Russia

Plates fully white, black text (Europe usu. has a blue strip)

Kazakhstan: Camera: KZ = white pickup (often Gen4); RU = black/white car w/ long antenna or Gen4.

Kyrgyzstan: Red strip on the plate → Kyrgyzstan.

Russian Cyrillic with the special letters Ы Э Ё Ъ

Ukraine: Ukrainian letters Є Ґ І Ї (Latin-looking і) + plate with blue-yellow strip → Ukraine.

Bulgaria: Cyrillic+Latin mix on signs + EU blue plate strip → Bulgaria.

Mongolia: Double vowels, ЗОГС stop signs, yurts → Mongolia.

Kazakhstan: Kazakh extras Ә Ғ Қ Ң Ө Ұ Ү Һ І anywhere → Kazakhstan.

Kyrgyzstan: Extra letters Ө Ү Ң + silver Gen3 car w/ 4 bars → Kyrgyzstan.

Estonia: Estonian (Latin, õäöü) dominates elsewhere; EU plates → Estonia.

Key words: street = улица (ул.), city = город (г.)

Ukraine: вул. instead of ул. and м. instead of г. → Ukraine.

Bulgaria: Latin transliteration next to Cyrillic + EU plates → Bulgaria.

Three main bollard types: very thin on a stick, black top + red vertical reflector, and a German-style one

Germany: Latin script, EU plates, German road furniture → Germany.

Near intersections: a very large number of bollards; intersections unusually wide

Bollards and wide roads exist elsewhere (esp. Kazakhstan/Ukraine with similar post-Soviet layouts) - but the sheer bollard quantity at huge intersections is a strong Russia tell. Confirm with plates & language.

Kazakhstan: Cyrillic + Russian plates → Russia; Kazakh context (steppe, Kazakh script mixed in) → Kazakhstan.

Ukraine: No Ukrainian plates/language present → Russia.

Signposts often have black-painted bottoms

Kazakhstan: White pickup camera + Kazakh letters → Kazakhstan.

Mainly square concrete poles; often concrete support blocks at the pole base (wooden poles raised on the support)

Ukraine: Diagonal beams + вул. + blue-yellow plate strip → Ukraine.

Lithuania: Latin script + EU plates → Lithuania.

Estonia: Estonian language (õäöü) + EU plates → Estonia.

Kazakhstan: White pickup camera car → Kazakhstan.

Kyrgyzstan: Red plate strip + silver 4-bar Gen3 car → Kyrgyzstan.

Gen3: black or white car with a long antenna (sometimes short antenna without visible car)

Ukraine: вул., blue-yellow plate strip, worse roads → Ukraine.

Pedestrian signs: simply drawn person, 3 stripes, often a bright yellow border

Ukraine: вул. + plate strip → Ukraine.

Lithuania: Latin script + EU plates → Lithuania.

Mongolia: Double vowels, yurts, ЗОГС → Mongolia.

Kazakhstan: White pickup + Kazakh letters → Kazakhstan.

Kyrgyzstan: Red plate strip + Ө Ү Ң → Kyrgyzstan.

Pedestrian crossings: alternating white and yellow stripes

Kazakhstan: Dashes beside the crossing → Kazakhstan (Russia lacks them).

Black & white striped guardrails, kerbs and bridge barriers

Ukraine: вул. + plate strip + rougher roads → Ukraine.

Urban housing = large rectangular concrete apartment blocks (newer areas more modern)

Ukraine: Language details (вул., і/ї) and plates decide.

Kazakhstan: White pickup + Kazakh letters → Kazakhstan.

Rural housing: basic wooden houses with metal roofs

Richly decorated window frames (often painted blue) on traditional homes/log cabins

Urban areas: exposed above-ground pipes held up by vertical pipes

Ukraine: Frequency + language/plates decide.

Kazakhstan: White pickup camera → Kazakhstan.

Birch trees (white peeling bark) range over most of Russia - almost never far south or far north in the west

Siberian larches (needle-like leaves) dominate much of the east - more prevalent the further east / higher up

Spruce vs fir vs larch: spruce = dense, droopy/parallel dark branches

Flower metas: fireweed (pink) → north; sosnowsky hogweed (white) → Moscow/Komi/Perm; sunflowers → Ukraine border + Ulyanovsk/Samara/N-Orenburg; blue-pod lupines → N-Vladimir/E-Ivanovo/SW-Kostroma

Tree metas near borders: black poplar → south (Ukraine border) + west Kazakh border; Russian olive → Kazakhstan border

Sandy roadsides → Khanty-Mansi, Yamalo-Nenets, around Nizhny Novgorod (Volga), Karelia, Murmansk, W-Sakha (beware: also near rivers elsewhere)

Red soil → around Izhevsk & Perm, much of Arkhangelsk, Leningrad & Pskov Oblast, near Volgograd/Astrakhan (non-exhaustive - appears near water/iron mines anywhere)

Far-north tundra: relatively flat with very low vegetation

West of the Caspian Sea: extremely dry & flat (Kalmykia, Astrakhan, Dagestan)

