I flew trough Sheremetevo airport when travelling from London to Bangkok with Russian airline Aeroflot.
Now if you have an image of the word airport in your mind with air conditioning, flashy shops, music on the background and smiling girls promoting some kind of whatever product, please remove it completely and think instead of a barrack, an hospital, a prison or, if you stretch it a bit, why not, even hell. First of all, nobody there smiles, not the staff in the shops or at the bar but they take order like if you have some kind of problem they don't want to be part of. There is a depressive mood in all the airport and the structure built in the '80 looks at least 30 years older than that with no escalators to reach the second floor.
On the outbound journey me and my friend, a Russian, had no trouble during the two hours transit time, however on the way back our trip became a grotesque nightmare.
The plane landed in Moscow around 22:00 and the flight to London was not until the morning after. Me and my friend went trough immigration ready to spend the night together, sleeping somewhere at the airport. The guy who checked the passport, a middle age man with a miserable expression on his face, said something to my friend that, after translation, I couldn't believe. He ways saying that I could go trough passport control and spend the night at the transit area but her, being a Russian, she had to go trough the Russian passport control and spend the night in the general waiting area on the ground floor.
Now let's look at the following non-sense:
a) Why a Russian citizen, while in transit, cannot spend the night in the transit area?
b) Why on the outbound flight, with a transit of two hours, the same person was admitted trough the area?
c) Why the bags of my friend had been checked all the way trough London when in fact she had to go check-in again like if she was starting a new trip?
We tried to make sense with the staff at the airport. Actually my friend tried, because of course, nobody there spoke English. She talked to at least 6 or 7 people, most of them men soldiers/border guards, but the response was "these are the rules" and/or "it is not my problem". The situation was absurd but I thought that a person with a minimum of heart and brain will have left us going together to spend the night in the transit area. But not, even when my friend became very upset nobody cared. There was some girls working at the Russian passport control that were laughing at us, smoking and joking with the other Stalin-looking bastards soldiers and they told us to move on, becoming even more aggressive of the guys… they wanted even to call the police!!!!. We tried anyhow to complain as politely as we could and then a woman that had the most icy eyes I had seen, escorted me to see the guy in charge of immigration. She escorted me like if a was a criminal, walking briskly ahead of me.
I entered the room where a saggy 50ish years old guy was sitting behind a desk playing solitaire and politely I explained in English the situation. I asked him if my friend could stay in the transit area with me or if I could have a 24 hours visa to stay with her. He pondered for a moment what to answer and then he said NO. I asked him why not and he looked surprise of my reaction, even more when asked him what was his name.
I left the room and parted for the night with my friend. Now, the guy who stopped my friend to go trough and that he said he didn't speak English, laugh at me and said "So, no result eh?"
Many thoughts went trough my mind but then I understood the situation could degenerate and therefore I just looked the guy straight into his eyes, thanked him and then I left to spend the night in the transit area.
The airport at night was even more depressing than during the day. There were some bars open but the staff was most of the time smoking or trying to sleep. Getting a drink was an act of courage and determination.
My experience at the Sheremetovo as you can see was horrible and I think an airport like that ,with a service like that, has no place in the 21st Century.