We drove west towards St. Petersburg, Russia. The snow was more along the road and it snowed every now and then. We made just before Russia even stop at a rest stop and strengthened us for the upcoming border controls (stress on the majority!).
A few hundred yards from the Finnish border control our bus driver made us aware that we should not take photographs or film. The Finnish control was relatively harmless. We all got off the bus, equipped with our passport. We did not have to wait a long time. Everyone had to switch to a single step forward and hand over the passport to the Finnish border permanent officials. The checked-in short, the data and you could durchmaschieren through the barrier. EU bye ....
We all got back in our bus and off we went through the no man's land. After about 500 m, we passed the actual border. We put our clocks back one hour before, as West, Russia has its own time zone (MSK). Shortly after we were stopped from the very first barrier. There was a Russian soldier out of a picture book in our bus. With Russian winter hat, coat, gloves and face grim. He once walked completely through the bus and we held up our passports. Check whether there really has any individual passports.
Then we moved. You could tell from the bus that you were in another country. Suddenly the power lines hung a little crazy at the poles, and hung them almost to the ground or the cable was open and looked out the different leads wild. The woods seemed to be gepfelgt not quite as good as in Finland or Sweden. Finally, we drove by even a kind of "death zone". As far as we could look was a wide swath through the woods beaten. There was a high fence with barbed wire. Again and again, watch towers, which juts out over the treetops. Then we finally came
main control. We had the bus left again and should take only our passport. The border control buildings had to wait then. Again everyone had to individually stand before a switch. This time, however, were only half as many switches open and the Russian border officials did their job thoroughly and pushed. Well ...
We had already received at our visa application with a full-page visa sticker in your passport. In the run we had to fill even our immigration card. Visa and migration card will be stamped at the border now. The organizer of the trip and the bus driver warned us again and again, that in the run already, but time and again during the bus trip: "You can loose everything, but NOT your passport! Never give it away, keep it always on your body! "
had, we all travel on a more strenuous and strained relationship with our passport and migration card.
We had to go to border control are still waiting in the building, because the bus was still examined from all sides. The trunks were all inspected ...
short time later we were finally back in our bus. 1-2 km to the main control, we were back at a barrier. Again, a border guard came on the bus, which now wanted to see the entire migration, including Visa card and two stamps.
That's it for now but. Maybe 1-1.5 hours took the Finnish-Russian border to happen. Was my opinion very creepy and kind of like in movies. So many of our prejudices were confirmed.
Now we can thus take back full speed towards St. Petersburg. Well, full speed would be excessive, because the condition of roads is partly miserable. Even as we of St. Petersburg to Moscow went where supposed to be a highway made that the shock of the bus can not be compensated from the huge road damage.
(To be continued ...)
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