How can you dial 911 in russia?

May 8, 2009 5:28 PM

Quick question. Can you dial 911 in Russia? If not, what is the emergency number ? Is it a police/fire/or ambulance response ? Or do you just call an individual police number. Any info, please let me know.
posted by clawtros to society & culture (4 comments total)

The closest thing to a universal emergency number is '112' which is now operational in russia. There's also the old numbers, 01 for fire, 02 for police, and 03 for medical.
posted by ArkhanJG at 5:33 PM on May 8

(I've also heard 112 works for GSM phones in the US too. It's not safe for me to test it though.)
posted by cmiller at 7:17 PM on May 8

Traditionally, you would call 01 in case of a fire, 02 for police (милиция), and 03 for an ambulance (also, 04 in the event of a gas leak, I think). There have been some efforts to unify the emergency services, but the information I've found is scarce and self-contradicting, and I've been out of the country for long enough that I don't know which one is current. According to this 2003 article, a move to 01 as the universal emergency number was being planned. But more current sources seem to suggest that the universal number 112 is in the process of being rolled out. (Specifically, the page in the first link says it will be implemented region-by-region by 2012, or even by 2010.) If you're in Moscow, you can call the non-free (why?) Moscow Rescue Service from any cell phone. If you're calling from your cell phone elsewhere, this thread seems to suggest that (at least for one operator), you need to dial 001, 002, etc. instead of 01.

So, yeah, in other words, it's confusing as hell, but it looks like they're trying to move to a better system (and have been trying, apparently, for at least six years).
Try 112, and if that fails, go for the old numbers.

Links are in Russian, by the way.
posted by AnimalKing at 7:55 PM on May 8

cmiller, I was going to scoff and swear I'd seen advice to test 911, and, I assume, corresponding emergency numbers. But a lazy Google search suggests otherwise, particularly this story:

when I tried testing 911 once by calling the number and saying to the operator "This is just a test, I am making changes to my phone system at home and want to make sure I can still call 911", things went wrong. The operator just asked if I was OK and after confirming it, the call ended. To my surprise about 5 minutes after I found myself explaining the joys of VOIP telephony to local cops and next morning to my neighbors :) 911 operator called the cops to check things out nevertheless and 3 cars came with all the police fanfare. Cops said to never make such calls again.

Later on though a poster suggests the thing to do is call your local PSAP and schedule your test call ahead of time.

One amusing thing I learned is that apparently it's a big thing to call 911 to test your new phone. Apparently for many people it's the first number that comes to mind, or something.

Poland says not to call 112 "to laugh at the operators".

Hi, btw.
posted by vsync at 6:40 AM on May 9 [1 favorite]