Job Discussion Forums

[sebastienupper]

I read in an old(er) version of Robert Young Pelton's Dangerous Places (Russia has 2 stars out of 5 for danger) that he didn't trust the old Russian water pipes, therefore only drank bottled water.

I'm assuming that foreign bottled water is hideously expensive, and that Russian bottled water is probably filled at the sink, with Эвиан written on the side in pencil.
So what do you guys already in Russia do?

[Trojan Horse]

Boil tap water, after it's cooled use a water filter, store in the fridge. I'd use that to brush my teeth too. You can get water filters about the size of an electric jug and take some extra cartridges with you. Doesn't cost much and I think it's worth the investment. You're no doubt checking whether you need boosters or new shots - my GP recommended Hepatitis A and typhoid (for problems related to water) as well as boosters and Hepatitis B.

[leroy]

Russian bottled water is absolutley fine as is filtering, if you want to save money in the long run. You can even have bottled water delivered to your house in 15l bottles and they'll throw in a free dispenser.

Though I wouldn't drink water from the tap here myself, plenty do and live to tell the tale. When you get here you'll see the health situation isn't as terrible as you may have been told.

Depending on where you are going, you probably won't need shots at all. Certainly not for Moscow or other large cities.

[bobs12]

St. Petersburg water is reputed to be among the worst in Russia. It has l. Giardia which is a parasite that does bad things to your stomach and intestines.

Brushing your teeth with tap water shouldn't do any harm - I don't know of anyone who ever had problems with that. Filtering - good idea for any Russian tap water, though I don't know anyone here who can be bothered with the hassle. I once saw a picture of an inline filter (plumbed in) after a week. It looked like a very, very dirty cigarette butt. The owner took it out and never replaced it!

Bottled water - cheap and you'd know straight away if it was tap water, trust me. A lot of the labels tell you what depth it came from, you can get it analysed cheaply if you're ever in doubt

Hepatitis, Tuberculosis are problems but, again, I don't know anyone who gets vaccinations, nor anyone who has ever caught them. I'm not a doctor so don't take my word for it, but I'd imagine you only need to worry if you have poor resistance to infection or a tendency to lick metro seats.

Russia seems to breed special brands of respiratory ailments and has a lovely selection of colds and fluey things that will probably cause a lot more bother

SPb is especially humid (built on a marsh in a river delta) and is a pain for people with anything like rhinitis, or however you spell it.

Mossies are a pest, but repellent probably does worse thngs to you than a few bites. If you're not used to mossie bites, don't scratch them no matter how much you want to - run them under cold water, it takes the itch away for a while.

But, er, you only asked about water... anyway, good luck!

[leroy]

Mozzies are indeed little swolochi and should be making their debut appearance of 2006 in the next couple of weeks or so. A "raptor" plug with liquid repellent is highly effective (but don't sleep too close to it as you'll feel like you've smoked 20 fags when you wake up)

[Trojan Horse]

"Travellers to Russia are advised to have up-to-date vaccinations for hepatitis A, typhoid fever and tetanus-diphtheria. Water for drinking and brushing teeth should be treated.."
WHO - that's the standard recommendation I've seen everywhere.

Everyone has to decide for themselves what risks they want to take. But for around $60 or 80 Euro a shot, seems worth the investment to me. If you're likely to be in "close" contact to locals, i.e sex, it would be sensible to get Hep B too or the dual HepA/B vaccination which is what I had.

Have a nice trip!

[leroy]

It's not much of a risk. I don't know anyone who has either had these injections or caught any of the diseases mentioned, at least not while they were in Russia.

If you're going to have sex anywhere you already know what to do- a Hep vaccination will only protect you from that particular disease so you need to take other precautions anyway.

[sebastienupper]

Thanks for the replies, any and all information welcome. This board is so helpful... where's the 'sucking-up-obsequiously icon'?

I'm from the SW of Australia so I know about Mozzies, as Lee Evans once said: "Moskitoes? Moskitoes, yeah, over there in Australia they wait 'round the corner wif' baseball bats". Mind you, they're probably worse in Siberia I'm sure.

I'll probably get whatever shots are required to get my visa. Information seems to vary greatly on this, it depends where you come from and where you're going to I guess, and how much of a bitchy mood the guy at the consul is in when they process your application.

[Larry Paradine]

"Bottled water is cheap...." Well, yes, looked at from a Western perspective. It's certainly affordable if you earn more, actually quite a bit more than the survival wage in Russia, but millions of Russians consider mineral water as a luxury that their meagre budgets don't stretch to, and tap water is routinely drunk unboiled by considerable numbers of people who seem to suffer no ill effects. From my own experience, I can assert that tap water in the mid-Volga region (Nizhny Novgorod, Cheboksary, Kazan,Ulyanovsk-Simbirsk, Samara) is far less likely to give you the dreaded lurgy than kvas from the ubiquitous yellow bochki, to say nothing of milk sold by babushki on street corners. I'm not saying there's no risk of water-induced illness, of course it's better to boil and be safe than to shrug, swig and be sorry, but generally water toxicity in Russia is far lower than in most counties in Asia, Africa and South America (or even around the Mediterranean ).

[expatella_girl]

[kazachka]

When I first came here back in 1990, I was told the water is ok except for St. Pete because it DOES have giardia.St Pete was built on a swamp and I've been told this is one of the resasons for bad water there. Following that advice, I drank the water everywhere but St. Pete and never got sick. However, everyone is different. When I was at university in Krasnodar, almost all the other Americans studying there claimed the water caused them to have diarrhea when they forgot to boil it. I was ok, but at the time, I'd lived there 3 times before and had likely built up a tolerance. Moscow water does not bug me either. I've also run in many races in the Moscow area and in the regions and on a hot summer day, I drink whatever they got on the course and have never had a problem. My boyfriend and I prefer to just boil it and keep it in the fridge in bottles. He says in the spring it's a good idea as things are melting and very dirty.However, in moments of utter laziness, the tap it is. YES by all means get the full course of Hep A and B shots. Outbreaks of A are common and last yr several ppl in Nizhny Novgorod got sick because there was Hep A in part of the water system! A hep A shot is good for 20 yrs B 10-20. My doctor back in Alaska put me through the full course of A and B shots back in 98 because he knew I was living part time in Moscow. The shots later became a requirement for Alaska schoolchildren as well. Also, use common sense. Wash your hands,fruit, veggies etc. to prevent hepatitis.

[leroy]

5 litres of bottled water costs around 35 roubles. Not expensive on any Exapt teachers' salary, I should think.

[kazachka]

Nah just a pain in the tail to haul!!