It was opened in December 2005. Elista has a small regional airport which is open daily during the week, providing flights to Moscow and various cities in the southern part of the Russian Federation. The airport was closed by the federal aviation authorities sometime in the fall of 2006 , but was reopened sometime in 2007. Rail connections are available to Stavropol. Due to the high cost of air travel, people usually prefer to take the bus between Elista and Moscow. The trip is approximately 18 hours and makes several rest stops along the route. Nowadays, there is an airline Azimuth that provides air flights to Moscow, Sankt Petersburg, Sochi, Crimea and Rostov on Don at affordable cost with direct flights from Elista airport. The price starts at 2500 rubles one way and it saves traveler a lot of time instead of traveling by bus as it was in the past. Within Elista itself, a network of about a dozen "marshrutka" (minibus) routes is run by private companies . Minibuses are available around every five minutes. This is the preferred option of most Kalmykians because of the minimal cost (10 rubles). Elista has a hot-summer humid continental climate (Köppen climate classification "Dfa"), although it has sometimes been described as a temperate semi-arid climate (Köppen classification "BSk"). Winters are cold with a January average of while summers are hot with a July average of . The average annual precipitation is with winters being drier than summers. Extremes range from in January to in August. Elista is twinned with the following sister cities: