TL;DR: Tips for VPN that allows me to acces Russian sites from Sweden and Swedish sites from Russia.
Hello,
This summer I am going to travel to Sevastopol to be with my Grandparents and have a nice vacation. Last time I was there was 2018 and I miss it so much.
I live in Sweden and plan to take lots of € in cash with me so I can buy SIM card and hopefully open a Russian bank account, because my swedish mastercard will 100% not work. My phone is dual SIM so I will have both swedish and Russian SIM card inside. Thing is I still want access to apps, websites and see stuff that I can normally see while in Sweden, when I am in Russia. Also, when I am in Sweden, I want to see Russian sites like Ria.ru and other things (for example even the official website for the Sochi-Adler airport is blocked for me due to sanctioning).
I am not going to go to the deepweb and order d**gs ir whatever, I just want access and maybe sometimes use my online bank so if the ISP can see what sites I access to, that is not a problem (I think). Maybe it is illegal to use facebook in Russia? Whatever. Any suggestions are deeply appreciated, thanks.
One option is renting some cheap VPS and setting VPN exit node for yourself. There are even apps that do nearly everything automatically for users with little expertise, like Outline or AmnesiaVPN.
More technically involved but free-ish option is to set VPN exit node at home (e.g. your network router might have OpenVPN/Wireguard server capabilities).
There are very few services that offer VPNs *into* Russia. The one I use is Free VPN Planet and it’s not great but it works most of the time. For VPN *out* of Russia there are tons of options.
The most unreliable thing is to have your own VPN servers. They will not be blocked and are the most secure, because… public VPNs sell your personal data. A minimal virtual machine configuration for your server is enough. And this is sometimes even cheaper than paying a VPN company. And you can use encryption protocols that are not detected (such as ShadowSoсk) and even several protocols, connect to anyone of your choice. In Public Commercial VPNs, you cannot control which protocol to use. and these VPNs are definitely detected, because Otherwise, the VPN company will not receive a license for telecommunications activities in European countries and America, and therefore will not be able to conduct commercial activities.
I use Browsec to use LinkedIn. There is option to get Russian proxy, but it requires premium, and I didn’t try buying it, free proxies are sufficient for my needs.
How would I go by doing this? I am not well worsed in such technical solutions. I have built several PCs and an AiMesh network at home but have no idea on how to set up VPNs or how they work and stuff like this
What are the current VPNs that are working ? I use Psiphon but is there something else faster?
I do not think it will be possible for me to setup a server at my grandparents home unfortunatly 
Find some VPS (virtual private server) provider in EU or specifically Sweden and see what they offer. Any cheapest option with unlimited traffic would do — server software has negligible hardware requirements. Should be around €5/mo.
You would get server IP and some login information, for accessing server through SSH. Log into it and install server of your choice.
Wireguard: This script is probably the simplest one. Run a couple lines in terminal, it’ll ask you some questions and output config that you put into client.
Tailscale: Probably least involved. Register at tailscale.com, install node on server, then sudo tailscale login, then sudo tailscale up --advertise-exit-node. See docs. Install node on client devices, login and enable exit node.
Outline: Install Outline Manager desktop app, it should provide you with instructions on how to install server part and how to connect to it.
Or if you have some always-online PC at home, you can install Tailscale there and use it as exit node. Upsides — you save €5/mo and don’t touch any dirty linux. Downsides — it needs to be always (or at least reliably) on and online, and, depending on your home internet connection, it might be slow.
Reverse situation (VPN to Russia) is trickier — you can rent VPS here, but you won’t be able to pay for it from Sweden, and it’s not like you’ll use it too often. Setting up Tailscale exit node on some family’s computer might be an option, if they’d agree on that.
I feel I need to add some notes regarding VPN access in Russia.
First, using VPN is legal, period.
Second, providing VPN access (assumed - to access blocked resources) can be illegal, so VPN services either get blocked by government or cooperate and block access from Russia themselves. In particular, Tailscale blocks downloading clients with error 451, so it itself must be downloaded through VPN. This is why running your own VPN node is more reliable - you’re not providing commercial service en masse, so nobody would bother.
Third, locally things could change. Some ISP might block some IPs or even whole protocols, some others might not. Right now Wireguard protocol works fine, and it is kind of an industry standard used by corporations, so you don’t need to bother with anything more convoluted. OTOH I heard that some mobile providers do block Wireguard.
Try “outline” . It is more difficult to host a server in your home. Use virtual machines from any hosting company.
Спасибо братишка, писал на английском чтобы другим в моей ситуации легче понять, и потому что я не так хорошо понимаю техническую терминологию когда по русскому
