Airports in Russia: which one to fly into

Russia's air map is concentrated. Moscow and Saint Petersburg take the long-haul traffic; everywhere else — Kazan, Yekaterinburg, Novosibirsk, Irkutsk, Vladivostok, Sochi — is reached by a domestic flight or a long train ride from one of those two. If your trip is a single city, fly to its own airport. If it is a multi-stop route, fly into Moscow or Saint Petersburg and build the rest on domestic flights or rail.

Moscow has three international airports. Sheremetyevo (SVO) is the biggest and the most common arrival for long-haul carriers. Domodedovo (DME) sits south of the city and handles a large share of domestic and Central Asian traffic. Vnukovo (VKO) is the smallest of the three and is used by some leisure and low-cost carriers. All three connect to the city by the Aeroexpress rail service and by road; the rail link is the one to plan around because road times in Moscow are unpredictable.

Saint Petersburg's Pulkovo (LED) is a single terminal complex, closer to the centre than Moscow's airports and simpler to use. It handles the city's international traffic plus domestic flights to Moscow and the south. For a Baltic or northwestern Russia trip, LED is usually the better arrival point than SVO.

Beyond the two capitals, the airports that matter for travellers are Sochi (AER) for the Black Sea coast and Krasnaya Polyana, Kazan (KZN), Yekaterinburg (SVX), Novosibirsk (OVB) as the main Siberian hub, Irkutsk (IKT) for Lake Baikal, Vladivostok (VVO) for the Far East, and Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky (PKC) for Kamchatka. Kaliningrad (KGD) is an exclave and is reached by flight from Moscow or Saint Petersburg, or by train through Lithuania with a transit document.

The practical constraint in 2026 is not the airports, it is the airlines. Direct flights from the US and the UK are effectively gone; most travellers connect through Istanbul, Dubai, Doha, Belgrade or Yerevan. That makes the arrival airport a function of which connecting hub you can book, and it makes flexible tickets worth the extra cost.

Book the airport that matches your onward transport, not the cheapest fare. A cheap ticket into VKO that lands you in Moscow's evening traffic can cost more in time and taxi fare than a slightly pricier flight into SVO with a rail link.

Carry rubles in cash before you land. Foreign bank cards generally do not work in Russia in 2026, so an airport ATM may not help you. Change money before departure or bring enough for the first day.

Keep your immigration card and registration paperwork with your passport. Hotels register foreign guests, but private stays and long train journeys can complicate it; check the current rule before you travel.

If you are continuing by rail, the airport-to-station transfer is the part to plan. Moscow's rail stations are spread around the centre and none is at an airport; allow a half-day buffer between a landing and a long-distance train.

Domestic flights inside Russia are frequent and reasonably priced, but schedules and carriers change. Book through an agency that can rebook you if a route is suspended.