Short answers, pulled from the story.
Sheremetyevo International Airport is officially named Alexander S. Pushkin Sheremetyevo International Airport, after the Russian poet Alexander Pushkin. The name was chosen through the Great Names of Russia contest in December 2018, and the formal ceremony took place on the 5th of June 2019, the 220th anniversary of Pushkin's birth year.
Sheremetyevo began civilian operations on the 11th of August 1959, when a Tupolev Tu-104B landed from Leningrad. It had previously been a military airfield since 1957, and the Council of Ministers decreed its conversion to civilian use in August 1959.
In 2019, Sheremetyevo handled approximately 49.9 million passengers, making it the busiest airport in Russia and the post-Soviet states. Passenger numbers dipped to around 19.8 million in 2020 before recovering to 43.7 million in 2024.
Between 2003 and 2008, Sheremetyevo purchased jet fuel through a network of middlemen that inflated costs. Court records showed that phantom corporations made at least $200 million in pointless markups in 2006 and 2007 alone, costing the Russian government approximately 1 billion rubles (around $40 million) in missing tax income.
Sheremetyevo serves as the main hub for Aeroflot, Russia's national carrier, and its subsidiaries Rossiya Airlines and Pobeda. It also acts as a hub for Nordwind Airlines and its subsidiary Ikar, and for Smartavia.
The Aeroexpress rail service connects Sheremetyevo to Belorussky station in downtown Moscow in 35 minutes. Direct rail service to Belorussky station began on the 28th of August 2009; the rail terminal in front of Terminal F opened on the 10th of June 2008.