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Old 11-22-2008, 08:02 AM
BlueGerbil BlueGerbil is offline
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Join Date: Feb 2008
Location: Germany
Posts: 89
November 11-13, 2008: Minsk - Belarus/Russian border - Moscow

Border crossing asleep

We had a welcoming start on Tuesday: still feeling the long-lasting border crossing Poland/Belarus, we were all happy to stay the night in Minsk directly in the hotel of the IBB where the press conference took place as well. The employees of the German Embassy and the IBB-Team prepared and oversaw the press conference which proceeded with a simultaneous translator in a well stocked conference hall. The interest of the Belarus media and others was huge and the news propagation was accordingly fast: Already on our way to the Russian border we met a gas station attendant who has just seen a report about us on TV and she was very happy to have us as customers on her gas station.

After the press conference, Matthias had a discussion about renewable energies with the deputy minister for the environment and his employees. The Department of the Environment spontaneously invited other press representatives to our visit at the National Library. At this event Matthias was able to exchange experiences with another expedition leader: Vladimir Drabo, an expedition-commander from Minsk, who already tried to cross the Bering Strait for four times. He hurried to the National Library to meet Matthias and Evgeny in person, gave our two drivers each a book about his expedition and spontaneously invited Matthias to accomplish an expedition with him ? to cross the South Pole. Was this meeting of the two expedition leaders the beginning of a new big project?

In the afternoon, we had an individual guided tour at the National Library of Belarus, which is a monument of symbolism: The fascinating diamond shaped building is a symbol for the extreme value of knowledge. At the very end of the visitation we found ourself again at the highest point in Belarus, the 74 meters high roof-deck of the impressive library. Enthused by the successful devolution of the day, the interesting conversations and contacts and the wonderful visitation program, we continued our way in the evening towards the Belarus border that we reached at midnight.

After a short sleeping break we learned, that the Carnets ATA can not be executed till the next morning at 9.00 a.m., so we kept sleeping but forgot to put our watches one hour forward to match them with the Russian time change. We eventually woke up thanks to the knocking of a customs officer at the pane of F1. He took our customs forms to work on them - ?sometimes customs clearance runs asleep? is what we thought at that time, being surprised in a positive way. Shortly after that, we got escorted to the main customs office in Smolensk which was about 80 kilometres away. We got the instruction to stop our vehicles in a fenced plot in the courtyard, to lock the Jeeps and to leave this area of the customs property promptly. Behind our backs, the door of the big wire fence snapped in. The vehicles have been secured by Russian customs. Now, at the latest, we knew that this border business would not be an easy matter as well.

Matthias? first negotiation result was not really enjoyable: They denied us to enter the country. With intensive support from the German embassy, intervention on highest level and complaisant customs officers, we were able to turn our bad starting position into a border crossing. Even the waiting time for the team and Matthias? exhausting negotiations made the last two border crossings a stressful matter. At a glimpse: 80 hours, two borders, 30 hours of waiting time. Luckily the expedition?s time schedule has enough planned time buffer for occasions like this!
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