Murmansk Winter Expedition: Day #17 – Return across the Russian-Latvian border

We expected that the return crossing of the Russian-Latvian border would be unproblematic.

At the beginning we mistook the queues – somehow we didn’t think that since entering Russia by car meant importing the vehicle, the same trip will be an export, and we happily set ourselves at the gate “nothing to customs”. So remember: return by car from Russia – line up with the export queue.

In the queue we got a very important card on which we had to collect a set of stamps and entries – something like a loyalty card in a café:

At the beginning, a nice Russian officer chatted with us in Polish (!). He took registration receipts from us (this is information for those who doubt whether these papers are needed). Later he asked about our impressions from Russia, next, we talked about the superiority of Russian vodka over Polish vodka. Basically, one could not complain about the phase of leaving the Russian Federation.

Entry into the European Union was not so easy-peasy.

We were thoroughly checked, the Latvian officer looked into every nook and cranny of the car.

Under the hood, in place of the spare wheel, we had a surprise in the form of bags with dirty stinking clothes, which were also dug up in search of contraband. But stil,l no contraband was found because it just wasn’t there 🙂

It was not cordial and pleasant, but in the end we managed to and we only had to go through Latvia and Lithuania to Poland.