Moscow or a regional city: where to study in Russia?

This is where the difference is clearest and easiest to anticipate. Housing, transport and food cost noticeably more in the capital than in a regional university city, for a comparable level of comfort.

Be careful what you compare, though: a university residence in Moscow is not priced like a private flat in Moscow. Always compare equivalent housing types, and ask each university about the real availability of a residence place before budgeting.

It is often assumed that regional universities are systematically cheaper. That is not a rule: tuition depends on the institution, the field and the language of instruction, not only on the city.

A medical programme at a well-established regional institution can cost as much as an economics programme at a less selective Moscow university. The only way to know is to compare official fee schedules, institution by institution and field by field, for the year concerned.

This is the counter-intuitive point. In a large cosmopolitan city it is possible to live for months inside a French-speaking or Arabic-speaking bubble, among flatmates from your own country. In a regional city that bubble does not exist: you speak Russian at the market, at the counter, at the doctor’s.

For a student heading into medicine or engineering taught in Russian, that is a direct academic advantage: lectures become comprehensible sooner. For a student enrolled in an English-taught programme, the trade-off is different.

Large metropolitan areas concentrate international air links. From a regional city, a trip home often involves a domestic leg — train or internal flight — before the international connection.

• How long does it take to reach the nearest international airport?
• Is that internal leg practicable in winter, and at what cost?
• How many trips home do you realistically plan per year?

A student who goes home twice a year must build that extra cost into the annual budget, not discover it in December.

An already established Maghrebi community genuinely eases the first weeks: housing, paperwork, finding your way around. That is an advantage and we do not downplay it.

But it is a cushion for the start of the journey, not a criterion for choosing a university. A large community at an institution whose programmes do not match your project will be of no use to you in third year.

In this order, and not the reverse:

• 1. The field: does the institution genuinely and verifiably offer the programme you are aiming for?
• 2. The actual language of instruction of that programme, and the availability of a preparatory year if needed.
• 3. Housing: is a residence place available, at what price, and under what conditions?
• 4. The total annual budget, tuition and living costs combined.
• 5. The journey and the feasibility of trips home.
• 6. The community and the living environment.

Choosing a city before checking that it hosts your field is the surest way to rebuild your whole file three months later.