As an American, I have sort of been brainwashed to think Russia is a little bit evil, scary, and not safe. But I recently hit my one year mark living in Moscow and I was realizing how incredibly safe I feel here.
Consider any megacity; the more people there are, the more crime there is destined to be, right? But Moscow is a lot safer than other comparable cities.
I know I wouldn’t feel comfortable walking alone at night in New York City, and I would make extra sure to hold onto my stuff and lock my doors in almost any of the other megacities, like LA, Delhi, Mexico City, Buenos Aires, or even Paris. Interestingly, I did feel incredibly safe in the Chinese megacities I’ve been to though.
I feel like I have said it 1,000 times, but Moscow is a very comfortable place to live. Transportation is safe, well-connected, and cheap, crime is low, I’m not overly worried about pickpockets, the average neighborhood/building isn’t dangerous, and at least from my own perspective, harassment from men is even lower here. Guys just leave you alone.
In a culture where women are generally dressed in their most expensive clothes, shoes, and jewels, with expensive haircuts, manicures, lip fillers and fake eyelashes, men will still (for the most part) surprisingly leave them be. They do tend to leer, but that is a general Russian trait, not just men being creepy.
One minor problem when it comes to men here though, is drinking culture. There is always at least one completely drunk guy on the metro- just absolutely smashed, and you obviously can’t trust a guy like that not to do something erratic, but even so, I’d trust a drunk Russian man to still maintain a semblance of social acceptability over a drunk American man any day.
I ride the metro alone every day for almost 2 hours, and I walk home in the dark on small unlit backstreets every night too. (Not that I come home super late, it’s just dark for 14 hours a day most of the year.) I’ve never had any problems. I even feel comfortable taking a quick snooze on the train during rush hour, provided I manage to snag a seat! I get paid in cash, and sometimes I let a few months worth of paychecks collect in my sock drawer before I take them to an ATM, and I am still not stressed about someone taking my bag, or watching me make my deposit at the bank. I would never feel safe doing any of that in any other megacity.
The cold and the dark are hard to handle, but being harassed, mugged, or assaulted is not on my list of worries in Moscow at all.
Finding Eden 