Most visitors to Saint Petersburg overpay to reach Peterhof, Pushkin or Kronstadt. They book a transfer or a bus tour, not knowing that a suburban train ticket inside the city costs 65 roubles flat.
The suburbs are legally part of the city
Peterhof, Lomonosov, Pushkin, Pavlovsk and Kronstadt look like countryside, but administratively they are districts of Saint Petersburg. That is why city transport rules and the city rail tariff apply there. Gatchina is different: it belongs to the Leningrad Region, with its own fares and its own carriers.
Fares in 2026
Since 1 January 2026 the North-West Suburban Passenger Company charges a fixed 65 roubles for a single suburban train ride within Saint Petersburg, whatever the distance. Outside the city the price is calculated as 48.44 roubles for the first 14 kilometres plus 3.46 roubles per additional kilometre; for Lastochka and Finist trains it is 56.14 roubles plus 4.01 roubles. A ticket from Gatchina-Baltiyskaya to Baltiysky station costs 120 roubles. A bicycle or oversized luggage costs an extra 65 roubles inside the city, 48 in the region; skis and snowboards in a bag travel free.
Which station to use
Baltiysky station serves Novy Petergof (about 40 minutes) and Oranienbaum-1 in Lomonosov (about an hour), as well as Gatchina. Vitebsky station serves Tsarskoye Selo (about 33 minutes) and Pavlovsk (about 38 minutes); the same trains stop at the platform next to Kupchino metro, which saves time if you are not staying downtown. Kronstadt has no railway: city bus 101 runs from Staraya Derevnya metro to the island across the dam.
Payment traps
The Podorozhnik travel card can pay for a suburban train, but only at a ticket office or a self-service terminal — never on board, where cash, a bank card or the Unified Petersburg Card are accepted. If your card has no train pictogram on the back, it must be activated at a dedicated window first (window 9 at Baltiysky, window 4 at Vitebsky). Ground transport costs 88 roubles for a single ticket and 65 roubles with Podorozhnik; the metro is 95 roubles with a token. The 60-minute transfer discount works only on city ground transport and is cancelled the moment you pay for the metro, a regional bus or a train ticket.
Last trains
On a late-September weekday the last trains leave Novy Petergof at 22:48, Oranienbaum-1 at 22:30, Tsarskoye Selo at 23:31 and Pavlovsk at 23:26. Gatchina is the exception: the last train departs at 21:59, two hours earlier than from the city suburbs. A single ticket stays valid for the days printed on it plus one hour of the following day, and a return ticket is also valid the next calendar day. If the ticket office and the terminal are closed, you may board and pay on the train without a service fee. Children under seven travel free.
Фото: Sergey A. Demidov / Wikimedia Commons, CC BY 4.0
