Area codes in Russia are somewhat confusing especially for the North American callers where an area code is a three-digit part of a ten-digit phone number.

Russian area codes might be longer

Russia's area codes (called telephone codes in Russia) do not follow the same rules as in US or Canada.  Only the major cities, such as Moscow and St. Petersburg, will have a phone number that follows the same format as a US phone number: 3 digit area code plus 7 digit local number, for example a
St. Petersburg number might look like 812-555-12-34.  

Most of the cities in Russia will have a 4 or even 5 digit area code. Americans might understand it better if they think of this longer area code as a combination of an area code and prefix. For the purposes of international calling you will still dial a ten-digit Russian number. For example, 35222 is the area code of Kurgan in Russia. 55512 might be a local number in that city.  Notice how it's missing the two digits and the number is truncated to five instead of seven.  If you are inside the city of Kurgan, you dial just those five numbers. If you are dialing long distance or internationally, the number you call will still be the ten digits: five digit area code plus five digit local number: 3522255512.  Split it up to what you are familiar with and it looks alright: 352-225-5512.

Complete phone number in Russia should have ten digits

No matter how long the area code is, the complete number (area code plus local number) will always be ten digits when dialing internationally.  Simply put, the longer the Russian area code, the shorter is the local number.  When calling from overseas, you will no matter what dial the 10 digits to call someone in Russia.  The ten digits are in addition to the international access code and Russia's country code.

Format of the number you dial to call Russia

International access code + country code + area code + local number.
011 + 7 + 812 + 555-1234 (calling St. Petersburg; Moscow follows the same format)
011 + 7 + 35222 + 5-5512 (calling smaller locations with truncated local number and longer area code)

Once again, you dial the same number of digits when calling internationally. 

Area codes of the Russian Federation