Two problems hit a visitor to Saint Petersburg within the first hour: no internet and a dying phone battery. Both are solvable for free, but every public network here has its own way in, and not all of them accept a foreign phone number. What follows is based on what the airport, the railway stations, the metro, the city tram operator and the National Library state on their own pages.
Public Wi-Fi means identification
Free public internet in Russia comes with a login step: the network asks for a phone number or a government portal account before letting you through. Pulkovo airport explains why on its Wi-Fi page, citing Russian government decrees No. 758 of 31 July 2014 and No. 801 of 12 August 2014, under which you must authorise access through your mobile phone. Knowing this in advance saves a lot of confusion at the arrivals hall.
Pulkovo: the network that accepts a foreign number
This is the single most useful access point for anyone who has just landed without a local SIM. The airport states that a Free WiFi service is provided at no cost by the operator OBIT. The published procedure: pick the network named OBIT — Free Internet Access, enter your mobile number on the authorisation page — explicitly including numbers from foreign operators, in the format plus country code and number — and wait for an incoming call that you do not need to answer. The last four digits of the calling number are your access code. No time limit is mentioned on the service page at all, so treat any claim about a strict two-hour cut-off with suspicion.
Railway stations: the RZD network, sockets and 24-hour halls
Moskovsky station says free Wi-Fi covers the whole building, with the RZD network available in the Light Hall, the basement hall, the waiting hall, the ticket hall and the Marble Hall. Charging is described just as precisely: charging stations in the Light and Marble halls, and sockets built into benches in the Marble Hall, the Light Hall, the waiting hall and the ticket hall. The ground-floor waiting hall is open around the clock and free of charge — useful if you are waiting for a night train.
At Finlyandsky station the same RZD network is offered free but with a speed limit and browser-only access, so messaging and maps will work while video calls may not; charging stations stand in the central Light Hall, and the waiting hall is open 24 hours free of charge. At Vitebsky station the network covers the first-floor vestibule, the Picture Hall, the waiting hall and the second-floor Light Hall, with charging devices in the second-floor ticket and Light halls. For Ladozhsky station the honest answer is that its official page is under construction, so nothing there can be confirmed in advance.
The metro: MT_FREE inside the trains
The Saint Petersburg metro offers free broadband internet over Wi-Fi, and the detail that matters is where: the network runs in the train carriages rather than in station vestibules. To connect, you identify yourself from a smartphone or tablet using either a mobile number or an account on the state services portal. The network is called MT_FREE: join it, open any page in a browser, get redirected to the identification page, enter your number and confirm by SMS. The service is provided by MaximaTelecom SZ. For a foreign visitor this means metro Wi-Fi is not guaranteed without a Russian number, so download offline maps before you go underground. No USB sockets in carriages are advertised by the metro, and we are not going to promise them either.
