My Russian visa starts on the 28th of this month, has anyone crossed recently or know of any problems. Pointless watching the news as they only hype it all up. I'm heading for Volgograd using the easiest crossing.
At the moment I'm on my last day in Poland and will be heading toward Slovakia later, my route will then be via Hungary Romania Moldova Ukraine Russia Kazakhstan Kyrgyzstan and into China.


Anyone else in eastern Europe? :-)

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Nick,

We just crossed today: Kiev to Kursk via a small border crossing. No need to worry about the ongoing problems in Ukraine if you go this route.

Below is an entry I just posted in my own blog (Bermuda Rover)

We have now crossed into Russia from Ukraine, so a new leg of the journey has begun. We are aware that other overlanders plan to follow us through Ukraine in the coming weeks and they have questions regarding the Ukraine-Russia crossing. Hopefully this entry will be of some use to them.

As our Land Rover contains a variety of camping gear, we are particularly conscious about trying to find accommodation with secure parking. We were able to find a couple of suitable hotels while in Ukraine.

In Lviv, we stayed at the Hotel Natalia-18 at 7 Prince Yaroslav Osmomysyl Square - Готель "Наталія-18" Львів. Whilst the hotel doesn't have an enclosed parking area, it has private spaces on the pavement/sidewalk outside the hotel. The parking spots are monitored by CCTV in the hotel reception. The rooms are small but clean and tidy with modern bathrooms. It is a short walk from the main square, so is well located.

In Kiev, we stayed at the Hotel Rus Accord - City hotel, accommodation in Kiev, cheap hotels in Ukraine — HotelRus. This is a modern high rise hotel with a large car-park that is controlled by security 24 hours a day. The hotel is within walking distance to the centre of Kiev. There are restaurants inside the hotel. Despite the good quality of the hotel, it can be booked online for between 40-50 Euros (the hotel cannot match the online prices).

Due to the ongoing issues in the eastern Ukraine cities, we decided to cross into Russia without passing through those eastern cities. We opted for the small border crossing that is located between Kiev and Kursk (Russia). The nearest Ukrainian town to the border post is Hlukhiv. You take the E101 towards Hluhkiv and then the E38 towards Kursk. On the route that we took, the GPS (sat-nav) took us down some very poor quality roads that seemed too narrow and bad to lead to an international border crossing - but they did! The coordinates for the Russian side of the border crossing are N51.64779 E034.14358.

En-route to the border, we passed two Ukraine military checkpoints where they had set up a chicane on the road to slow down traffic, but no checks were taking place.

At the border, there were some small huts in which the insurance agencies were plying their trade. Only two of the huts appeared to be open when we were there. We secured Russian vehicle insurance from one of them. We enter Russia three times during the trip, over a period of about three months. As the dates of entry and exit are flexible, we decided to buy a full three months of insurance to ensure that we will be covered, even though we'll be paying for periods when we are not in the country. For a Land Rover Defender (2,495cc engine), three months of the basic OSAGO third party insurance cost just over 5,000 rubbles (approx 120 Euros). We asked about the comprehensive and collision insurance (CASCO) but it seems that isn't available at the border and would have to be purchased either before the trip or online. So, for now, we have the most basic of vehicle insurance whilst in Russia.

Once we had the insurance, we moved on to the Ukraine side of the border post. There were three stages to the Ukraine side. First, the armed sentry wanted to see our passports and have a cursory look inside the vehicle. Once happy, he allowed us to proceed a few feet through a barrier, where we had to stop. Second, before we could proceed to passport control, we had to go into a small vehicle office where the vehicle documents were examined. We could see the officer pull up the vehicle details on the computer, from when we entered Ukraine from Poland. Once he was happy with the documents, he told us to go to the passport control. Passport control was the third step. They wanted to inspect the passports and the vehicle documents, despite the fact they'd all been checked already. Once the passports were cleared, the vehicle was then checked further, with an armed officer asking us to open each door so that he could search and examine a variety of items. Once he was satisfied, we were given a piece of paper to take to the sentry at the exit from the Ukraine side of the border. Once again, this officer needed to check our passports before allowing us to proceed. Finally, we were able to move from the Ukraine side of the border to the Russian side.

