Moscow - Sheremetyevo International Airport

Airport: Moscow - Sheremetyevo International Airport – Terminal 2 (SVO)

Location: its miles away from the city centre. The airport is located 29km north of the Russian capital.

How to get to nearest town: I would allow anything from 20 minutes to two hours depending how you want to travel and how busy the traffic is. Eventually there is a railway line (I think it may now be opened, I did travel through April 2008, which is going to opening from terminal one and two to the heart of the city, but at the moment you have these options.

The main road leading to the airport — Leningradskoe Highway — can get clogged during the rush hour, often resulting in passengers missing their flights. Calling a cab from downtown Moscow to Sheremetyevo costs around $30–40. Slow buses and faster minivans (fixed price shared taxis, known as marshrutkas) connect Sheremetyevo with Moscow's extensive metro network. The latter is the way I did it, and god, it took around ninety minutes on the way to the city and about three hours on the way back as we got stuck in the traffic jam in the Leningradskoe highway! The metro journey takes about 30-40 minutes from the end of the line to the city centre, depending whereabouts you are going to disembark. The metro station at the end of the line for the airport is called Altufyevo on the Serpukhovsko-Timiryazevskaya Line (Grey Line – Line 9). Bus terminate and depart from outside the metro station.

What is the terminal like? Its getting old and is undergoing what the airport's management calls “cosmetic repairs” This is terminal 2 which I am talking about. It is a huge airport (which terminal 1 the other side of the run way, and a couple of smaller terminal buildings being built next to terminal 1 and terminal 2). Before going into the checking in area, you have to go through a quick security check, then after check in, it’s straight through security again before the long wait at passport control before going airside.

Staff: Not as fearsome as people are led to believe. The younger staff are very friendly, helpful but the older generations are old granddad’s, especially when it comes to asking for a pen to fill in the landing card! If you haven’t got one, you will be spied on for the rest of your stay at the airport.

Shops and Restaurants: TGI Fridays in the departures hall. A little bit pricey but it was worth having a meal there. Staff are friendly as well. Loads of tax free shops in the airside section, and some good bars.

Main airlines departing out of the airport: Aeroflot, British Airways, Air France, Lufthansa, Air Baltic, and a few others to major destinations over Europe.

Rating: 5/10