the sanctions so what I had to do was book a flight from Manchester in the UK to Istanbul transit in Istanbul and then go from Istanbul to Moscow I think this is the only way in which you can actually get into Russia is through the Middle East or through somewhere like turkey turkey is very popular and it was really easy there was no stress at all the hardest part for me and the most challenging part was getting into Russia I had so many preconceived not Notions that it was going to be a very bad experience because I was a young military AED guy traveling on his own who's British going into Russia with tons of cash on him by the way because there's no cards that work in Russia so I had to bring a load of euros and USD with me to Russia pretty crazy right I was like this is wild like I could be taken into a back room here and some bad things could happen however that wasn't the experience that I had as soon as I arrived into the country I went through passport control met the lady at passport control she looked my passport she spoke English which was great stamped my passport saw my Visa asked why I was here and within a minute I was straight in no questions asked which is wild so that alleviated a lot of anxiety and stress that I was feeling while getting in there and the airport was smooth there was no problems at all I was met at the airport and then from there I went over to my hotel so what was it like when I arrived into Moscow after i' been to the airport so I went straight to my hotel where I checked in and the hotel stadium was actually really really nice I had a really good gym which I trained at for every single day essentially while I was there because I was working and running my business and then secondly I had a great view from my room it was incredible and the Sun was shining on the first day that I was there which was a really good experience after the first day I decided to visit the red square and the red square is a very famous and iconic part of Moscow where the Kremlin is and a big tourist attraction for people and it was a 30-minute walk from my hotel to go to the red square and this was my first first experience of walking around the streets of Moscow and Russia and I was pleasantly surprised it was such a clean and safe environment to walk around I didn't see any bad things happening on the streets and one of the most important things was I didn't feel uneasy while I was out I was wearing my nice watch when I was out and I know what it's like in London when I walk down certain streets I'm like I should not be wearing this and I actually refrain now from wearing a nice watch when I'm in London because I'm scared of getting mugged I've had bad experiences of friends having that happen to them but when I was walking around Moscow I didn't feel uneasy at all it felt like everyone was well behaved everyone was civil and I didn't feel like I was going to get mugged or attacked which I think is a good sign when you go to a new city around the Red Square itself is just amazing you get to see some bad Basil's Cathedral you get to see the Kremlin and the one thing I've learned about the Russians they just have huge Pride about their history their Heritage their country and they're hugely patriotic and they have huge amounts of Pride and that was one thing that I really really liked about being there was they took care of things they were proud of their country they were proud of their religion they were proud of their values and this showed while I was walking around the Red Square I also visited some parks while I was in Moscow and the parks are stunning there's tons of green when you walk around these parks and to think in a big city they have these amazing parks that you can walk around is wild the best part though was the amazing Cathedrals and monasteries and buildings that they would have in in the park as you walked around you would just see these dotted about the parks and it just gave you this sense of Pride that the Russians just loved their country and they loved their churches they loved their monasteries they loved showing the pride of their country that really came across when I walked around these parks with these great Soviet buildings there's I've never seen anything like it it's incredible we also took a boat trip around the park as well which is a great thing to do if it's a nice day very pleasant very relaxing lots of families and things to do which was also an enjoyable experience Moscow is like any other big city that you would visit they have great public transport great taxies great restaurants it's safe there's things going on all the time if you want to go out for you know a party you can do that if you want to go out to nice restaurants coffee shops they've got all of these things and it's a very well-oiled machine and very efficient just like you would see with any big successful city that you would see in the world they've just got everything in order and that was something that I really liked just like any other big city there are bad parts in Moscow but I decided to not visit those because I thought that bad things might happen and as the smart person that I like to think that I am I said let's go to the safe places instead and because I did I didn't have any trouble or any issues and I think if you're ever traveling anywhere it's a really smart thing to just visit the safe places and the ones that you know are not dangerous so you don't get into trouble and the people you love don't get into trouble that's a very smart thing to do and one thing that I really noticed about being in Russia and Moscow specifically is the strong Christian family values that they had there there were tons of families walking around all the time there was lots of traditional things happening so when I saw people go out for dates especially the woman would always be looking very feminine dressed in heels and a dress and nearly always the guy that was taking the woman on the date bring her a bouquet of flowers which was great he would always pay for the date we're missing this sense of chivalry and we're missing these sense of Traditional Values that I think think are great especially within relationships the man is a gentleman and the woman is allowed to be a woman crazy right like this doesn't happen in the UK but I saw that and I really like that part of it and it was a good experience to see and one thing I noticed while being in Russia was there was a sense of order right people did things in a certain way they followed the rules I didn't see any junkies on the streets I didn't see people doing drugs I didn't see fights I didn't see stupid protests I didn't see people pushing extreme views on the children and all this stuff that you know it's actually happening in the UK right now there's tons of degeneracy going on in these big cities people are pushing these crazy views onto young kids which I think is wrong and I like a place that has traditional family values that brings children up to actually allow them to be children that allows your partner or your girlfriend or your family to walk around safely without being mugged and attacked so I really like that about being in Russia it felt safe and it felt like there was a sense of order and traditionalism which is a good good thing for society so what were the Russian people like so Russians have this stereotype that they're very cold and they're not very friendly I would say that that's true when you first meet them they all have a very cold exterior but if you've ever met Eastern Europeans or you've met Slavic people or you've met Russians this is just the way the