What’s Life Like in an Airport Transit Zone?

I thought this article was interesting because I really had no idea what a transit zone was like. I kind of had this mental image of Snowden sleeping on a bench like Tom Hanks in The Terminal.

NSA leaker Edward Snowden has reportedly spent the last week in the transit zone at Moscow’s Sheremetyevo International Airport, although journalists have been unable to spot him. What can you find in a transit zone? Hotels, restaurants, and unfortunate souls. You’re probably familiar with the public portion of a transit zone, which typically offers plenty of amenities. Sheremetyevo airport’s transit zone encompasses three terminals and includes both the V-Express capsule hotel and one wing of the Novotel.

I also found it interesting that the transit zone can extend well outside of the airport.

Transit zones can now refer either to physical spaces or to amorphous legal concepts. The transit zone around Paris’ Charles de Gaulle Airport, for example, includes hospitals and a court more than 12 miles away. Detainees who travel from the airport to these facilities are legally considered to be moving inside a floating transit zone. The size and shape of a transit zone is therefore a matter left to the discretion of national authorities, and it’s possible Russian authorities have taken advantage of this legal technicality. If Edward Snowden isn’t sleeping at the Novotel or in a detention room at Sheremetyevo airport, he may be living in his own personal transit-zone bubble virtually anywhere in Moscow

Source

Very nice information. Thanks for the share.

So does this mean he could technically (very technically) move in this bubble all the way to the border and then step foot in;

Norway, Finland, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Belarus, Ukraine, Georgia, Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, China, Mongolia, or North Korea?

Or does the transit zone only pertain to Moscow?

reply to post by introV


From what I read, this "transit zone" would only pertain to Russia, he leaves the country, he doesn't have whatever protection that this "transit zone" provides him.

Just reminds me of the Tom Hanks movie "The Terminal"

I don't know.

reply to post by HauntWok


Yeah, I got excited and I thought he might get in trouble if he stepped foot in Russia. I forgot Putin said he was a freeman and could go where he wanted.

So my original post is pretty much void because of my forgetfulness.

However, if U.S. gets angry at Russia for not being compliant, they could use this bubble as a loophole to get him to the border to go to a different country, "without stepping foot in Russia"

Airports are such a great place, everything about it just speaks freedom and happiness.

I suggest people watch the movie : Up In The Air with George Clooney.