Finland-Russia-Estonia?

[pecha72]

Hi, planning a trip from Finland to Greece in May -14... actually I´ve never ridden in our eastern neighbour Russia before, think it´s about time to change that now! But because of family constraints, this has to be a very quick trip, and going to Greece is not negotiable, so for this reason, I´m asking from those with more knowledge on Russia:

- Do you think it is feasible to set off from Vaalimaa in Finland early in the morning, and then ride via Vyborg and St.Petersburg, and exit to Estonia and do all this IN JUST 1 DAY? (And I ask this purely from a riding point of view – I understand, that I will miss a whole lot along the way, particularly in St. Petersburg, but unfortunately for this trip, I am in a hurry. It looks to me like it would be about 400kms in Russia, but especially by-passing a very big city like St. Petersburg, and possible delays at the border crossing to Estonia at Narva are things, that I´m thinking about).

- If I were to decide, that I´ll spend at least one night in Russia, then how do you compare the two main road options from St.Petersburg to Estonia (the road M11, that goes to Narva, or road M20, that takes you to Pskov, and then I´d head towards Riga going via southeastern Estonia)? A lot of difference with the amount of traffic, or anything else, that I should think about regarding these two options?

And a few other questions that came to mind:

- Russian visa: I researched this a bit 4 yrs ago, and seemed to me like you cannot really do-it-yourself 100%, so in practice you´d need to contact a travel agency in your home country, and have them arrange it for you. And this way, a single entry visa was in the region of 70 euros p.p. (In fact that is what put me off last time – me and my GF were thinking about this, but we were heading elsewhere, so to spend 140 euros just to enter, and then stay only 1-2 days in Russia, seemed too much... but this time I´m more prepared to just swallow it!) Sorry if this is a dumb question, but if you don´t mind a bit of extra work, can you fully do the visa yourself, or you absolutely need to have an agency involved?

- Motorcycle insurance: Russia is now in the Green Card-zone, so the insurance, that my bike has back home, and for which I will ask them to print the Green Card-paper, should be valid there no problem? (This I will naturally also check with my insurance company, just asking about the basic principle of motor vehicle insurance in Russia).

I´ll be riding a DL650 Suzuki, and most likely my brother is gonna come along on his GSX1250F, we´ll both ride 1-up (..sorry, all “I”s in my post should have been “we”s!). Haven´t decided yet, if we´re gonna take camping gear or not.

For any advice regarding this plan, or westernmost part of Russia between Finland and Estonia in general, I thank you in advance! Pekka