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Man, they were everywhere. I have never seen so many cops in my entire life, most of whom seemed to be doing nothing of real significance aside from creating problems instead of solving them. Where pray tell might I be talking about? Well, I am talking about Russia and the former Soviet republics. You would think that with the number of police they have milling about in the cities and hiding behind buildings and bushes in the countryside in these countries that crime would be virtually nonexistent. Unfortunately, many of the cops are not there to protect and serve but instead are there to profit and make things unpleasant. You know something is not right when a traffic cop is driving a Benz to work from his mansion on the hill. 

I can’t say we weren’t prepared for a few encounters with cops on the take, but I definitely was not expecting to see as many as I did. Fortunately for us, we managed to make it through the minefield of questionable cops relatively unscathed. Overall, you can not really predict what types of cops you are going to encounter. Travel blogs are full of verbiage about "police on the prowl" and getting fleeced for simply having a pulse. Unfortunately very few sites offer any real information on what to expect and how much, probably because everyone has a different experience when driving through these areas.

The Uzbek cops were just waiting to see who showed up at the flash Toyotas parked in Samarkand

If there is one rule to abide by: play dumb and ask a lot of questions. Cops on the take don’t like to do a lot of paperwork, so the more documents you shove in their face and the more receipts you ask for, the more likely they are to get annoyed with you and move onto the next sucker. Simply saying no and goodbye repeatedly in the local language was enough of a Jedi mind trick to avoid some unanticipated ATM withdrawals. If anything, hold out for as long as possible… the more you waste their time, the more retirement fund contributors drive by. Who knows, maybe if enough people hold out, they will be forced into doing some actual police work. In places like Yosemite and Yellowstone, they have signs that read, "Don’t feed the bears." If the bears learn that people will feed them, the more they will want to interact with them… the more people feed the corrupt cops, the more they will want to interact with them.

"If you want to give me a ‘ticket,’ you’ll have to fill out a lot of paperwork."

In sum, the shadiest cops we encountered were in Kazakhstan and Azerbaijan. Fortunately, the dumbest cops we encountered were also in Kazakhstan and Azerbaijan, so we were able to wiggle our way out of virtually all shakedown attempts. By the time the cops tried to levy a bogus charge in order to leave Azerbaijan, we had become veterans of the game and they didn’t know what hit them. Uzbekistan took the cake for the number of checkpoints as we encountered an average of about four per day during the week and a half we were there. We did have some good experiences of note… the cops in Almaty, Kazakhstan were genuinely interested in helping us when we got robbed and in Uzbekistan, even though they have more cops that actual citizens, the police we encountered were all very friendly, especially when greeted with an "assalam alaikum" handshake.

We started keeping track of the number of times we got pulled over and the number of checkpoints we had to clear, but after the ink went dry in the pen, realized we would get writers cramp trying to document all of our encounters. In the end, we spent a little over a month in Russia and former Soviet republics. In that time, we got pulled or waved over approximately a dozen times, completely ignored at least four more, drove through about 25 checkpoints and managed to get through it all for only a little over $40, most of which came from my speeding ticket in the last 10 kilometers of Azerbaijan. The speeding ticket technically should not count since the guy did have a radar gun, although it probably hasn’t been recalibrated in quite a while. 

Over the course of our expedition, we have received a lot of advice from many different people. On top of getting information about the country we are in or about a country we are traveling to in the future from locals, ex-pats, aid organizations staff and government workers, there is a plethora of information available online. Driving around the world in the information age definitely has its advantages, however, it also brings with it the task of sorting through the available information to determine what is actually applicable to our expedition and more importantly, the degree of accuracy and truth that the information contains.

Unfortunately, it seems that a lot of information we come across about the countries we are traveling through is negatively slanted, usually consisting of the bad experiences people have had there. While we were in Mongolia, we  were passed along some information concerning passage through Siberia and the Altai region of Russia from some people who had talked with participants of the Mongol Rally. Since these guys had actually driven cars through this area, we were interested in learning what we might be able to expect down the road. The Mongol Rally guys for the most part did not have too many problems, but there were run-ins with corrupt border guards, police and the occasional mafia wannabe. This information, combined with that harvested from the net and from our guidebooks led us to believe that we were in fact entering an area where there were potential threats to our safety and to our wallets.

