There are at least two ways to get to St. Petersburg from Pulkovo Airport right now.:
- By taxi;
- And on regular city buses No.39, No.39e and No.82e.
There is no metro, railway, or any minibuses from Pulkovo. (Therefore, waiting for them is as pointless as waiting for new Mozart concerts). I’ll tell you more about it later. And you read this text to the end and write me some good comment under it.
Buses to St. Petersburg from Pulkovo airport
They stop on the ground floor, right at the main doors of the terminal (next to this skinny guy with wings).
As I said, there are only three buses:
- Flights No. 39 and No. 39e go to Moskovskaya metro station;
- And their colleague, number 82e, goes to Prospekt Veteranov station.
Travel time is about 20 minutes. Departure – four times an hour. Flights run from 5 a.m. until late at night (1:41 a.m.). But I’ll tell you more about this later.
The ticket price is 80 RUB. Buses usually have a ticket collector, so you can pay for travel either in cash or with a bank card (MIR). But personally, Irecommend that you immediately buy a single travel pass called “Plantain” at the airport. You can do this at a kiosk like this – literally 5 meters from the bus stop.
You will have to pay another 90 rub for the pass, but each trip (by bus, tram or metro) will significantly become cheaper. And it will cost 60 rub. Therefore, it is possible to recapture the costs of the “Plantain” very quickly.
I got to the subway. What should I do next?
It all depends on which part of St. Petersburg you need to get to. For navigation in the subway – you can use the website spb.metrobook.ru . And for walking around the city – offline navigator Maps.me . The app also provides good routes.Yandex Maps. Therefore, before traveling, make sure that they are always available to you quickly.
Well, if you have come to St. Petersburg for a very short time, then you can look for a hotel right next to the metro.
- I liked the Vertical Hotel near Moskovskaya station.
- And at the Prospekt Veteranov metro station there is this designer eurodvushka.
As for the tourist center, there are two metro stations closest to it.:
- Nevsky Prospekt;
- and Admiralteiskaya.
You can also go to Dostoevskaya station. Rubinstein Street is located next to it, one of the centers of St. Petersburg’s bar and restaurant culture.
How to get to the city by taxi?
Here you also have several options to choose from. First of all, these are:
- Yandex.Taxi
- And various analogues (like the Taxovitchcoff service).
Both companies have dynamic prices that are constantly changing depending on current demand. But most often the cost of travel to St. Petersburg by taxi ranges from 1000 to 1500 rub.
There is only one catch here – problems with mobile Internet in Russia (and the so-called “cooling of SIM cards”, which has started working in this country since November 10, 2025). If you have arrived from abroad, then the Internet may simply not work for the first day.
Yes, you can try to connect to the public Internet at the airport. But it didn’t work out for me personally either.
The solution to the situation may be a personal transfer, for example, from the Kiwi Taxi company.
In this case, you order the car in advance, and upon arrival, the driver will simply be waiting for you with a sign at the exit. You will be met, escorted and helped with your luggage. All the details can be viewed on this page. The cost of such a service is higher than that of a regular taxi, but not much at all.
How to get from Pulkovo to St. Petersburg at night?
If you arrive in Russia late at night, then you can not immediately count on city buses. They run all day, but from one o’clock in the morning until 5 a.m. they go peacefully to nap in their bus fleets.
- The first flight No.39 departs the airport at 5:56 a.m.
- And his express colleagues (39e and 82e) another half hour later – at 6:30 a.m. and 6:37 a.m., respectively.
Of course, the schedule may change. Therefore, you can double-check everything before traveling. The exact schedule is available on the website transportspb.com .
So what should you do if you find yourself in Pulkovo late at night? There may be at least two possible solutions.
- The first one is to recall the taxi and personal transfer.
- And the second one is to stay and spend the night right in Pulkovo.
There is a pretty decent and inexpensive hotel in the local terminal called Cosmos. You can view photos of the rooms and check the current prices on this page.
Afterword
That’s all. I’ve told you everything I know, so now I just have to say goodbye. But before that, as always, a moment of self–promotion.
- My review of inexpensive chain restaurants in St. Petersburg can be found here;
- And in this articleI talked about the most interesting (unusual) sights of this city – from luxurious palaces with stone Atlanteans to museums with mammoth skeletons.
Also, at the very end, I want to recommend the Valo Mercure hotel, where we stayed during this trip. It’s cozy and inexpensive. And until November 30, you can also get an additional 20% discount there. To do this, simply enter the promo code KULTURNO when booking. May it be a pleasant bonus to you for reading my post to the end.”How to get to St. Petersburg from Pulkovo airport“.
