Telephone numbers in Russia

[edit] General Information

Historically, '7' has been used as the Soviet Union country calling code. Following the break-up of the Soviet Union, all former republics except Russia and Kazakhstan switched to new country codes.

Russia employs a four-level (local, zone, country, international) open dialing plan. Local telecommunications regulator plans to abandon this and change to a closed dialing plan on all levels by 2009.

In 2007 Russia has abandoned open dialing at zone level and now national subscriber significant number consists of 10 digits (excluding prefix) with 3 digits as area code and 7 digits of local number including zone code.

[edit] Long Distance and International Prefix

The international dialing prefix is 8-10 - callers dial '8', wait for a tone, and then dial '10', followed by the country code, area code and number.

According to the new Russian numbering plan(in Russian), approved on 17 November 2006, international dialing prefix 00 will be used starting from 2008.

The long distance dialing prefix is 8 - callers dial '8', wait for a tone, and then dial the area code and number.

According to the new Russian numbering plan(in Russian), approved on 17 November 2006, long distance dialing prefix 0 will be used starting from 2008.

In 2007 monopoly of Rostelekom on long distance or international calls was cancelled. When making long distance or international call a subscriber is able to choose operator either by Hot-Choice or Pre-Select. If subscriber prefers Pre-Select, he makes a call to specified free-phone (8-800-333-0990 for MTT or 8-800-100-2525 RT) or signs a statement at the telephone center and dialing pattern doesn't change. Default regulation in Moscow City is Hot-Choice (not available yet on all exchanges; regional operators apply their own regulation depending on technical availability of Hot-Choice). Available operators are:

• Rostelekom (RT)
• Mezhregionalnyi TranzitTelekom (MTT)
• Golden Telecom - Sovintel (GT) - assigned but not active on main market
• TransTelekom (TTK) - assigned but not active on main market
• Orange - assigned but not active on main market

If Hot-Choice is selected dialing pattern changes. After dialing 8 a subscriber waits for tone and then dials operator code (OC) either for long distance call or for international call.

[edit] Dialing Pattern

Note: tone signal after '8' is compulsory on old analog (with pulse mode dialling) exchanges and optional (but not compulsory) on digital (tone mode dialling) exhanges.

[edit] Calls within settlements

xxx-xx-xx (exception: Moscow - see below)
e.g. 3-45-67
     22-33-44
     234-56-78

Local phone numbers in Russia can be made up of 5 (x-xx-xx), 6 (xx-xx-xx) or 7 (xxx-xx-xx) digits.

Moscow City has 2 area codes assigned: 495 and 499. Dialing pattern for 2 codes is different:

when calling within the area code 499:  499.xxx-xx-xx 
when calling from 495 to 499:           8.499.xxx-xx-xx
when calling from 499 to 495:           8.495.xxx-xx-xx
when calling within the area code 495:  xxx-xx-xx

At any combination calls between the 2 codes are considered local call and are not charged as long distance call (despite using long-distance prefix '8').

[edit] Calls within Russia

Pre-Selected Operator:

 8-tone-ABC xxx-xx-xx  (where ABC is area code)
 e.g. 8.812.234-56-78 (to St.Petersburg)

Hot-Choice Operator selection:

 8-tone-OC ABC xxx-xx-xx  (where OC is Operator Code and ABC is area code)
 e.g. 8.53.812.234-56-78 (to St.Petersburg via MTT)

[edit] International calls from Russia

Pre-Selected Operator:

 8-tone-10 International number
 e.g. 8.10.44 20 3456-6789 (to London/UK)

Hot-Choice Operator selection:

 8-tone-OC International number where OC is Operator Code
 e.g. 8.58.44 20 3456-6789 (to London/UK via MTT)

[edit] Calls from outside Russia

+7 ABC xxx-xx-xx  (where ABC is area code)

[edit] Area Codes

[edit] Toll-Free & Pay-Line Codes

[edit] List of Area Codes in Russia

Dialing code 495 was introduced on 1 December 2005 to replace 095 in order to make it possible to adopt the ITU convention of 0 and 00 dialing prefixes for local and international dialing respectively. The old '095' dialing code, along with 19 other Russian area codes starting with '0', had been effective until 31 January 2006. In Russian: ru:Телефонные коды России после 2005, [1]

Due to the use of 8 as both the dialing prefix and the first digit of some area codes, sometimes it may be confusing for foreigners to understand the dialing pattern.

[edit] Special numbers (emergencies)

[edit] Perspectives

Telecommunications infrastructure in Russia is in process of reforms and modernization. This will end by the year 2012. And before this date all the settlements in Russian Federation will be provided with landline telephone infrastructure. Russia is aimed to pass to usage of closed dialing plan. Usage of '0' and '00' as long distance call and international call prefixes will be provided all over the country (announced to happen in 2008 but evidently will not before introduction of '112' and cancellation of special numbers starting with '0'). 1UV numbers will be used for special services with 112 as universal emergency number: domestic regulator plans to fulfil these plans by the year 2012 (raising number of regions connected to 112 year by year: 2 in 2007, 6 in 2008, 24 in 2009, 44 in 2010 etc.). All these changes are aimed to bring the local regulations to compliance with ITU and EU recommendations.

For a historical overview of the telephone numbering plans in connection with the Soviet Union and now Russia, see ‘§ 91. Краткая история телефонных номеров’ (in Russian).