Peter’s Walking Tours, Pricing Policy statement.

Doing your research on travelling to Russia and St. Petersburg, you must have noticed that most travel services in Russia quote their prices in US dollars. There is indeed a long-established practice in Russia of using US currency for quotes and, in many cases, for cash transactions. Peter’s Walking Tours are actively against that, for the following reasons:

1. It is against the law in the Russian Federation to hold commercial transactions in any other currency than Russian ruble. Services that accept cash payments are obliged by law to provide a receipt, issued at the time of transaction by a licensed cash register machine. Receipts can be issued in ruble amount only. Failure to issue a receipt for the amount paid results in severe legal penalties. Copies of the receipts are submitted to the tax inspectorate and are used as the only legal proof of cash income received. Isn’t it the same as back home? So why do you keep asking how much it costs in US dollars?
2. Our personal position is that it is an insult to Russia’s national dignity to think of our country as economically weak by admitting the unimportance of such a national symbol as domestic currency. Russian economy is one of the fastest growing in the world now, which results in a stronger ruble – the trend we firmly believe will continue. We do not welcome such arrogant imperialist attitudes as the one that dollar buys you everything in this world. So, please, rubles only.

When you pay for a Peter’s Walking Tour, the guide accepts the cash and prints out a receipt, with the help of a portable cash register. Do demand the receipt. If you have not received such a receipt from our guide, please let us know immediately by email, info@peterswalk.com. We shall soon publish a picture of our standard receipt here.

In the future, we will simplify the procedure by selling tickets instead of printing out receipts. So far the tax authorities require it to be done the way it is. The technicalities of the whole thing are too complicated to be provided here.

We make it a point to pay all our taxes, corporate and personal, including social payments that are based on the employees salaries and count towards the employees’ future pensions and social benefits. Those payments are high – many businesses in this country avoid them by paying a part of the salary (or the whole amount) in cash “under the table”, depriving their employees of social protection. We think of such practice as corrupt and inappropriate in a civilised country. Naturally, we spend most of our income on paying salaries and taxes – we run on an almost zero profit.