Moscow Airport

A friend and I are planning a trip in the summer to Russia and then inter railing back through Europe.

The plan is to leave Russia by flying from Moscow to Riga. I found a relatively cheap flight (65 Euros) but it leaves Sheremetyevo airport at 7.15am.

This is probably a stupid question (but we are both first time travelers so forgive us!), but would we be able to get to the airport this early with ease? Or could we just spend the night at the airport? If anyone has experience with Moscow airport it would be greatly appreciated!

Also, any recommendations of where to go/what to see in Russia? We will be there for about 2 and half weeks and are obviously planning on going to St Petersburg and Moscow but are not sure where else.

Thanks!

You cant just 'hang around the airport overnight'. When you stay in Russia, your hotel stays have to be registered with the police and you get a slip of paper with a special stamp on it. You need enough for every night you stayed in the country or you will have problems at Russian immigration when leaving. You must stay at a hotel and take an early taxi to the airport. Other places worth visiting in Russia are Ekaterinburg, Volgograd and my favourite, Kazan!
Take care

Zozzy, things not so bad as described bigmal about police, but I agree with him - you'll better overnight in the hotel and draw to arport on taxi.
By the way, if you want leave Russia by flying to Riga, may be better fly from St Petersburg?
About other places. Of course - Yekaterinburg (welcome to my home town!) - is a good option, but it located relatively far from Moscow (2 h 30 min flight). May be better visit "golden ring" - several old cities near Moscow?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Golden_Ring

Things might be not so bad in Kazan, but in Moscow and S-Petersburg these rules are very strict.
if it is summer timewhen you will do this trip, i would advise to vist Kizhi, i think this place you will really love, besides the trip to there could be nice as well. You can take a boat to Kizhi from S-Petersburg. Please check what is Kizhi in Wikipedia, you will see the pictures and something of the history. I think thats one of the best places to see in Russia.
BTW you are very welcome to my city S-Petersburg, if you have any questions, please ask )

Hi, if you don't mind, I'll divide your questuions on two: First - Is it easy to get to Sheremetyevo at 7.15 a.m. or not. First of all there are three terminals called Sheremetyevo: I think that you mean the terminal 2 Sheremetyevo, as it is the ordinary airport for the internationals flights, but you should to make it clear, even if you call the taxi you should know it. There are trains from the center of the city the Savelovsky gare ( to get there you could use metro), but the first train is at 6.45 a.m. and the last at 23.55 p.m. It takes about 40 minutes to get to the airport (all terminals one by one) and it costs 250 rub (7 euro). If the flight is from terminal two, than there are a lot of cafes and shops some of them 24 hours opened, but in others terminals I'm not sure. If you call taxi it may cost about 1000-2000 rub or 25-50 euro depends on taxi.

Second: If you have only two weeks and half it will be very hard to get to many different places and may be it is not very rational idea to get to the cities, that are far from Moscow and S.-Petersburg, but there are a lot of small towns that around Moscow (Tula, Orel, Vladimir, Suzdal) or country estates in the neighbourhood (some of them are the museams now like Melihovo, some of them are in the city's areas like Tsaritsyno or Kolomenskoe) or around S.Petersburg there are Pavlovsk, Tsarskoe Selo, Peterhof (there are a lot of gardens, museums fountains especially in Peterhof), also you could get from S. Petersburg to Krondstadt by train or by sea it's very interesting too. There is one little thing, that you should know - in June-July threre are The Whight Nights in S.Petersburg and there are a lot of people there. So if you want to get into a not expensive hotel, that is situated in city center you should book it more than a month before or be very lucky.
Good luck

Thanks for the replies everyone! The plane is from terminal 2, and I looked at the website and you check in like 10 hours before your flight leaves so I think we should be ok.

I will look into all the suggestions of places to visit, thanks!

Hi Zozzy, from my recollections there's a hotel right across the road from Sheremetyevo 2 (where I worked for several years in the 90's) can't remember the name of it at the moment. But, it should be feasable to get a room there for a few hours, or at least sit in the bar and pass your time. Maybe someone else can fill you in better on this one.

I'd recommend the golden ring also and also a boat trip down the Volga from the town of Kineshma or Ivanova or somewhere like that. Maybe everything has changed now and it's too expensive to go anywhere by boat now???

Listen to zaksame and bigmal and book the hotel. Sheremetyevo is one of the poopiest airports in the whole world. The international terminal is ok IIRC, but I definitely would not want to spent the night there.

http://www.sleepinginairports.net/europe/moscow.htm

Hi,
I wouldn't book a hotel near Sheremetyevo 2, for it is rather far from Moscow attractions. It would be better to book a hotel somewhere in Moscow and to take a taxi in the morning, or you may rent an apartment with a transfer to the airport - it will be cheaper than a hotel with a taxi. I like this website: http://www.welcome-to-russia.com/apartments-in-Moscow.html , I have rented apartments several times with its help: the staff is very helpful and efficient: there are obviously some other websites with the same services.

[ Edit: Edited on 28-Jan-2009, at 04:00 by Elena_S ]