At the Russian side, there were no vehicles ahead of us. This is a small border post that seems to have very little traffic, meaning no queues. When we reached the first checkpoint, an official did a cursory inspection of the vehicle and then asked us to wait for 10 minutes, as the passport control kiosk was empty (staff on break?). When the lady returned to the kiosk, we were able to get our passports processed. This took about 10-15 minutes. Then we were told we could move forward to the Customs checkpoint, which is where the fun began. A Defender loaded up with gear must have looked suspicious to her, so she decided she wanted to see pretty much everything in the vehicle. The back door was opened and almost everything pulled out and opened for her inspection. Then the side doors - same thing. Once satisfied that we were not importing goods, or in possession of illegal items, she returned to her kiosk and began processing passports and customs declaration forms with Klaus, whilst I packed everything back into the vehicle. By the time I'd packed the vehicle, Klaus' passport had been checked and stamped - but mine would take longer as she also had to check the vehicle registration papers ('vehicle passport'). This was bureaucracy at its finest and took ages. Meanwhile, a queue of vehicles had built up behind us, waiting for us to clear the way. After a lengthy delay, she finally cleared us, gave me my passport and documents and we were free to enter Russia! All told, I'd estimate that it took two hours between arriving at the border and leaving the other side.

We had completed our Russia Customs Declarations ahead of time, using the English language version of the form from the Russian Federation Customs website. This probably helped, as there were no signs of English forms at the kiosk. A tip for others making this trip - do not tick 'yes' in section 2.1 of the form, which asks if you have accompanying baggage, and how many pieces. I had ticked yes, as I had luggage, but this section apparently refers to importation of goods to Russia. The customs officer told me that it should say no, and she then re-wrote my whole form to make the correction.

Once through the border, we made our way to the city of Kursk for an overnight stop. We began to look for a hotel with secure parking, using the Garmin Monterra to identify hotels in the vicinity. Our first stop was the Hotel Kursk that received a good report in the Lonely Planet book which said the staff speak English - they don't and the receptionist refused to entertain us, claiming that the hotel was full! The hotel has a car-park but good luck getting into there hotel! We went to about three or four more hotels, none of which had a car-park. We decided to check one more hotel, after which we would leave the city and wild-camp for the night. The final hotel came up trumps! The Hotel Diane has a gated car-park next to the hotel in which we were allowed to park the Defender. The hotel room is of a reasonable size with a modern bathroom.The prices in Kursk are more expensive than in Ukraine, however. One night in the Diane costs the equivalent of about 90 Euros. The coordinates for Hotel Diana in Kursk are N51.75620 E036.17943.

There was no evidence of any military presence on the Russian side of the border. The current disturbances in Ukraine do not seem to have had any impact on border crossings between Ukraine and Russia, at least at the crossing that we used.

I see no reason for any overlanders to change their plans to avoid crossing into Russia from Ukraine.

The next challenge that we face involves requirements to register our stay in different Russian towns/cities as we move east. We are trying to clarify how often we are required to register.

Stays in hotels are likely to be less frequent as we cross Russia and camping will be more frequent. This will limit our access to wifi, so blog updates may become more infrequent. Whenever we can access wifi, I'll try to post updates.

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2014 overland adventure to Russia and Central Asia in Land Rover Defender www.bermudarover.com

We're getting conflicting information on how often we are supposed to register our stay whilst in Russia. I'd appreciate any advice from those who have gone before us.

We are hoping to have our stay registered by the hotel whilst we are here in Kursk (first day of entry). After that, I doubt that we will be in any own/city for a period of three days. Does this mean we don't have to re-register.

We could probably re-register whenever we stay in hotels but I expect we'll be doing some wild camping along the way and don't expect to be registering on those dates.

Thanks,

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2014 overland adventure to Russia and Central Asia in Land Rover Defender www.bermudarover.com

Good tips, thank you. My bike is registered in Germany and my insurance green card covers me in Russia. I only have to get insurance for KAZ and KYG. where did you manage to download the customs form, if I could get that done beforehand it may save me an hour, I was expecting to have that hurdle at the border. I'll take your advice and Ind a smaller crossing point, I'll be crossing further south from yourselves and heading then to Volgograd. I have it in my head that you have to three days to register your stay, obviously the earlier the better. I've heard most hotels don't want western travellers due to the paperwork involved, that and the fact they have to declare the visitor and the payment has to go through the books. I've used booking.com and pre-booked my stay in Volgograd, just have to hope they have secure parking :-)

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For the English version of the customs declaration, go to the following site - Federal Customs Service of Russia - Passenger customs declaration
On that page you'll see links to the English form and also to directions on how to complete it.

You have seven working days in which to register your stay, in the first instance. The hotel we stayed at last night is declining to register us, saying it only applies to persons staying at least three nights. This is not correct, but what can you do?

We may have to find a larger, international hotel during the first week to get registered.

We've also read that you have to re-register if you move to another city for a period of three days or more. We'll be moving through lots of towns and cities but won't stay in any of them for three days. We'll probably try to get re-registered at any hotels we stay in along the way, but the exact requirements for persons moving across the country are unclear.

