How To Get To Moscow From The Airport: The Basics For Tourists
- Konrad Tillman
- Sep 7
- 3 min read
Intro
If you have ever thought about visiting Russia and are worried that you won't understand a single thing since Cyrillic makes absolutely zero sense as a foreigner, good. You are in the right place, because I am going to tell you everything you need to know over the next 30 posts about visiting Russia.
Starting with: what do you do when you land at the airport?
There Are Three Main Airports
There are three main airports when it comes to Moscow, and you should double-check which one your flights go to and out of. Why? Because outside of airlines from China and Aeroflot flying into Sheremetyevo, there is no rhyme or reason to the others. Emirates flies into DME, while Turkish flies into VKO, and Qatar flies into SVO.
You obviously have to make the decision based on price, but my recommendation is SVO, as it is a touch closer to most of downtown, and outside of rush hour (and bad weather) can take only 40 minutes.
With that being said, let's jump into how to get to and from the airport.
Just Take A Yandex
I'm all for budget travelers. I think it is great to save a bit of money when you can, and take an extra 20-30 minutes in order to wait for a bus. But there are certain situations where I am going to tell you it's not worth it. This is one of those situations.
As you wait for 5 hours at immigration, download Yanex Go on the App Store and get ready to use it once you leave the terminal. Once clearing customs, convert about 100 USD (not a bad exchange rate here, not perfect, but it's alright), got to the curb, and call a Yandex.
Sure, it's not the cheapest option, but it picks you up right outside the terminal, has live tracking, a fixed price, and there is no need to haggle with a taxi driver. I went this route every time, and the price was about 1200-1500 Rubles (15-20$) for a standard Yandex to the Red Square.
Aeroexpress Train
Now, aside from the buses and other forms of public transport, which I am not even going to attempt to talk about, is the Aeroexpress train. This is a high speed train that connects all three airports to the city in about 40-55 minutes, depending on the airport.
On paper, the Aeroexpress train is a lot cheaper, coming in at just 600 Rubles. However, it only stops at a few stations in Moscow, so from there you have to transfer to the metro or a Yandex. Considering I can't read Cyrillic to save my life, and a Yandex was another 520 rubles to my destination, I would have only saved 80 rubles if I had used it.
In addition, the train also departs every 30 minutes, so I could have been waiting for a while. Even with the Metro, I would have only saved 10 USD. Is the extra stress of not understanding the language, combined with the extra time, really worth it?
That's up to you, but to me, absolutely not.
Final Thoughts
If you have never been to Russia before, have no idea how to read Cyrillic, and don't speak a lick of Russian, please do yourself a favor and just book a Yandex. While it is more expensive than the bus or the train (if 1 person), it will save you so much hassle, and after immigration, sleep will be on your mind. Or vodka, whichever you prefer 😅.
Russia Series
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