Baltic Express
Runs
every day
Travel time
17 hours
Distance
1038 km
6 stops
on the way
The Baltic Express train 034 travels from Tallinn to St. Petersburg to Moscow and has served this route since 2015. It is operated by Russian Railways. The train covers 964 km in 14-16 hours, it travels between Moscow and St. Petersburg overnight and then runs through Estonia during the daytime. First-class, second-class, third-class sleeping cars and a carriage with economy class seats are included on the train. The train does not have a restaurant car.
NOTE: Border crossing formalities are carried out in the train during the trip. Passengers traveling with e-visas to St. Petersburg cannot enter or exit Russia using this train!
Schedule
Tallinn to St. Petersburg train
based on 92 customer reviews
Testimonials
“
Easy way to purchase train tickets
Easy way to purchase train tickets from St Petersburg to Tallin. It was convenient to use their website, especially as train tickets in Russia are sold quite close to trip date. It’s convenient to buy it thru this service co and then they send you the tickets by email upon availability. We needed to be ensured of our train seats as we had a visa to process, and this was a document we needed, and we were very happy to find that with 6 people buying tickets in the same day, but not thru one transaction, Russian rail was able to put us into 3 adjacent compartments in the same coach. This made our travel even more fun and we felt safe being together.
“
Reliable and amazing
As always, ordered tickets to Russia and received them on time and as requested. Asked to change some details originally and they did it within a day.
“
Excellent Service, you can trust in the company!
I bought the tickets in Chile, preparing my trip to Russia. Everything worked perfect with the trains. They were punctual, comfortable, everything was fine. An advice, from St. Pertersburg to Tallinn, the Russian police checked me, asking if I had alcohol, cigarettes and medicines, I recommend not carry on any of that in order to avoid problems. the train service was excellent!
“
Awesome experience!
It was my first experience in a train and it was a better experience than I expected. It wasn't a 1st class train, maybe it looked old and all, but it was incredible.
“
A great experience
While the bureaucracy at the boarders was a little intimidating, this is obviously unavoidable. Other than this, we had a great trip from Riga to Saint Petersburg, then Saint Petersburg to Tallinn. The cabins were comfortable and clean, the toilets were fine, the samovar was useful and overall we had a lovely time. It would be handy if one could open one's own window as it took us until our second journey to realise we could just ask the attendant to open it.
History of the Baltic Express Train
The railway between Russia and Estonia was established more than 150 years ago by a group of Estonian nobles. It was named the Baltic Railway and was actually the first railway constructed in Estonia. It travelled from the Estonian city of Baltic Port through Tallinn (known in those days as ‘Reval’), and then on to Russia, where it joined the Nikolaev Railway connecting St Petersburg and Moscow.
However, the Baltic Railway’s closest connection to St Petersburg was via a small station named Tosno, situated over 50 km from the capital. A more direct route to St Petersburg was built via the suburban palace town of Gatchina, and ran to St Petersburg’s newly-renamed Baltiysky Station. The very first direct train between St Petersburg and Tallinn arrived in the Imperial capital on the 31st December 1872!
The Tallinn to Moscow railway was not established until much later. The first branded trains between Soviet Moscow and Tallinn were named ‘Estonia’ and ‘Tallinn’, and were launched in 1965 and 1967. During the 1980 Moscow Olympic Games, the Olympic flame was delivered to Tallinn via one of these trains. Following the collapse of the USSR the Tallinn to St Petersburg train, named the Tallinn Express, was introduced in 1991, and ran on and off until it was replaced by the Baltiysky Express in July 2015.
The Baltiysky Express train makes its journey from Tallinn to Moscow in an average of 16 hours, running via St Petersburg Ladozhsky Station on the way to Tallinn and via St Petersburg Moskovsky Station en route to Moscow. Railway is the favoured method of transport for those travelling between the Russian and Estonian capitals, because it eliminates the hassle of the airport, long border queues and inconvenient flight times – you can sit back, relax and watch the world pass by!
The journey on board the Baltiysky Express is certainly a comfortable one, especially if you choose to travel in a second or first class cabin. These are equipped with full-length couchettes allowing passengers to fully lie down and rest, fresh bed linen, ample luggage storage space, air conditioning, Wi-Fi and a restaurant car. En route between Tallinn, St Petersburg and Moscow you can catch a glimpse of landmarks along the way – such as the Ivangorod Fortress and Narva Castle which face each other over the Russian-Estonian border.
Once you have your tickets, look forward to a wonderful, smooth
and enjoyable journey through the Russian countryside.
Buy your ticket safely and securely and then sit back
and enjoy the ride!
Recommended by
Our travel group under the names Express to Russia, Russian Rail and Trans-Europe Express has been recommended and/or accredited by:
A portion of your order goes to helping underprivileged Russian children.
Our travel brands include
