I'll be needing to travel from St. Petersburg to Moscow either by overnight train on June 2 or by air on June 3. poking around on waytorussia sight it appears that the train 1 Red Arrow is $150 one way in the 2 person cabin. They mention this is the 'station price' and that using an agency will result in a higher price. I submitted a qoute request and it will be interesting to see what comes back as some other booking sites are listing the same train at EUR172 (which is beyond my budget). I was seeing that Aeroflot was offering one way fares of about $100. Of course flying means getting to and from the airport and an additional hotel night.

Then I saw this older thread during a search of the Russia forum. I am not finding any super low fares as mentioned here when looking on an aggregator like Kayak. Are there specific airlines where I can go to their site and look for fares as mentioned in this thread?

Also, if the quote I get back from the waytorussia vendor is very high, what are the odds I could arrive in SPB on May31 (weekend) and manage a booking on a train to Moscow for Monday June 2, and as fallback book a reasonable flight for June 3? I'm happy to pay some commission but not anything like what looks like $100 difference between the 'station price' and what some agencies are getting.

thanks for any suggestions.