majority of them are they all have a rest in face they don't show much emotion they're very stoic that's just the way that they are however when you get to know them and you kind of get behind the surface of what they're like they're hugely funny and they have banter that's very similar to Brits or any other people that you would meet one experience I had was we were in St Petersburg and we met these two Russian guys at the bar and they didn't really speak much English but they were very friendly to us and we started drinking with them and I'll never forget this one guy called Sergey who we met was hilarious hardly spoke any English and he would just point at me and go dakiri dairi in a Russian accent and me and him would just be at the bar shoting deiri doing shots together together and just having a good time we went for some food and after they left and we just had this great experience with them the banner was funny with you know what we could understand and with you know people translating things so I would say that once you get under the surface of what Russian people are like they're just like any other people that like to have a joke and that have a laugh they're not as serious as that cold exterior makes out initially and it just takes time to get to know them just like it would any other type of people so after Moscow we decided to go to St Petersburg for the weekend and to get to St Petersburg it's a 4-Hour train direct from Moscow one thing that I noticed about St Petersburg was that it was more European compared to Moscow it was more hip it had more European style buildings and yeah you could see that it was closer to Europe compared to what it was like in Moscow so when we were in St Petersburg we visited the Hermitage and the Hermitage is somewhere that everybody needs to visit when they visit Russia it's an incredible Palace that showcased the history of the Old Kings their wealth incredible paintings and the unique history of the Soviet era and what it was like in Russia it blows you away to see how they've created such an incredible building and an incredible Palace you have to visit that whilst we were there we also took a boat trip around the river which was great and with the boat trip it was a lovely sunny day when we went we got to see what the rest of St Petersburg was like it drove you around the city you got to see the different buildings and it was just overall a really nice experience and a great way to see the city I would say that some Burg has a lot more English speakers compared to Moscow I think this is just because it's more European and the fact that it's closer to Europe more people speak English and I would say that's one of the challenges when you're in Russia it's very hard to get by if you don't speak Russian at the big hotels in the airport you'll be fine but if you're going outside of those areas you're going to need to know some Russian to get by luckily for me I had a Russian speaker with me which made my experience easier but the days that I was on my own or I'd go out by myself it was far harder to actually get by order food and get stuff done which can be a challenge if you're going to be traveling on your own another challenge is not being able to use your cards while you're there which is not good so I had tons of cash on me USD and euros and I had to go to the bank and change this up luckily for me I had a Russian speaker with me which helped with that process but I can imagine if you didn't speak Russian and you've got a load of cash on you and you're visiting and you need to get it changed that's going to be challenging because you're not going to be able to understand what to do you could get ripped off at the bank you might not know which bank to get go to it's just not a great experience but with the sanctions unfortunately that's the only choice that you have you have to use cash Warrior there unless you have a Russian card so that's something to consider and definitely a challenge if you're going to be going over to Russia to visit and then the other negative I would say is the Drone attacks that were in Russia so while I was there there was a couple of drone attacks which were about 2 miles away from where I was staying which was crazy outside of my window you could actually see Moscow City and Moscow city was was where the Drone attacks happened so that experience was obviously a little bit scary luckily the Drone attacks were neutralized and nobody got injured or hurt but still it let you know that there is a war going on and there's happening and that isn't always a great experience if that may be hit into my hotel I would have been feeling a little bit more stressed and anxious because of that overall my experience in Russia was highly positive I really like the traditional Family Values I love the safety that was there I love the fact that they were very anti degeneracy and they promoted that traditionalism families and none of this extreme wokeism that you see in the UK at the minute which I think is destroying the country I think for me I was fortunate because I got to go with a Russian person around so I got to go to the nice spots both in Moscow and St Petersburg so that definitely had an impact on my experience however I'd love to see what other parts of Russia were like I would love to see what Siberia was like I'd love to go to manance and see the Northern Lights and also maybe what Eastern Russia is like because I can imagine that's massively different from the western part that I visited I do think when you are in Russia you have to behave yourself and you can't be behaving stupidly and getting into trouble because bad things will happen but I think that's the same with any country that you visit I say this to people all the time if you're going to go to a country behave yourself and most of the time bad things are not going to happen to you if you go and you be a degenerate and you be stupid and you're an idiot guess what bad things are going to happen that will happen in Russia that will happen in the UAE it'll probably happen in the UK as well maybe less like because the police force is terrible and so the government but anyway I think it's really important that you just follow the rules and you respect the culture and the people if you do that you're going to have a great experience like I did and I didn't run into any trouble I also like the fact that the Russians treated me with respect when they met me despite the fact that I didn't maybe speak Russian that's a good sign that people are friendly and they're not hostile and that makes for a good experience so I hope you found this video useful and a bit of a guide if you are interested in visiting Russia my opinion is definitely do it I think it's going to be great but obviously there are some challenges there that you might face if you do go if you've got any questions as well please put them in the comment section and I'll do my best to answer those that's today's video thank you for watching and I'll see you in the next one

Channel: Oliver Anwar

Views: 290,939

Keywords: russia, russia ukraine war, russia ukraine, ukraine russia news, life in russia now, moving to russia, russian economy, putin, tucker carlson, tucker interviews putin, tucker in russia, tucker russia, ukraine russia, russia news, russian revolution, visit russia, russia vlog, russia travel guide, life in russia, ukraine war, russia vs ukraine war update, russia travel, russia travel blog, russia travel vlog, saint petersburg, travel vlog, st petersburg, living in russia

Id: bqO_lsRBOVY

Length: 14min 16sec (856 seconds)

Published: Thu Feb 08 2024