Caucasus = one of Russia's largest ranges; Mt. Elbrus (highest) on the Kabardino-Balkaria / Karachay-Cherkessia border

Rocks along the road → most of Karelia & Murmansk (smaller/rarer in Perm Krai & Buryatia)

RHD Japanese import cars get commoner the further east you go (from ~Novosibirsk) - fast east/west tell

Very thin stick-mounted bollards → eastern half, starting around Omsk (normal bollards still plentiful)

Black traffic-sign bottoms → Stavropol, Chechnya, W-Dagestan (rare uncoloured exceptions in other southern subjects)

Roads made of concrete blocks → the north: Komi, Nenets, Yamalo-Nenets

Town names in Cyrillic + Latin → near the Baltic border & around Moscow (less often near Finland)

Brown tourist signs → Moscow Oblast + bordering oblasts (elsewhere only near attractions/city centres)

Red-brick-only buildings → mostly south (+ Magnitogorsk, Orsk, Omsk); more brick in view = more reliable

Mosques → Muslim-majority south + Tatarstan & Bashkortostan

Full coverage map - very sparse in the east & north; knowing the gaps helps

Gen3 white car (long antenna) hotspots: southern Chelyabinsk, snow coverage around Novosibirsk, Far East from Amur Oblast

Short-antenna types (Gen3) region-guess Russia

Long-antenna types (Gen3)

Gen4 seasons region-guess

Gen4 car colours

Area codes - the leading digit gives the zone:

Gen3 sometimes has unblurred plates - regional code on the right; ordered alphabetically within subject type (01 = Adygea, 28 = Amur; 3-digit: drop first digit, 123 → 23 Krasnodar)

Bus stops styles are unique to specific federal subjects - memorable: Krasnoyarsk Krai, Chuvashia, Tatarstan, Mari El

Bilingual minority-language signs (town entries, street names)

Lined oak trees (often w/ a single white trunk stripe) are extremely common

Big red brake light in view; Gen3 here is autumn-only (autumn Gen3 otherwise: Bryansk, Tula, Belgorod); cobblestones common

Summer Gen4: green fields interrupted by isolated birch patches - spills into S-Tyumen & Novosibirsk (near Tatarsk); in Gen3 this look covers a much larger area

Sparsely planted roadside larches + open rolling fields (also adjacent subjects); yellow pole plates on most poles

Grassy fields + bushy vegetation in early-spring Gen4 (flat or mountainous); typical flowers; white limestone brick buildings (also adjacent regions)

Giant butterbur ('Sakhalin cabbage') very common, esp. southern half (related plants very rarely in Adygea); blurred long antenna

Unique grey gravelly soil + the most volcanoes of any region (close-up e.g. in Klyuchi); most Russian trekker coverage is Kamchatka

Gravelly/dark soil toward the mountains east of Yakutsk (from ~Keskil); main road south of Yakutsk: larches + big mountains, Gen4 white car north of Berkakit; very hazy coverage east/south of Mirny (often orange/white haze, Vilyuy river)

Noticeably warmer: lush, diverse hilly forests; mostly overcast w/ white long-antenna car; open rolling hills near the tri-border

Eastern half of the Kolyma Highway: tall hazy hills/mountains, unpaved dark gravel (haze absent in the western half)

Open grassy landscape w/ shrubs + mountains (lusher near Baikal); forest-fire haze near Lake Gusinoye (vs Mirny haze: Buryatia = open rolling land)

Main road: black car, long antenna, driving north through the Altai mountains - often foggy/rainy

Dry steppe mountains + long antenna → Tuva; south Altai road looks similar - use driving direction & clouds; also has Kursk-style outer dashed lines

Open hilly land, low shrubbery + fireweed (lower shrubs = further north); Gen4 main road & some 2018 Karelia roads: two yellow bands on most signposts

Outer dashed road lines throughout Kursk Oblast (exceptions: Tuva; rarely Karelia, Primorsky, Khabarovsk)

Clips on the edges of signposts (very rarely Pskov/Novgorod or elsewhere)

Extended insulator bars on poles (also S-Kemerovo); rounded rectangular fences with a middle line

Bollard with a grey rectangle + double red reflectors - specific to the P100

Distinct decorative pedestrian-sign holders

Historic buildings: green roofs, red brick + white stone details (churches similar)

Blue tourist signs with English translations - only in Moscow

Street signs with a transliteration on black background (mainly downtown)

Exclusive circular street signs (up to 4 languages); striped red-white poles (also a few other Mordovia cities)

Alternating red-and-white poles (less commonly greater Nizhny Novgorod, randomly elsewhere)

Utility poles with a mesh framework (much rarer in e.g. Tolyatti)

Red-painted poles - only in Murom

Angled extended insulator bar on poles

Pedestrian signs on a U-shaped hook

Unique hanging pedestrian signs

Fence with a thin rounded-rectangle top (Tolyatti often paints it yellow)

Decorative fences, usually bright orange

Far-east / north spotlights

Baikal & south spotlights