44 Russian airports were renamed in one go
Moscow’s Sheremetyevo is now “airport Pushkin”
When it comes to aviation, Russians take their names seriously.
Before every Aeroflot flight, for example, it is usual that the crew will mention the name of the person that the aircraft is named after (the convention at Aeroflot is to name aircraft after remarkable Russian characters from the worlds of science and arts )
Last year, in a rather unprecedented name-changing exercise, Russia’s 44 largest airports were renamed at once.
Well, it would be more accurate to say that the name of a Russian historical person of note was added to each of the airport’s traditional names, in Aeroflot style. Until now airports were usually named after the area in which the airport had been built.
The names were actually chosen in a massive public poll where all Russians could vote for their preferred naming options.
In any case, airport codes have not been affected by this change.
The official list of names can be found in this presidential decree (in Russian)
But to save you time, here are is a summary with some of the most relevant ones.
Many airports were named after scientists or artists:
Moscow Sheremetyevo (SVO) -> Alexander Pushkin (the most celebrated Russian poet)
Moscow Domodedovo (DME) -> Mikhail Lomonosov (18th C. Russian scientist and polymath)
Yuzhno-Sakhalinsk (UUS) -> Anton Chekhov (the writer actually lived for some time on Russia’s largest island)
Mineralnye Vody (MRV) -> Mikhail Lermontov (poet and diplomat, contemporary of Pushkin)
Tyumen (TJM) -> Dmitry Mendeleev (who came up with the periodic table of elements)
Memories of tsarist times also featured prominently in the choices for airport names:
Murmansk (MMK) -> Nicholas II (the last Russian tsar)
Kaliningrad (KGD) -> Elizabeth I (18th Century Empress)
Krasnodar (KRR) -> Catherine the Great (the most famous Russian Empress)
Voronezh (VOZ) -> Peter the Great (modernizing tsar, who established a shipyard in the city)
Quite a few airports were named after aviation and aerospace pioneers
Moscow Vnukovo (VKO) - Andrey Tupolev (aircraft designer)
Sochi (AER) - Vitaly Sevastyanov (astronaut)
Tomsk (TOF) - Kamov (helicopter designer)
Samara (KUF) - Sergey Korolev (father of the soviet and Russian space programme)
Nizhny Novgorod (GOJ) - Chkalov (Soviet aviation pioneer)
Also found quite interesting that Danish-born sailor and explorer Vitus Bering got its own airport too in the lands he discovered for the Russian Empire, Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky, the gateway to the Kamchatka Peninsula, near Alaska.
A good excuse to learn about Russian history next time you book a ticket to this huge country!