For passengers flying through Sheremetyevo International in Moscow there are a number of lounge options.
In Terminal D these include two very similar lounges – Jazz and Blues, and a further one called Classic (the spellings of Classic – “Klassika” vary).
You can see more details on this Sheremetyevo business lounges link
I asked which was best of these three and was told either Jazz or Blues, and that these two were identical, so I went to Blues. This can be accessed by taking the lift to the fourth floor. If you are coming from Moscow (as opposed to transferring between flights), it is immediately after security and passport control by turning right.
Who can access
Anyone travelling business class with Aeroflot, and also Aeroflot Bonus Gold or Platinum cardholders; Elite Plus Bonus cardholders of any SkyTeam Alliance partner airlines; Priority Pass, Diners Club members or for payment.
For details from Priority Pass see its page.
The lounge is long, so to get your bearings turn left and walk past the kids play area (unless you are one) to where there is a business work area and a small area called the Mercedes-Benz lounge, which has a couple of tables but nothing else special.
In this corner there is the first drinks station where there are several choices of wines and spirits. Included here on the optics are spirits. If you want a gin and tonic you have to get the gin here and then walk to the other end of the lounge to get the tonic. This has the presumably inadvertent effect of lowering consumption, though of course you can just decide to drink neat gin.
Around the corner there are a couple of massage chairs, and then the main body of the lounge which doesn’t have very many seats, and even fewer powerpoints (I sat at the business desks).
I should point out that although the lounge is called Blues, it doesn’t play the blues. In fact, it didn’t play any music so far as I could hear.
The main food area has a wide choice including hot and cold food and more drinks including beers and soft drinks.
There are also magazines and newspapers here, including Business Traveller.
There is free wifi in the lounge, but because of regulations, you have to register a phone to receive a text which then allows you to enter that code to access the internet. The problem with that is if you are not wanting to incur a roaming fee (which is why you want the internet) you won’t be able to use it. I was on roaming anyway, and needed it for my laptop, but one of the receptionists offered to use her work phone to do this for me, since I couldn’t work out how to put my number into the box in a suitable format to get the SMS.
Flights are called from the lounge, but due to the noise levels it’s best to keep an eye on the screens. Also bear in mind that although your current flight might have arrived in terminal D (for instance from London), onwards flights might depart from a different terminal such as Terminal F for flights to Asia.
During the course of the afternoon the lounge becomes more busy, and because there are increasing numbers of Chinese visitors to Moscow and Russia, it also becomes extremely noisy, especially with internet voice and video calls in which both sides of the conversation can be heard very clearly, though of course not understood, unless you speak Chinese. Throw in a few appallingly behaved children and it was hard to hear the flight announcements.
By the time I left the lounge at 1845 it was difficult to access the lifts with several small groups or possibly one large group of passengers packing and repacking their suitcases in front of the lift..
Verdict
This is a fine place to spend a few hours though it does get very busy in the evening and I suspect that the people working in the lounge have largely given up trying to police the groups using it.
