How to pay for things in Russia during sanctions when foreign cards have stopped being accepted completely

DISCLAIMER: I am not a certified financial advisor. Nothing written or implied on my website should be construed as financial advice. These are my PERSONAL OPINIONS. Also, there is no guarantee that I have not lied about the events, people, places, or things which I claim to have taken place on this website. This entire website could theoretically be a fabrication, and none of these events may have ever occurred, since I am not under oath to tell the truth. Nothing written or implied on my website should be construed as a confession or an incriminating statement to any crime.

How I moved money from my banks to Russia was I had friends buy crypto. (In the very beginning I was able to buy crypto by card from various services such as Simplex, keep in mind banks are terrible and hate their customers using crypto so they may cut this option off from you or VERY RARELY, they may even close your account. Remember to check your specific bank's stance on crypto.) Anyways, they sent the crypto to my wallet, and I sent the crypto to a Binance Account I got using my Russian friend's information (it takes a few days to verify) and Tinkoff bank account. I would sell the crypto for rubles using Binance's P2P function.

On average, I made 20% more money in Rubles than the orignal amount I put in crypto. During and immediately after the invasion, people were buying crypto for a LOT of rubles. This was a dual exchange rate situation, where it was far more lucrative to exchange crypto for rubles than foreign currency for rubles.

It still cost a lot of money because my friends had to pay heavy fees to buy the crypto using debit/credit cards. Hypothetically, if you use a local service of a P2P service based in your home country to buy crypto closer to the spot price of the token, you could make a lot of money purely from exchanging crypto for rubles. Be careful though, as this may be in violation of your home country's laws.

In my opinion, the best way to move money is to convert your local currency from your bank account to crypto and then convert your crypto to Russian Rubles. This is how I did it.

The easiest way to sell crypto and receive Russian Rubles is to have a Russian friend with a bank account such as Sberbank or Tinkoff. If you don't have Russian friends, download Badoo and start asking Russians if they'll help you.

If you are legally residing in Russia, you can visit a local bank to open a Russian bank account to receive the Rubles. I STRONGLY recommend that you do NOT do this. In some countries, owning an "offshore" bank account for even 1 second means you have to send a bunch of legal reports to the government and pay fees. It is a CRIME if you do not, even by accident. I did not get a Russian bank account as I was residing in the country illegally. Even if I was legally residing there, I am not in a position to risk it.

Here are some methods I tried but could not get to work. Maybe they could work but I doubt it:

1. Yoo Money, formerly known as Yandex Money, is an E wallet that can be loaded up with I believe Rubles, crypto, Unionpay, and Paypal.

2. Unionpay, a Chinese card which can accept SWIFT transfers from banks in the USA and Europe. Ecard Inc is licensed in the USA and they give Unionpay cards, so you technically are not an owner of a foreign bank account and do not need to file. Check providers in your specific country. I got a Unionpay card from a bank in my home country but it never worked, after 6 months of trying.

3. I have heard that Western Union is a bank that will still make international bank transfers to Russia but I cannot confirm.

4. KoronaPay is a service I tried where you can transfer and pick up cash for very steep fees. I never got it to work and the App is very buggy. You may need a friend in a country such as Korea or Kazahkstan, which is linked to both SWIFT foreign banks and Russian banks.

Clearly, the best option is to use crypto. Check my affiliate links below for decentralized (and a few centralized for the desperate) crypto services which work globally. Understand that this entire process may technically be illegal depending on which country you are a citizen of, and if they sanction their own citizens from using Rubles for personal purchases. However, no one is looking for this information, it is highly unlikely you will get caught, to my knowledge sanctions only affect a few people and big banks, crypto is highly anonymous, and once the money reaches a Russian person's binance account, you have plausible deniability and can make the argument it is that person's purchases not your own. You can also make the argument that it is impossible to leave Russia without Rubles, so you are exempted from the specific law due to humanitarian reasons. Check your country's specific law. There is also a 10,000 Euro limit to transactions dealing with Rubles on Binance. If Binance can work with Rubles legally, the odds are you will have no problem as well.

Coming soon: affiliate links, how to use crypto for financial independence retire early (FIRE), how to doctor forms, How to get a place to live while overstaying in Russia

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What Happens if I Overstay my Visa in Russia during 2022?

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