BRING FILM WITH YOU: Buying film for your whole stay, wholesale, in the U.S. before you go will save you a bundle. Film wholesalers are listed in advertisements in Popular Photography and offer substantially reduced prices for anything over 10 rolls. Film prices in Russia are high, though processing is cheap. Even Kodak charges only $5 for one hour processing and prints. If you use slide film for your color work, your processing costs, even at Kodak, will be less. Bring E-6, not Kodachrome. Mounting your own slides saves money too. You can get E-6 slide processing done, without mounting, in only four hours at the main Kodak store in town for only $2.35 a roll. Mounts sell for about 35c for a plastic storage box with 36. Using Russian films is also acceptable, if not ideal, providing you don't need anything over 100 ASA, and get it processed in Russia. Russian processing takes a week, minimum, and costs $1-1.50, without prints. Russian airport X-ray machines, contrary to outdated reports, are not a problem for your film.

GET WORK WHERE YOU CAN: I periodically get $20-30 extra cash when I write an article for The St. Petersburg Press, you can also sometimes trade your services like photography, or language lessons for other services from your neighbors and acquaintances. I make audio tapes for an English-language teacher friend who needs a native speaker to help his students' pronunciation. He in turn translated my resume and play into Russian. I then took my play to a theatre who is getting it in trade for getting me another six months of visa. I got my flat by helping the former occupant get her fiancée visa to the US to get married. And I am regularly invited to attend theatre performances of my acquaintances by being the show photographer. Usually doing favors allows you to call in favors. Speaking Russian can even get you real lucrative work. Check The Neva News, and The St. Petersburg Press for job listings.

NEVER TAKE TAXIS: You can get anywhere you wish to go on public transit, or if you want to be more comfortable, by taxi-bus (uncrowded buses that you pay 25-30c to ride sitting down in a temperature controlled environment). Get a transit map on your arrival, and a transit pass at the beginning of the month. The most interesting hours of your day will be spent on the Metro and bus anyway.

DON'T SHOP IN WESTERNIZED STORES: Nearly everything you truly need can be Russian made. Russian goods still cost substantially less than Western goods, ditto for food, services, etc. Packaged Western foods are particularly tempting but ruinously priced. Live as much on pasta, eggs, fish, potatoes, bread, and Russian cheese as you can stand. Spending a lot of time shopping to compare prices, and to find good Russian products, is also a good idea. There are huge price differentials from product to product and from store to store. For example, Gostiny Dvor, the biggest department store in the city has prices that average 10-20% cheaper for Russian products than Passage, the more modern, department store across the street. Gostiny also has more Russian goods than other stores, which have mainly pushed out local goods to make way for more expensive imported products.

EAT FISH WHENEVER POSSIBLE: Because St. Petersburg is on the Baltic, fish is the cheapest thing available. Bizarrely, Calimari (squid), the high priced fancy restaurant food back home, is one of the cheapest meats you can buy, less than half the price of chicken. If you're like me and not too crazy about fish, and don't know how to cook it, you can batter-fry it. Mix beer and flour into a coating and throw the dipped fish or squid bits into a frying pan with some oil. Lightly salt.

LEARN TO EAT RUSSIAN FAST FOOD: On the street and in department store snack bars, you can also get more nutrients for your Rubles. The street price for a chocolate & peanut coated ice-milk is 25c, you can get 1/2 a plump rotisserie chicken at Gostiny's Cafe Express for around $1.50, orange juice at D.L.T department store's cafe is 22c, and the average rate for a 0.33 liter fountain Coke at any store is 25c. These prices all compare very favorably with rates at Western fast food restaurants, like Grill Master, Subway Sandwiches, and Baskin Robbins. Next to inflated-price restaurants and expat bar prices, they are no comparison at all.

