Saying that Russia is vast is such an understatement. Being such a ridiculously big country, all its visitors must eventually get familiar with the ways to travel around it and what follows is a very short guide on some of the best websites out there to use for this occasion!
Flights
It is best to fly somewhere if you can given how distances between any two points are often outrageous in Russia. Sure, with the current hike in the price of oil, fares are not as cheap as they were once. However, trains and/or buses are hardly “too cheap” to begin with, so it is almost always recommendable to splurge a bit on the airfare if it is available. The websites below may be useful in your research for the best airfare, though do keep in mind that not all Russian airlines are registered in all such websites. What I often do is to simply go to FlightRadar24 and look up the flights that arrived and left my regional airport in the last few days. If there are any that grab my attention, but I cannot find its details anywhere else, I just search for the specific company and often find their tickets being sold on their own website or perhaps even physical offices. This option, though not very usual, should be kept in mind.
Trains
Almost every traveller in any part of our globe must have heard about the Trans-Siberian Railway at one point in their life. Russia has trains, a lot of them. Not all are as scenic or famous as the Trans-Siberian route, but they get the job done. Here are a few websites to check their schedules, though for the first one, you should be located in the Russian Federation digitally so do keep that in mind.
Buses
When some of my Russian friends heard that I wanted to take a bus from St. Petersburg to Nizhny Novgorod that would take around 14 hours, they used a lot of “fun” little remarks to describe the sort of journey that apparently awaited me. “Hellish” one said, “impossible” the other uttered, “you will perish” a third one wrote a day later. Supposedly, these buses would all be terrible, with a lot more issues along the way that waited to pounce on me at every turn. Well, the reality is, as is the case with all countries out there, there are some good bus lines and then there are some terrible ones. Ecolines, a Latvian company that serves many countries is an exceptional one that you can use for your travels to and from Russia, yes, even now. It can also be used in between a few select cities within the Russian Federation, and I can only hope that they will eventually increase those routes. Having a comfortable and massive seat for myself, lovely drivers, free hot drinks as well as water on the back, a not so bad WC on board, and regular stops at four-hour intervals in rather nice establishments was what I experienced on that lovely and extremely cheap (around 12 Euros one way) journey of mine. I will not be sharing any other bus company for the moment as I only used them and will try to use them moving forward, but below you can find some websites to look for other bus companies in the country, after all, Ecolines does not even cover 1% of the possible routes in Russia.
Other
Given how big the country is, these are far from all the methods one can use to travel around it, and it is always better to ask a local friend how to get from point A to point B. Sometimes renting a car or sharing a ride is the best way to reach a lesser-known spot. Some other times, often along the Volga, you can find ferries getting you to where you may want to go. Apparently, there are some cruises along many of the bigger rivers, which too can be an alternative method of traveling for those with cash and time to burn.