Vladimir Kozlov
Everyone has seen groups of tourists taking photos of Moscow's famous Metro stations - and more than a few people have had an unwelcome brush with an over-zealous cop after snapping a statue underground.
But as regulations on professional photography and filming in Red Square are relaxed after a two-year ban, what are the current rules about where to stick your lens around town?
There are no city-wide regulations, but organisations and companies such as Russian Railways (RZD) and the Moscow Metro have their own rules - mostly geared towards professional photographers.
At the same time, consumer rights lawyers say it is the right of any company or individual to refuse to be photographed.
The Metro, whose marbled halls and photogenic decorations are a magnet for cameras, has unclear regulations.
A ruling from Sep. 2008 bans unauthorised film or video shooting on the network, but says nothing about still photos. In St. Petersburg, where notices on the Metro still say photography is forbidden, the blanket ban was lifted last year, and now photos without a flash or other lighting are allowed.
On the railways, things are seemingly a little clearer.
"Taking amateur pictures at railway stations is allowed", Marina Kondrashova, an RZD spokesperson, told The Moscow News. "If you want to take a picture of your kid or your mother with a train in the background, please, go ahead. But professional photography requires permission from the company's corporate communications department."
However, the situation is complicated by a blurred view of what makes a cameraman professional - with something as simple as using a tripod potentially causing problems.
Kondrashova explained the existence of the ban by the fact that railway stations are "strategic objects" but had difficulty explaining what that actually means. "Probably, professional photography at a train station could create obstacles for people arriving or departing", she said. "Or a photographer could climb somewhere in a search of a better angle."
Yelena Bagdasarova, executive secretary of the Union of Photography Artists of Russia, told The Moscow News that she isn't aware of any problems of the union's members with railway officials. "It is more common that people at train stations don't want to be photographed", she said.
She added, however, that photographers have been often not allowed taking pictures of buildings in the city. "If someone is taking a picture of a privately owned building like that of a bank or a company, quite often a security guard would come out and stop you - mostly in a polite way - or suggest that you ask permission from the management", Bagdasarova said.
Georgy, an amateur photographer, recalled taking a picture of a bank in central Moscow a couple years ago, when he was approached by the building's security guard.
"He told me that I'm not allowed to take pictures of the building because it's private property and insisted that I delete the pictures that I already took", he said. "I obeyed but I later checked the law and found out that he was wrong.
"According to the law, pictures that I have taken are my property and no one has the right to make me delete them. I'm not sure if I would have been able to explain that to the guard, though."
Red Square
An amateur photographer and blogger had already raised the issue of using pro-standard cameras on Red Square on the president's blog - but it was a chance face-to-face encounter that exposed the oddities in the rules.
A Jan. 2008 decree from the Federal Service of Protection (FSO) limited the size of video and photo cameras which could be used without permission to photographs monuments such as Lenin's Mausoleum, St. Basil's Cathedral and the Kremlin.
But after bumping into Medvedev by chance on the slopes of Sochi's Krasnaya Polyana ski resort, Dmitry Turnovsky was able to raise the issue in person - and now the FSO is preparing to lift the ban as soon as possible, RIA Novosti reported.
