Cash, credit, travelers' checks?: Financial options for students studying abroad?

[Nicole Monnier]

Dear SEELANGers,

Three of our students leave in January for a semester study in Russia (two
to Moscow, one to St. Petersburg), and the anxious mother of one of them has
just asked about the safest and/or easiest and/or cheapest way to deal with
finances abroad. 

In the mid-nineties, I used my American Express card and the St. Petersburg
main AmEx office to write and cash checks from of my American bank account.
Is this still possible? If so, does it make more sense than using ATMs? Are
ATM machines plentiful? What are the fees charged? Or should students simply
bring enough cash or travelers' checks to last the semester? And if
travelers¹ checks are preferable, which flavor (AmEx?)?

I apologize for the jumbled list of questions (I also fear I haven't asked
all the pertinent ones), but I'm out of the loop. If you have any
advice/suggestions, please reply to me off-list (monniern at missouri.edu); if
there is a general interest in such information, I'll be happy to post a
summary of responses.

Curiously,

Nicole


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Dr. Nicole Monnier 
Assistant Professor of Russian          phone: 573.882.3370
German & Russian Studies Dept.          fax:  573.884.8456
University of Missouri
Columbia, MO  65211

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