Traveling to Russia as an english speaker

Question

I'm going to travel to Russia.

We have a tour guide, but we have some times for our own.
Can we enjoy sport clubs (bungee, flyboarding etc.) without knowing Russian?

Answer 1

I'll confirm what people have already basically said in the comments:

• English knowledge, especially beyond the very basic level, is surprisingly uncommon. (Furthermore, English with a Russian accent can be very difficult to understand. It's not at all like the Russian accent in the movies : )
• The situation is somewhat better with younger people
• The situation varies by city, and is somewhat better in larger cities

Having said that, there are definitely people whose English is decent. Also, gestures / non-verbal communication can get you far. My advice is this: If you can't find an activity operator that speaks English, try to book activities in large groups (to increase the chance that one of the other participants will be an English-speaker), and avoid activities where you'll require a lot of instruction.

Answer 2

I'm just going to speak from my own experience while I was traveling in St. Petersburg and Moscow. Granted, I didn't go outside of the cities. I found that both areas I get by with English and people are friendly. While I was walking in local farmer market trying to buy fruits, the people there didn't speak English but we were able to communicate with hand gestures and I was able to get what I want.

I took a taxi and even buses and people around me helped me talking to the driver and called me to the stop I wanted.