markreach
Just Starting
Joined: 28 Mar 2008
Posts: 4
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 Posted: Sun Feb 22, 2009 12:13 am Post subject: TRIP REPORT: Road trip to Moscow |
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Hi all,
I thought I should report on my recent road trip to Moscow, since I got quite a bit of advice from here.
In August a friend and I set off from the UK in a 1993 Peugeot 205 diesel. We drove through France, Switzerland, Germany, Austria, Hungary, Romania, the Ukraine and Russia. And back via Baltic coast.
The border crossing from Romania to the Ukraine North of Baia Mare was painless and pretty quiet. It took around 90 mins. to cross. Ukrainian immigration and customs were very quick, polite and efficient. We asked a petrol station on the Ukrainian side about insurance and were told to buy it from a house, not far up the road.
I can't remember the exact price, but it was around 5 EUR for 14 days. The insurance seller was gracious enough to give us change for a 50 EUR note! Uneventful drive to L'viv, roads were in pretty good condition. Certainly better than in Romania.
L'viv to Kiev was long, but again the roads were in reasonable condition, with an ample number of petrol stations. Large sections had been reconstructed and were certainly up to Western European standards.
Got nicked for speeding about 50km out of L'viv (102kph in a 60kph zone), paid the police officer around 25 UAH. Got nicked again outside of Kiev (75kph in a 50kph zone), paid 30 UAH. Neither time were the police interested in RUR or GBP.
M-2 in the Ukraine was also closed for a very long stretch leading up to the Russian border for reconstruction. We went Ukrainian-style, drove through a field and back on to the (almost-finished) road on the other side of the roadblock. Deserted, closed, road for around 120km to the Russian border.
We had difficulty in finding the border crossing, since the M-2 was shut. Eventually we ended up at a crossing near the village of Markovo. Easy to buy Russian insurance on the Ukrainian side, something like 500 RUR for a month. Quite painful, Ukrainian customs demanded to see my currency, took a few GBP and 100 RUR, but did direct us to the front of a very long queue. Russians were slow and meticulous, but no suggestion of a bribe and waived the fee for our photocopying, since we had given the Ukrainians all our small-denomination Rouble notes (needless to say all of our papers were in diligent order).
Surly Russian border guard in the vehicle import office, but suddenly became very friendly when we explained that we were students interested in Russian history and chatted to us for a good 20-odd minutes, holding up all of the lorry drivers. She couldn't find 'United Kingdom' on her computer, which added to the delays, and eventually a conference of border staff from all of the departments coalesced around the PC. Hilarity ensued as they tried Angliya, variations of Velikobritaniya, before finding Soyedinyonnoye Korolevstvo etc.. Wished us a pleasant journey and we set off.
Took the M-3 to Moscow (maybe should have taken the M-2), which was horrendous: extremely busy, averaging about 60 kph. 4-hour tailback at the MKAD, due to reconstruction works. Kiev - Moscow: 20h.
Left Russia on M-9 via Velikiye Luki. Stopped at a roadblock about half-way to the Latvian border, no problems: checked our documents and wished us a pleasant journey. Problems with Russian customs due to some old books in the car. Customs officers (who spoke good English) looking for a bribe; we weren't having any of it, so we called a lawyer friend in Moscow who talked us out. Queuing and procedures took around 10 minutes, bribe-extrication procedure and telephone call added around 30 minutes. Again, held up all the traffic behind while dealing with us.
Latvian (EU) immigration were probably the worst of the bunch: very unfriendly and suspicious, if relatively quick.
All-in-all, quite a steep learning curve, but my rudimentary Russian seemed to be adequate. Only had to bribe the Ukrainians.
Mark |
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chrisrein
Frequent Guest
Joined: 19 Nov 2006
Posts: 41
Location: Netherlands
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| Posted: Sun Mar 01, 2009 3:41 pm Post subject: |
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Very interesting information!
Last year I had the same kind of problems in UA to get to the Russian border, as the M2 is being reconstructed a few miles before the border.
The route from the UA border till the Orel - Kursk highway isn't very good, but OK, the M2 in Russia is much better.
Does anyone have information about the route Moscow - Warschau via Belarus? Looking at a map there is almost completely a 2x2 lane road from Moscow untill Brest. |
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