HUNT FOR FUNGUS: If a Russian friend offers to take you mushroom-hunting, do it! It is not only incredible entertainment, but you will return home with food to last days and days. If you take time to string and dry them you may put by a fortune in porcini to last you into the winter. Always make certain to get your finds checked by your guide, and if you are feeling nervous about wild mushroom eating (Americans are notoriously fungophobic), bring an English language guide like Arora's All That the Rain Promises and More with you from the States, for reassurance. Mushroom months are usually August-October for the big season, and April-May for "morel" season. If you go out hunting several times you can provide yourself with tons of high-protein, high mineral, lo-cal vegetarian food at no cost at all.

WATER FILTERS: When I came here I came equipped with a huge $150 PUR water filter from America that was supposed to be easy to use and last indefinitely. It was a pain to use and didn't last out the first month. Fortunately I then found a Russian made American designed filter that is small, automatic, disposable, easy to use, and costs $2.50. It is called the Aquaphor, and it has been tested and approved by the St. Petersburg Health Dept. for removal of organic matter (read Giardia), as well as lead, taste, odor and chlorine reduction! It fits onto normal Russian water taps, and filters 1000 liters of cold municipally treated water. For me that means 5-10 weeks of drinking water. Russians also make a wide assortment of other water filters, both simpler and much more heavy-duty. All of them cost less than $10, and all are designed for use on Russian water taps. You can find an assortment at any hardware store or home improvement department in department stores now. It is therefore silly to bring your own. You simply boil your water for a few days till you find one locally.

GET A DOG COAT: If you find your wardrobe isn't warm enough to make it through winter, the cheapest alternatives are imported Chinese fur coats of rabbit, cat and dog. They cost about $100 for a short coat or jacket, and around $200 for a full length, nice one. Your best bet is dog, it looks nicest, and is warmer than rabbit or cat. All these cheap coats will last about two Russian winters before they loose their fur. Guys should get puffy quilted jackets, however, whatever the weather, because fur coats are considered effeminate, and they will be harassed unless their fur is something obviously macho like wolf or shearling.

WINTER BOOTS: The cheapest warm, dry, winter footwear is a set of rubber galoshes with hand-knit wool socks, or rubber bottomed felt boots. Galoshes sell for about $5, fuzzy-lined felt for $10. You get wool socks by keeping your eyes peeled for the babushkas selling knitwear near metro stations. Thick hand-knit socks sell for $2-3 dollars depending on if they are patterned or not.

WORD PROCESSING: Wait till you get here to buy Russian word processing software for your laptop (if you're bringing one). There is an inexpensive Russian version of Windows, plus there are numerous fonts, games and programs here to choose from, some cheaper than others. Russian (Cyrillic) keyboards are cheapest at the Electronics/Flea Market open on weekends, usually under $20. Also available for less are US/Russian phone/FAX converters. You can get these at Gostiny or any computer store for 1/5 of the price in the US. However, get all your English language programs Stateside. HD Disks are cheaper in the US as well.

Tara Getting domestic

DOING HOUSEWORK IN RUSSIA: O.K., so house work is not one of the transcendent experiences I'd looked forward to having and writing about while in Russia. But, once you get your visa, and live here for a few weeks, dishes do pile up, your jeans need washing, and the stove wants cleaning. Quickly, you discover that your corner Universam (supermarket) does not sell Brillo pads and "Lemon Fresh" Joy dish washing soap, the flat you rented does not have a coin-op laundromat in the basement, and if you want to buy Western cleaning supplies at someplace like Super Babylon (an expensive Westernized supermarket) or Passage, you will pay lots for them. Worst of all, if you do, you often find them useless against superior Soviet dirt. So here are some household hints I've discovered that help me cope on a budget.

