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Pulkovo-2 closes its air gates after 50 years of service as international airport

From now on, the air service on all the domestic and international air routes will be provided from Terminal-1 of the St.Petersburg new airport complex

© ITAR-TASS/Yuri Belinsky

ST.PETERSBURG, March 27. /ITAR-TASS/. Pulkovo-2 airport terminal, which for many years was St. Petersburg main international airport, has ended its more than half a century's service as the main international air harbor of St. Petersburg. On Thursday the last flights to Amsterdam and Paris took off from Pulkovo-2. From now on, the air service on all the domestic and international air routes will be provided from Terminal-1 of the St.Petersburg new airport complex.

It was not immediately known how the premises of Pulkovo-2 might be used in future. "The St. Petersburg administration has been considering several variants of the use of the old airport in future, but it ruled out its use as a facility of the air transport infrastructure," Director of the Air Gates of the Northern Capital company Sergei Edmin told Itar-Tass.

June 24, 1932 is officially known as the birthday of the St.Petersburg airport. Its first name was Shosseinaya airport, similar to the name of a nearby railway station.

A new building of the airport designed by architect Alexander Gastello was opened in 1951. In April 1973 it was named Pulkovo-2. It was reconstructed in the 1990s.

In May 1973 a new terminal — Terminal- 1, built to a design by architect Alexander Zhuk, was opened. A renewed building of Pulkovo-1 airport will open in the third quarter of 2014 as a southern gallery of the St.Petersburg airport complex.

Pulkovo airport is the third biggest airport in Russia in terms of passengers volume. After its reconstruction is complete the airport might receive up to 17 million passengers per year.

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