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I'm taking the Sapsan train from St Petersburg to Moscow on 20 July (at 05:30, 07:00 or 07:10) and tickets were released for that date a few days ago.

The lowest Price is usually 1677 rubles, and it was on the day of release; however, unfortunately I didn't have enough on my Card back then which is why I couldn't buy the ticket.

3 days ago I got the required Money, but OF COURSE the Price had now increased to 2677 rubles, which remains the Price today.

My question is: is it likely that the Prices will lower at some point, or should I buy it now for 2677?

The Prices are so different: On the 14th and 15th July it still costs 1999, on the 16th 2290, on the 17th 1999, on the 18th 3322, on the 19th 2019, on the 20th, 21st and 22nd 2677.

And it's not even because seats are selling out, because the number of remaining seats is the same (450-480)

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UPD: as you have found yourself, the prices do sometimes go lower, so the answer that I've posted originally is not quite correct. I'll still keep the answer, and I think that it is applicable for most of the situations, but apparently there are exceptions.

No, the prices on Russian trains never go lower. The prices depend on three parameters:

  • For the so-called "dynamical pricing", enabled on "best" Russian trains (and Sapsan of course), the prices depend on the number of tickets left, so the less tickets left, the higher the price.
  • The prices also depend on date, that is, for the same number of tickets left the prices for different dates may be different. For most of the trains the price depends on a season, but for Sapsan, IIRC, it depends also on the day of week.
  • For some trains (I guess not the Sapsan) the prices depend on the number of days left to train departure. The earlier you buy, the cheaper it is (in addition to dynamical pricing mentioned above).

Or well, there is one exception: the prices may go lower if all the tickets for a particular class has been bought (and thus the lowest price you were seeing was the price for a higher class), but then some passenger decided to return their ticket. In this case you might see this cheap ticket appearing back for sale, but usually on such high-demand trains it will appear for a very short time, because somebody else would buy it very quickly, so I definitely would not rely on this.

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  • On Wednesday 13 July, the 05:30 Train has 467 places left and costs 1999 rubles, while on Wednesday 20 July, the date I Need to take it, it also has 467 places left but costs 2677. Do you know what the reason behind that could be?
    – Crazydre
    May 26, 2016 at 7:22
  • Could it be that places did not sell as expected so that they lowered it to make it sell better?
    – Crazydre
    May 26, 2016 at 7:25
  • @Crazydre, the price difference you quote is strange, but probably the 467 places and differently distributed across classes, and on Wed 20 more free places are in expensive classes, and thus there are less cheap tickets available.
    – Petr
    May 26, 2016 at 9:20
  • @Crazydre, as for your second question, I doubt this, as I think that the prices are calculated automatically without any human intervention.
    – Petr
    May 26, 2016 at 9:21
  • Wednesday 13 July, 05:30 Train oi64.tinypic.com/2gws3ro.jpg Wednesday 20 July 05:30 Train oi64.tinypic.com/25g7147.jpg
    – Crazydre
    May 26, 2016 at 11:15
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Turns out you can cancel the booking by a simple click up to 8 days before the journey, and get a full refund.

So, I've booked the Train, but will look at the price every single day. Even if it just lowers to 1999 or 2290, I'll cancel and re-book

UPDATE: It lowered to 1999 now, so cancelled and re-booked :)

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