Aug 2/3rd The Border Nightmare

Having joined the queue, we have a 2 hour wait until we get to the Latvian border and the fun begins

Stage 1 – Collect immigration forms and return to the car, fill them in, then back to the booth and wait…..

Stage 2 – Reach the REAL control! Here we get a full document check, fill in more paperwork and wait. While we are waiting for the forms to be processed one of the border guards waves Neil over and writes 300 in the dust on Marvin’s wing. Confused as usual Neil just shrugs and waits. The guard then adds $ in front of the 300 and we realize he wants to buy Marvin off us! Neil shakes his head and holds out for $500! A second guard tries to broker a compromise at $400, but neither of them would agree. After another lengthy wait we are waved through, 2 hours and we think we are doing really well. Then Neil approaches the guards again and tries out his new Russian word… STRAKOFKAH!! Big smiles and much shaking of hands and we are shown where buy Russian insurance. But first we need to change some money which is when we realize we are not in Russia – we are just out of Latvia as our money is changed to Latvian lats and then into roubles. We seem to get the more helpful of the very confused women in the office and the price of the insurance seems to drop between the quote and the payment! Team Plane Broke are with us all the way as we try to understand what’s happening and try to keep each other sane.

Stage 3 – Go to a booth and we are given what looks like a 2” square of toilet paper, with our registration number written on it. Drive 100 yards to….

Stage 4 – The Russian Border, wait an hour to get to the first booth, present all our paperwork, passports are scanned electronically (very efficient!), fill out more forms and then after another hour we move onto…..

Stage 5 – The REAL Russian Border……. and wait and wait and wait until we are waved through to the next set of booths. The person in charge appears to be around 16 years of age with a comically large ‘flying saucer’ official hat on, and even the girls in the office fail to take him seriously. While we are waiting, Plane Broke show off their talking Homer Simpson doll glued to the bonnet of their car, which seems to cause amusement to all and sundry. We take great pleasure in Homer calling them ‘Moron’ especially as they don’t understand any English. We then we have to present all our paperwork again, including our passports as the 2 booths don’t seem to be linked. Our papers are scrutinized and all our details have to be written down in long hand, we are then waved forward to…..

Stage 6 – The REAL REAL Russian Border. We even have the barrier in front of us and can see freedom beckoning in the distance!! Out of the cars yet again to be presented with more paperwork – this time in Russian. We work out these are customs documents but are lost until team Plane Broke find a friendly border guard, who completes one copy for them. However, seeing as carbon paper never made it to Russia they have to write the duplicate themselves, and them pass them over for us to copy. We now take these to what we hope is the last official who is the most bad tempered arrogant guard we have had the displeasure to meet. His technique seems to be pointing at random items of paperwork and shouting very loudly, not much fun at around midnight after a full days driving and 5 or 6 hours dealing with foreign beaurocracy. Team Plane Broke went first and Neil picked up some idea of what he was shouting about, so when Jan came to push her way to the front of the queue, the procedure takes a mere half an hour. After which time we are presented with a very impressive Russian temporary registration document.
Then we are waved to a small booth where they try to sell us insurance again! Both teams return to their cars and wait for the barriers to rise and after a mere half an hour they barriers lift and we are waved through! Accelerating into the distance we round a corner only to see…..

Stage 7 – A barrier and a wooden hut with a window about 5 feet off the ground. Jan gets out to be shouted at by yet another guard. We have no idea what he means – until he waves what seems to be a 2” piece of toilet paper at us (sounds familiar). A quick scrabble through the ever increasing pile of paperwork and our matching piece is retrieved and passed to the guard, who raises the barrier and waves us on to….

RUSSIA!!!!!!

We are actually in Russia – free to drive the next stage of our journey – if only we had fuel.

Luckily there is a fuel stop a few hundred yards ahead and we pull in ready to fuel Marvin up. We wave team Plane Broke off into the night, then try to work out how to get fuel in Russia. Placing the nozzle in the tank in the normal way doesn’t seem to activate the pump, so Neil wanders over to the kiosk to see if he can pick up any tips – it seems that you have to pass your money over and then they switch the pump on. When the tank is full – you return to the kiosk and retrieve your change!

Absolutely exhausted, we drive on a few miles until we find a layby where we park up and fall into a deep sleep.