About Russian Train E-ticket

Nowadays, booking train tickets online has become a general choice for people all over the world, the reason why is that it is a good way to grab tickets at the earliest ticket releasing time. After paying for a ticket online or for a travel agency, you will receive a confirmation email with E-ticket. There are two types of Russia train E-tickets service provided by the Russian Railway. Most of E-tickets are with registration, while some without registration, which depends on the different train routes.

Russia Train E-ticket with Registration

E-ticket with registration means your ticket is already valid and confirmed, so you just need to take your passport and show the E-ticket to board the train. You can show the E-ticket on your smartphone or on a print-out, but normally printing the E-ticket out is mostly suggested by railway staff. Both Russian and English are written on E-ticket, you can see the name of departure/arrival stations, train number, train time, ticket fare and other basic information on it.

In addition, if you want to keep a paper ticket in memory of this trip, you can also exchange to a traditional paper ticket at the ticket window or a ticket machine with E-ticket. However, please note your original E-ticket will become invalid after exchanging to a paper ticket. 

Russia Train E-ticket with registration are applied extensively. Most of inter-cities routes in Russia and some international routes support E-tickets with registration. 

Russia train E-ticket without Registration

Like the first kind of E-ticket, E-tickets without registration are also received by emails, but they cannot be recognized when you board the train. Before boarding the train, you have to exchange for a physical ticket by showing your passport and the 14-digit number on E-ticket. It is convenient for people to do that, since there are many places available for exchanging physical tickets, such as a ticket office or an exchanging point at railway station. In order to guarantee your trip, even though it only needs a few minutes to exchange the physical tickets, travelers are still suggested to reach the railway station as early as possible in case of meeting a long queue. 

Very few domestic routes and some international routes between Russia-Uzbekistan and Russia-Ukraine use E-ticket without registration. 

Wating to Board the Train

Paper Tickets

There are still some certain train routes supporting paper tickets, even if E-tickets have been used widely in Russia for a long time. For these routes, the original paper ticket is a necessity to board the train, while a copy of paper ticket is not accepted. Please remember to keep the original paper ticket well, as it cannot be replaced after you lose or tear it into pieces. Trains between Russia – China and Russia – Mongolia require the paper tickets. These tickets are usually hard to get at railway stations, especially on summer peak seasons. However, some travel agencies are able to get these tickets at the earliest releasing time. Therefore it is better to book these tickets in advance through a travel agency. The paper tickets can be delivered to your personal address or your hotel before a trip and you can also pick the paper tickets up at the travel agency’s ticket office.