The most popular destination in Russia for business aviation is, of course, the capital, Moscow, with St. Petersburg the second most popular. At Moscow, most business aviation traffic uses Vnukovo Airport (UUWW), the least congested of the city’s three fields, due to its lack of commercial operations. Accordingly, Vnukovo has evolved to support business aviation with several executive-level FBOs; it also offers relatively easy access to the city (“relatively,” because Moscow’s surface traffic is very congested).

And, yes, operating in Russia is expensive, or as Mrocka put it after dropping $8.40 on a cup of coffee at his Moscow hotel, “outrageously expensive.” Carry cash for basic transactions, he advised, “as most places on the ground do not accept credit cards. It’s a cash-oriented society.” Williams at Universal Weather noted that rooms in Western-style hotels in larger cities like Moscow and St. Petersburg range from $300 to $600 a night; in remote locations, standards and prices will be lower (see sidebar on travel in Eastern Russia).