SUPER SOAP: Take a bar of the cheapest lye soap you can buy. It is the cheap yellow-beige, tan or brown unwrapped block with big numbers on it that you see everywhere for almost nothing. Cut it with a knife into slivers and put it in a pot with about 2-3 cups of water. Boil on low heat for at least 5 minutes, stirring regularly, till it resembles thick, but not chunky soup. Do not burn it! Lye soap is serious stuff. Strain with a colander into a jar or old pump dispenser. Throw out leftover lumps. Cool. It should resemble "soft soap" at this point. Thin with more water if necessary. If your container is not airtight, you also will have to add water periodically to thin the fluid back to a soft-soap state. This soap is great dish washing soap, and soap for cleaning floors, counter tops and stove tops. It seems to remove stuff that I can't get off with a super expensive Ajax spray I bought at Babylon. It will also substitute for laundry soap, and hand soap if needed, but it is very harsh.

SANITIZING FOOD: What with all the talk of Diphtheria, and Cholera and so forth, you may be tempted to get all imported packaged foods that you can't afford. For lots of foods this is pointless. Dried fruit and nuts like dates and raisins you can get in their cheapest, dirtiest form, and sanitize. Just boil a kettle full of water, put the fruit in a colander, and pour the boiling water onto the fruit, while you toss it. This not only cleans the fruit but rehydrates it, so that it improves in quality. With nuts you just do the same thing, then toast lightly on a baking sheet in the oven after they have dried.

PEST CONTROL: I had a rather nasty cockroach problem in my flat until recently. Cheap flats have such problems. Russian poisons were hard to find and ineffective. Then I got a cat. A young and energetic cat likes sitting around the kitchen half the night just waiting for an unwary cockroach, mouse or rat to come out and "play." I no longer have a cockroach problem. Volunteering to be a cat sitter is consequently an inexpensive method of pest control. You can often volunteer to keep the cat of your landlords while they are away for the cost of cat food, and get one with the flat, for free. If however you get a cat "for keeps" be aware it will cost you about $200 in shots, pet carrier, and airline fees to bring it home to the USA. If you are allergic to cats bring a small box of borax with you from the US to kill roaches, and buy local traps for larger pests.

THE RUSSIAN GARBAGE DISPOSAL: Cheap Russian apartments are never equipped with garbage disposals. There is no point. The designers planned all the plumbing in one corner of the apartment. In other words, you are meant to use the pre-existing solid waste disposal system, the toilet. It works as long as you don't put anything too large in it. Just use logic to figure out what "too large" is for a toilet.

DOING WITHOUT DRANO: If you've clogged a sink drain by pouring grease and food down it, you can usually unclog it by slowly pouring a kettle full of boiling water into the drain. If not, check in closets and under the bathtub for a "plumbers friend" plunger. Most apartments have them. Toilets get clogged from using too much toilet paper. Russian toilets aren't built for much paper use and Russian T.P. is thicker than American paper, so you either have to use less paper or adopt the quaint local custom of putting used toilet paper in a waste basket.

GO NATIVE: You will save yourself lots of floor scrubbing if you adopt the Russian habit of dropping your shoes at the door and going around in slippers.

MEASUREMENTS: If you periodically buy American food mixes like Jello Real Cheesecake or Kraft Noodles`n'Cheese when you find them cheap at kiosks, you may think you need unobtainable American measuring cups and spoons. However, for your information, a standard Russian teacup is exactly one American cup, a teaspoon is (you guessed it) a teaspoon, and a big flat soup spoon is exactly a tablespoon. Bringing a basic cookbook along helps too, since you can get ingredients for things like brownies, pancakes, and pies in Russia easier and cheaper than finding mixes.

YOU MAY HAVE A WASHING MACHINE WITH YOUR FLAT: If you rented a furnished Russian flat you should look in the closets for a large ugly plastic box with little dials on top and a hose and electric cord coming out of the back. It is usually a repellant shade of brown. Stored next to this object are usually two wooden boards with plastic curved ends. This is an old Soviet era washing machine. Using it is much cheaper than sending out your laundry, and easier than washing clothes in the tub. Ask a Russian friend to give you lessons in using it. Essentially you put the machine on the boards over the bathtub, and fill the drum with water and a tiny amount of clothes. It's only marginally effective, but better than hand washing all your clothes for the duration of your stay.

Link:  Russian Bath Tub (captioned photo)