What's Cheap for a Russian...

In the provincial town of R—, on the third floor of a creme and white 18th century building, halfway down a tall, narrow hallway with floors of peeling linoleum, I am being entertained by the oblast director for tourism.

The director is a man who likes to take action. He is fond of terse, purposeful conversations and finds small talk rather bothersome. In short, a former military man.

When I express an interest in taking a tour of the town and region’s famous sites, the director for tourism is on his cellphone in a heartbeat.

“Adamov here.”

“——”

“Fine. Listen, we have a guest from abroad who would like a daylong tour of the town and surrounding region. What sort of price can you offer? And let’s hear a good Russian price, a price fit for a Russian citizen.”

A few days later, in St. Petersburg, I run out of rubles. Luckily, in the New Russia, you can’t swing a stick without hitting a currency exchange point.

Spying a sign for an exchange rate of 31.85R for $1, I feel the warmth of Lady Luck’s smile (after all, the rate was 31.70 at the other end of Nevsky). I slip into the dvor, climb a stair and close a thick, padded door behind me. I slide $50 under the glass.

“Passport please.”

(Hmm, that’s odd. No one has asked for a passport to change money for years.)

“American. Understood. Please note that a special rate applies to holders of foreign passports,” the teller declares, pointing at a xeroxed note taped to the inside of her window. The “special rate” is a miserly 30.80, or 3% lower than for Russian nationals.

“How can that be?”

“Bank orders,” she blurts, sliding my rubles under the glass.

The bank, Petro Aero Bank, has instituted this policy along with many other St. Petersburg banks. For Russian citizens, the banks open and close a new bank account for each exchange operation, allowing them to offer a special, higher exchange rate that is limited to residents of Russia.

A mile or two away, the Hermitage Museum perches on the bank of the Neva. Internationally-renowned as a showcase for the Enlightenment, the museum is home to some of the best canvases, sculptures and art humankind has yet produced.

Yet the Hermitage is also home to a dual pricing structure that has become increasingly common among Russian museums. As summarized on the museum’s website, the museum’s entrance fee is “300 rubles [$10] – for individuals. 15 rubles [$0.50]– for Russian citizens.”

One wonders: if a Russian citizen claims to be an individual, does the higher rate trump?

The economic penalties of being a foreigner in Russia are legion, but resident expats know how to work the system. “I have my [Russian] husband buy my rubles for me,” one reports. “My Russian is good enough,” says another, “and my skin is dark, so when I go somewhere and they suspect I am a foreigner, I claim to be from the Caucasus.”

Most travelers, however, give in to the higher fees—they tend not to look or sound Russian, so they have no chance of “working the system.” And most are more interested in a hassle-free trip than in saving a few bucks on museum admissions.

Recently, when I confronted the manager of a business about his unabashed price discrimination (the price for foreigners was four times the price for Russians), he was non-plussed. “The fact is,” he said, “we are charging a normal price to foreigners, but offering a special discount to domestic firms, who could not survive paying the higher rate.”

Not to put too fine a point on it, this is the logic of a lunatic in an insane asylum. It makes perfect sense, given the surroundings. But the surroundings are not normal. Normal market economies do not discriminate between consumers based on their skin color, sex, age or nationality.

Soviet habits die hard. But die they must. Price discrimination, no matter how seemingly insignificant, is short-sighted and self-defeating. (Perhaps if Russian tourists to Europe or the US were suddenly subjected to a “Russians-only surcharge,” they might “get it.”) Foreign travelers know they are being discriminated against and they do not like it. And when tourists don’t like something, they don’t come back.

Me, of course I’ll keep going back. But I am working on my Baltic accent in Russian.