When we booked the air ticket in January (€50 each), our flight LO 8321 was scheduled to depart Tallinn at 0700 hrs and arrive at St Petersburg at 0805 hrs. However there was a schedule change in April and it was retimed to depart at 1035 hrs, shortened our already limited time at St Petersburg.

With only one desk open for check-in, it took us a while to get our boarding passes.



We were also asked to show our Fan IDs to prove that we were able to enter Russia. Fan IDs were issued by Russian authorities to football fans who have tickets to World Cup matches and they allowed holders to enter Russia visa-free during the World Cup period.

Found something on sale at TLL’s duty free that we probably couldn’t bring back home



Mrs used her Priority Pass membership to get us into Tallinn Airport Business Lounge, which apparently was named the best airport lounge in Europe last year.



Only cold sandwiches and salad were available though.



Besides the usual cafes, Tallinn Airport has some unique facilities for the passengers passing through it.

For instance, a gym overlooking the runway:-



Perhaps a game of table tennis?



The non-Schengen gate area was decidedly smaller than the other side and there was only one café past the immigration.

Turkish airlines ad in the non-Schengen gate area



Peterburi is the name of St Petersburg in Estonian. We thought that the name could be passed off as a town in Thailand.



We were asked to show our Fan IDs again before we were allowed onto the bus which would bring us to our plane – an ATR 72-600.



Although our flight had a LOT Polish flight number, it was operated by Nordica, Estonia’s flag carrier. Nordica is in a strategic partnership with LOT Polish which allows it to use the latter’s booking engine, ticketing system and flight codes. Apparently Star Alliance statuses were recognized on Nordica-operated flights as well.

Snacks and drinks were available for purchase on the short flight.



Bye Tallinn. See you in two weeks.



The only entertainment on the hour-long flight was the bilingual in-flight magazine.

Pretty much all the destinations that Nordica flies to.



Before long we were flying over the outskirts of St Petersburg and landed shortly.



The immigration control at St Petersburg was rather deserted at our time of arrival.



While the immigration official looked stern and took some time to process me into Russia, there wasn't any problem with entering Russia using Fan ID. In fact, no words were exchanged beside a 'thank you' from me when I received my passport back.

After getting our bags and withdrawing some rubles from the ATM, we decided to get a SIM card for our time in Russia.



We ended up with Beeline on the right since there was a longer queue at Tele2. The staff recommended the 15GB plan for 600 RUB (valid for 2 weeks) and needed my passport to register the SIM card. It turned out to be a bad choice as Beeline's reception was rather poor in both St Petersburg and Moscow throughout our stay.