It can be a bit difficult at times. If you will be using the Metro, I might suggest getting a metro map that is printed in english and Cyrillc.There are no English signs in the Metro. That saved my bacon. should be able to find it at your hotel. Another hint I was told was, as you head into the city, it will be a mans voice on the speaker as you head away from the cit, it will be female

While you'll find English speakers as the others have mentioned, they won't be as easy to find compared to Western Europe. Certainly, all of the tourist stores will have English speakers. I would also agree with Nils' suggestion about learning the Cyrillic alphabet. Certainly, a bit of recognition speed would be necessary if you are taking the subways in St. Petersburg or Moscow. But for Moscow, it is much easier to recognize a subway station by its visual appearance than trying to interpret Cyrillic alphabet within a span of a few seconds-Moscow subway stations are all unique works of art and are very distinct.

no, young people speak English well, eg. students

I've been in Pertersburg and it was not that difficult. You can always find someone who speaks English and ready to give you a hand.

Yes, it can be difficult, but quite a few young people know some English. Be sure to learn the cyrillic alphabeth before you go, this is quite easy and should take you only a few hours, then you can read street signs and location names on maps. You can find the alphabeth easily on the Internet. Print it out and keep it in your pocket just in case you forget a letter or two. Ask directions from ordinary, everyday people and be wary of asking the police, quite a number of visitors have been robbed by (uniformed) policemen under different pretexts... Remove

Honestly, I'm really surprised that so many people are saying that many Russians speak English well. I studied in Moscow for two months this past summer, and that was not my experience at all. Even among young Russians, the number that could speak English very well was small, and the number that could communicate with someone who knew no Russian was even smaller. If you are planning on hanging around university campuses, then sure, there will be some young people who will know English, but elsewhere in Moscow, good luck. Tourist stores and stalls usually try to keep at least one person who can speak English around, but anywhere else in the city (even McDonald's and other places you would think would get more English speakers than normal), it's unlikely that they will speak English. I'd definitely recommend at the very least acquainting yourself with the Cyrillic alphabet and basic Russian words (hello, thank you, please, excuse me, etc).

I have been to St Petersburg and i was surprised by the number of people there that can speak english (even met some Russians that also speak dutch...). Especially the younger, better dressed (showing they have money and therefor better education) people speak english fairly well. Also on tourist sites there's no problem. Metro signs are difficult to read, but without me asking a friendly guy helped me to get out at the right station. Getting in to Russia was a bigger problem though. I travelled by car from Finland. At the border no one speaks more than 4 words of English. Took us 4 hours to get through there.

Well, not so many people know english, I was very surprised in Petersburg, because more people could speak german than english :/

yes, it is. so you'd better get a dictionary with you or better still a guide or a friend who speaks or at least understands Russian