Country code: 7. When dialling the Russian Federation from abroad, the 0 of the area code must not be omitted. Most Moscow hotels have telephone booths with IDD. For long-distance calls within the CIS (Commonwealth of Independent States), dial 8 then wait for the dial tone before proceeding with the call. Collect calls, calls placed using credit cards and calls from direct dial telephones in hotels can be extremely expensive. International calls can be made from phones in the street and phonecards are available from many shops and kiosks in the street. The emergency services can be reached as follows: fire - 01; police - 02; ambulance - 03. For enquiries regarding Moscow private telephone numbers, dial 09; for businesses, 927 0009.

Roaming agreements exist with international mobile phone companies. All major cities are covered by at least one operator. Handsets can be hired from some companies and local SIM cards are easily purchased for use within Russia.

Public access is available in hotels in larger cities and in Internet cafes.

Airmail to Western Europe takes over 10 days. There are postboxes and post offices in every hotel. Inland surface mail is often slow.

Post office hours: 0900-1900.

The arrival of Putin in 2000 saw a new era of central press control for Russia after a decade of unprecedented freedom. There is currently no independently owned national TV network, and most of the mainstream press is uncritical of the Kremlin.

• The main quality dailies in the Russian Federation are Izvestiya, Kommersant  and Vedomosti, all published in Moscow.
• Big circulation tabloids include Argumenti I Fakti and Komosmolskaya Pravda.
• The daily Moscow Times and semi-weekly St Petersburg Times are published in English.

• ORT and RTR are the two almost entirely state-owned national TV networks.
• NTV is a national network owned by the gas company, Gazprom.
• Russia Today is an international English news channel run by the Kremlin.
• Other networks include STS, TNT, Kultura, MTV Russia and Ren TV.

• Radio Russia and Radio Mayak are state-run networks.
• Russkoye Radio and Eko Moskvy are privately run.
• Voice of Russia operates programmes in English and other languages.