Emergency services and basic medical care is provided free to every person in the country. The quality of public healthcare is lower than in most advanced countries. Larger cities such as Moscow, St Petersburg, Kazan have many private options – and we recommend counting on private medical services. European and UK Health insurance cards are not valid in Russia, thus you need making a private health insurance before visiting Russia.
Normally you can bring your prescription pills to Russia for personal use. But there’s a list of medications that can’t be imported to Russia as they contain narcotic substances. Sadly the list of substances is only available in Russian: https://rg.ru/2008/01/16/veshestva-dok.html . Contact us if you have any doubts. It’s much better to doublecheck the list of medications you plan importing to Russia than to get arrested at the customs and being charged a criminal offense. All personal prescriptions must be notarised.
FilmspbTV can source an ambulance that will be present at the filming set. We have the contacts of reliable English-speaking doctors in Moscow, St Petersburg and Irkutsk.
Our production company works with well trained paramedics and rescuers who have international certificates. We can help you to meet the requirements of your insurance company. We can provide our fully equipped and well trained medics to accompany the whole filming process in remote areas of Russia.
Recommended vaccines when traveling to Russia: Routine vaccines, Hepatitis A. If your film production in Russia takes place in the nature – please consider doing the Japanese Encephalitis vaccine. Particulary important for filming in summer in Altai region, Baikal region and Buryatia.
Although rabies can be found in dogs, bats, and other mammals in Russia, it is not a major risk to most travelers. We recommend doing this vaccine if your filming will be related to:
• film caving or adventure travel
• visiting remote areas of Russia
• if you plan camping, hiking or biking
Please exercise normal precautions to avoid HIV/AIDS exposure. Basing on some reports 0.7% of the population have HIV.
