One to forget

If you fly into Moscow from abroad then the chances are that you will fly into Sheremetyevo II airport (SVO) (as they call it, whereas Terminal 2, Sheremetyevo Airport would be more correct). I flew in and out of Sheremetyevo on my recent trip to Russia, flying in from Milan with Alitalia. The experience was somewhat different to most airports - as an Australian in the queue as I flew out last night so succinctly put it, "The system here is up the creek and well past the rest room" - he was marginally less impressed than I was.

Having got off the plane, the first stop was immigration - where you have to show your immigration card, along with your passport with of course a Russian visa in it. The queues were plenty long - foreigners seem to take about 3-5 minutes per head to process - although I got bumped to the back of the queue because they claimed I had filled out the form wrong (in actual fact it had been mistranslated into English!!!) and had to scramble for another card and take my place at the back of the queue with another immigration card. At this point they then decided to take issue with my visa, due to my having a visa in a British passport that was issued in Austria - not even all the paperwork I had brought with me would convince them - and I was left to stew on one side until eventually they returned with my passport and stamped it and let me through, around 40 minutes later - the process had taken nearly an hour and a half.

Luggage collection was a typically humdrum procedure and then we were waved through customs - they didn't really seem at all bothered though. From the second we stepped out of the customs section and into the arrivals area (at ground level) we were beset with private cab drivers trying to tout their services to get us to the hotel - even trying to carry our bags for us to convince us. This was especially off-putting when trying to withdraw cash from an ATM - I do not like a taxi-driver watching my every move at an ATM - and I told him this very firmly in English - my Russian not extending to the necessary expletives.
It was a good job that we didn't - they wanted RUR 1500 (GBP 30 or EUR 45) to take us to our hotel - the Moskeb service desk did the trip for RUR 1100 (i.e. a saving for GBP 8 or EUR 12). At the desks you pay the cab fee in advance and jump into the cab to be whisked off. The good thing about having booked a reputable cab firm over taking a chance on a private cab (we would have been able to haggle a better deal in hindsight) is that you can be sure that the cab is better maintained - private cabs in Moscow have notoriously poor suspension and shock absorbers - bear in mind that the journey is often 45-60 minutes to the city centre and you'll realise why a cab company is always the better bet.

We had been advised to be at SVO in plenty of time - so we arrived nearly 3 hours before our flight was due to take off. Departure is one floor up - with taxis arriving at a ramp in front of the departures - allowing you to alight in the right place. Heading straight to check-in, we discovered that you had to go through customs before check-in and have your luggage scanned. Having done so, you then had to form a queue (orderly - b*llshit!) to the check-in desks. Not a problem, or at least you wouldn't think it should be one! Well, how wrong we were to be proven… There are only 8 check-in desks (split into 2 groups of 4), each serving multiple flights (in theory). Each desk splits into a maximum of 4 queues and there is check-in advertised for up to 6 flights - but in actual fact they only check-in passengers for the earliest flight and consequently there is pandemonium - and confusion.

Check-in is uneventful, although Frequent Flyer cards appear to not work at all desks - the finer points of the Mille Miglia system are lost on the check-in attendants at Sheremetyevo! Then you go through another security check and on to emigration. The Russians obviously wanted to get rid of me - they stamped my visa and waived me through...

The gate announcements were confused - our flight got changed gates twice and the tannoy system was not as effective as it ought to have been - although at least there were announcements in English. There is another security check to go through at the gate, and this time you have to remove your shoes (and of course there is a lack of area to put them back on before you are shepherding in to a cattle-pen like area which serves three gates with a woefully low amount of seating and again no real way of coping with queues for boarding flights on say 180 seater planes like the flight I was on...

Sheremetyevo will allegedly soon have a high-speed rail link - although I have yet to find any substantial information about when/if it will be really. Until then the choice is simple - either a cab to your holiday - which can be a costly affair if you don't take care, or otherwise there is a bus service to a Metro station on the edge of the metro network, but I wouldn't bother with the latter unless you have practically no luggage with you - luggage provision in the busses is far from generous. I also think there may be the ulterior motive of keeping cabbies in business by doing this - easy fare money can be made by the taxi drivers on the route - at least they charge a flat rate so traffic will not see the meter rolling ever higher…

Conclusion: