Where to stay in Vladivostok

Vladivostok is the largest city and the administrative center of Primorsky Krai and the capital of the Far Eastern Federal District of Russia. It is located around the Golden Horn Bay on the Sea of Japan, covering an area of 331.16 square kilometers (127.86 square miles), with a population of 603,519 residents as of 2021.

The area that is now Vladivostok was historically part of the traditional homeland of the Manchus, who conquered China in the 17th century and established the Qing Dynasty. It was ceded to Russia in the 1858 Treaty of Aigun, one of the many unequal treaties that China was forced to signed with Western colonial powers in the 19th and 20th centuries. Following annexation, the Chinese and Manchu populations were ethnically cleansed from the region, and today, the population is overwhelmingly ethnic Russian.

Russian dorm rooms in Vladivostok range from awful to OK. Generally, foreigners are dormed in reasonable accommodations, but you should know exactly what you are getting into before arriving. Important things you might take for granted include: private or communal kitchen and bathrooms, number of roommates, number of clothing washers and dryers. The Far Eastern National University (above) offers reasonable dorm rooms but foreigners are separated from Russian students, so if you are looking for more Russian immersion, ask them about arranging a home stay.

Getting in

See Russia for visa requirements to Russia. Tickets for the Trans-Siberian Railway sell out and it is best to buy tickets well in advance. Tickets are sold by the operator as well as via agencies and resellers. The main line of the Trans-Siberian Railway runs between Moscow and Vladivostok. Major stops from Vladivostok include Ulan Ude (2 days), Irkutsk (3 days), Krasnoyarsk (4 days), Novosibirsk (4 days), Omsk (5 days), Yekaterinburg (5 days), Nizhni Novgorod (5 days), and Moscow (6 days). If you enter Russia by boat, you can stay for 72 hours without a Russian visa.

Getting around

Vladivostok has a wide range of transportation, from streetcars to a funicular railway. The trams and trolleybuses, unfortunately, are mostly gone in an effort to improve traffic: this hasn't worked, mainly because at least two lanes on most streets are still taken for unregulated parking. However there is talk of reinstating at least some trolleybus routes, and lengthening the network to include some suburban destinations. While the mayor pays some lip service to reinstating trams, too, his actions prove otherwise.

Wikivoyage contributors, CC BY-SA 4.0; excerpted.