Estonia Travel Forum

Hello all. At the end of spril we are visiting Estonia for 10 days. We stay in Tallinn and have rented a car. We wanna see as much as possible. One of the things that we would like to do is to travel one day to Russia by rented car. Can anyone tell if its possible and what problems at customs we have to solve. We are from the Netherlands.

Thanks in advance,

Ron

Hi!

I recomend to go to the East from Tallinn - to visit town of Johvi, Toila sea resort, Ontika waterfall, next Narva city on Russian border. From there you can easily travel to Sankt Petersburg in Russia.

First, you have to get a visa. There's an example of visa application form I found on Russian Embassy's web site. http://www.rusemb.ee/files/consular/visas/LAT_Vizovaya_anketa_form.pdf
As you're from a Schengen country, the conditions should be similar.
You can spend hours on the border crossing point in Narva, it's really up to Russian border guards. They might pick on you with no reason. Sometimes they get orders from their government, so delays on border are purely political, on other occasions they're just lazy and don't bother letting you through. It's just so different from what we're used to in the EU. Last year there were occasions when lorries had to wait over a WEEK in Narva to cross the border. Cars got through faster, of course, but you still never now what you can come across to.
As I understand, you want to go to Russia for only one day? If you want to go to St Petersburg, I'd recommend you to take the Eurolines bus, departing from Tallinn 6 am and arriving 13.00. They have a new comfortable Scania Irizar PB bus running between Tallinn and St Petersburg. I think Eurolines deal with visa issues, too. Probably one day isn't enough for St Petersburg, so maybe you want to spend a night there. The same bus is coming back 18.00. It's also possible to catch the bus departing on midnight and arriving to Tallinn in the morning, but older buses are used on this line. Anyway, check it out yourself on
http://www.eurolines.ee/?id=1247&lang=en
I personally would leave Russia out of my travel plans. Why not visit Helsinki by only 2-hour ferry trip from Tallinn without any border formalities, or Riga in 5 hours driving distance?

You can't drive a rented car into Russia. I didn't quite understand if you want to go to Russia for one day, or travel ONE of the days? If you really want to incorporate it into your travel plans and involve a rental car, I would park the car in Narva and take a bus. What part of Russia did you want to visit? If it is St.P, then you could take the convenient train when you arrive in Estonia, and leave the renting of the car til you get back. Like TT said, you could be hours at the border. If you are planning on staying only the day, the border guards will think it very suspicious, and at the very least think you are mad. Unless Russia is your primary reason for visiting then I don't think there is any point. Your visas would cost around 45 euro, and you have to register within 3 days (perhaps in your case that day) in order to receive a document that needs to checked at customs on your departure from Russia.

Thanks for the really perfect help. I will skipp the idea to visit Russia. We might consider Helsinki. I bet there are so many nice things to see i Estonia that it would be a shame if we do not see all. I thank you all very much for the perfect week. In a little more then a week we fly to Estonia

If you want to experience some Russian culture, you could visit Narva, or along the coast of Peipsi and check out the Old Believers villages, the Russian Orthodox nunnery in Kuremae, or Paldiski for a bit of military history. But Estonia has lots to offer anyway for 10 days.

I wanna thank you all for the great advices. We are a week back from Estonia. We had a very nice time. We used a lot of your advices. We stayed all the days in Estonia. Travelled around so much and have seen many very nice things. Thank you for all the usefull advices. Ron