__________________
2014 overland adventure to Russia and Central Asia in Land Rover Defender www.bermudarover.com

I was planning to drive straight across Ukraine and enter Russia from a small border east of Luhansk. I have friends in Kharkiv and Donetsk, but if the situation will be as it is now, I think I'll have to re-route.

Good to know that the Hlukhiv - Kursk border is open, it seems that Chernihiv and Sumy Regions are not (yet?) affected.

Worth noting that there is a three-way border between UA, BY and RU north of Chernihiv which is (according to the Russian Government) open to foreigners. It leads to the far west of Bryansk Region (not far from a Chernobyl fallout area!), which would be the westernmost UA - RU crossing, were things to deteriorate further in Eastern Ukraine.

D

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4.5 years around Eurasia in a Toyota Hilux|http://eurasiaoverland.wordpress.com/
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Last year i entered this small border east of Luhansk, fast and friendly no problems.

Insurance shop in huts just about 1km up the road, also if you are nice the 2 pretty women who work there will let you use there computer to check emails and make you a cup of coffee

Nick:

I've never entered Russia on a motorcycle, but I have entered the country (for transit purposes) about a dozen times during the past 2 years whilst flying large commercial aircraft that I am delivering from the factory to the customer.

My experience with the Russian customs and immigration people (primarily in the east of the country - Anadyr, Magadan, Petropavlovsk, Khabarovsk, Vladivostok) has been that they are very courteous and very honest, but also very, very detail-oriented. In other words, they are fine people who have no intention of giving anyone a hard time, but you had better be sure that 100% of your documentation is in order, because they cannot cut you any slack at all if there is even the tiniest deficiency in the documentation or process.

The Russian border guards have a very sophisticated electronic system for registering passports, visas, etc. The nature of this system is that the 'approval' is granted by a central computer somewhere after the border guards have scanned the passport and visa - the officer himself has no discretion in the matter.

I don't know what the deal on carnets is. A carnet is not needed to move a large commercial aircraft through the country, but at the point of entry, I was always given a document - sort of what you could call a Laissez-Passer for the aircraft itself - that I had to surrender at the port where I exited Russia. The border officials at the port of entry always stressed to me that it was extremely important that I not lose this document, and that I made sure to surrender it at the port of exit. Likewise, whenever I filed a flight plan to depart from Russia, the border guards at the exit point always asked for this document, and would not let me start the aircraft up until they had entered everything into the computer and received an approval from the central document processing facility.

So, to sum up: Very courteous people, but extremely thorough, and they are not granted any room for discretionary judgement when enforcing the rules.

Michael

Thanks Michael, I believe I have everything less the customs form which I will try and printed for me in the morning, or the next hotel.

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Hi,
Bermuda Rover-thanks for useful news. It's hard to find anything on the topic.

I'm going to go around the Black Sea in August/September and want to cross the Cremean Peninsula which has been anected by Russia recently. Anyone knows maybe how it looks like there? I guess it can be different as this border is kind of "new" and not sure if recognised by Ukrainian authorities.

Any information will be appreciated!

Fred

I was in Crimea 2 weeks ago and its all very normal there ... apart from prices currently being given in two currencies, and many/most ATMs / banks closed or not working. I expect that will all be sorted by the summer season.

I doubt there is a functional border crossing yet north of Armyansk. There obviously cant be a border post there before the Ukrainians accept that there is now a border there.

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My advice is to register once within 7 days of each entry to Russia. That should suffice for a foreign traveller in a short term visa. If you have a registration slip obtained since your last entry stamp to Russia then you should be fine regarding registration.

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Im having a "moment". I was sure i updated my progress. On the eastern side of Ukrainien towns they have military checkpoints checking all traffic coming from the east. I had no problems at all. I stayed overnight in luhansk and got to the border early with no hassle or fuss.

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Hi NearlyHomelessNick,

We are in Varna Bulgaria at the moment but come Monday or Tuesday we will be heading north first into Romania then Moldova across Ukraine to Kiev and then up to the Russian border area to start our trip to Mongolia and beyond any info would be much appreciated.

Kind regard

Dave & Les

Interesting to hear, I was planning on staying north in Luhansk Region and exiting to Russia around Millerovo... Good to hear you passed through Luhansk itself without problems.

Out of interest, could you tell me which border you crossed? Was it the one from Krasnodon (UA) to Donetsk (RU, not the one in Ukraine)??

Thanks

Daniel

__________________
4.5 years around Eurasia in a Toyota Hilux|http://eurasiaoverland.wordpress.com/
Pictures Here|https://picasaweb.google.com/113619413612674951960