Day 18 - into Finland

I've made it. I've driven from one side of Russia to the other.

I set off early. Not particularly because I wanted to but someone else in the motel got up and their noise woke me. Once awake I knew I wouldn't get back to sleep. So I hit the road. It was fairly quiet but with a lot of trucks, particularly car carriers, heading both ways. I was stopped by the police almost immediately but he could barely be bothered to read the documents.

The road was much better than that I had come up the night before. Good surface, few towns and few traffic lights. I made good time and by about noon I was on the outskirts of St Petersburg. The ring road around the city is everything the one around Moscow isn't. Its well designed and well engineered. There was the typical jam at the exit ramp. One lane with two lanes of cars going up. These then force their way into the stream of traffic.

When I had changed plans and decided to go to Helsinki instead of Moscow, I realised that I would need my car registration document. Unfortunately, this is most likely in the scanner. Fortunately though, I had emailed the scan to Yuri and he was kind enough to forward it back to me. I pulled off the main road to search for an ATM and someone who could print out the form. I tried 5 ATM's but none could give me any money. I did have success with printing the form though.

I continued on to the Russian border check point. There must have been five people who had to see my passport and for some reason they didn't seem too happy about the documents for the car. It probably took about half an hour for them to stamp my car document, my passport and inspect the car. I stopped at the duty free shop but they didn't have an ATM and i only had 250 Roubles left.  Sorry Timo, no duty free scotch for you.  Then it was drive about 1km down the road to the Finnish border point. Here they deal with batches of about 6 cars at once. First you cue behind traffic lights, then when they go green you drive forward to the inspection point. You get out and go inside the passport control building. They also wanted my car registration. I'm so glad I remembered that I would need it. They were not happy that it was only a copy but it has all the details on it and I think the fact that the Russians had let me drive from Vladivostok to Finland with it persuaded them. I was expecting to need a temporary import permit and insurance but there was no offer of either so I drove on.

The change from Russia was instant. The buildings were tidier and in good repair. The fields were small and the roads well marked. All the signs are in English or at least use the English alphabet. Finland looks absolutely beautiful. I can see why people come to holiday here. There isn't even a sense that the drivers want to kill you.