I was actually concerned to the point of seeking out an audience with the local security attache at the American Embassy. After talking with Embassy staff, I learned that there were "no specific threats or cause for alarm," but that I should remain vigilant. They also provided me with a pamphlet that included travel tips for U.S citizens in Russia. The pamphlet contained mostly general information that can basically apply anywhere you travel, but did contain a section about the possession of computer and electronic devices and bringing them with you into Russia. The importation, even if only temporary, of items such as cell phones, GPS units, radio electronic devices and other electronic equipment, according to the pamphlet, is subject to approval and certification from the Glavgossvyaznadzor (Main Inspectorate in Communications), a process which can take up to two weeks. Based upon our experience in simply getting a Russian visa, my head was instantly filled with thoughts of the possibility of dealing with another archaic, bureaucratic remnant of the former Soviet Union… especially considering we basically have  enough electronic equipment and accessories with us to stock a Radio Shack. Based on our schedule, we obviously did not have enough time to try and get everything checked out by the Gladiator office so we decided to play dumb, yet fully expected to spend a lengthy amount of time getting processed at the border as it took an average of about eight hours of waiting for the Mongol Rally guys to get in.

Helpful or helping to build the fear factor?

After arriving at the remote Russian border at Tashanta, we prepared for the worst. We did not know much about the border except that Ewan McGregor was one of the first foreigners to cross in 2004 on his Long Way Round journey and that the Russian Embassy said that it was open to foreigners even though other information we had obtained indicated otherwise. It actually took a while just to get out of Mongolia since they have a one car per hour policy at this border… we were number four in line. We did make it out of Mongolia in under three hours and once we had spanned the 24 kilometers of no man’s land between border checkpoints, we were greeted by a cheerful Russian border guard who could not have been a day older than 18. Given his enthusiasm and comments in broken English, we may have well been the only foreigners to cross here since Ewan. Further down the road at customs, we had to wait for lunch break to end, but once it did, we were in and getting processed in a very efficient manner. We did have to get our visas registered, buy insurance for the trucks and deal with customs declarations, but everything was official and there was not even the slightest inclination of getting screwed or potentially having to line anyone’s pockets.  The customs inspector, who also could not have been much older than 18, was so interested in our trucks that he only glanced inside on his search and was satisfied when we told him that we did not have any guns or marijuana with us. With that, we were off and driving legally in Russia in under 2 hours.

Playing the waiting game in Mongolia

The hassle-free Russian crossing also provided the first paved road we had seen in over a week

We did only spend four days in Russia, which may have limited our exposure to the undesirable elements that everyone seems so eager to write about and share, but we did not have any negative experiences whatsoever. I guess it is human nature to share negative experiences first and over time, no matter how isolated these events may be, they get embellished to the point where what once may have been practical information, now only serves to make you overly paranoid about benign encounters and situations. We did get stopped by the police a few times, once because our license plates were too dirty and the second time simply to satisfy the cop’s own curiosity about the trucks, but both times, the encounters ended with a firm handshake, a professional salute and a friendly "dasvidanya" from the officers. As for all of our electronic and communications equipment, well, the Embassy pamphlet was over two years old and the customs officials even told us to mark that category blank on the declaration form, so we made it in and out without any hassles and without having to dish out a single Ruble for anything we should not have.

Once in Russia, the only thing we really had to worry about was translating the road signs

A new friend that we met in Mongolia, Tom Claytor, passed on a saying from the Japanese poet Basho: learn the rules well and then forget them. This could not have been more applicable here… find out all you can about driving in and out of Russia and then forget about what you learned because your situation is probably going to be completely different. I have nothing but good things to say about our time in Russia/Siberia/Altai and it is definitely one of the top places on my list to come back to. Furthermore, I never wished that I was able to speak the local language more so than in Russia because countless people approached us either on foot or driving in traffic wanting to know more about what we were doing. If I had a Ruble for every gold-toothed grin we got from truck drivers, police officers and other curious Russians, I would not have even worried about getting shaken down any corrupt officials.

Hello everyone! I just wanted to post a quick update to let everyone know that we are all fine and well here at The World by Road. We have successfully made it across western Mongolia and have crossed the remote mountain-top border at Tashanta into Russia. It was one of the most exhausting weeks in my life. Driving over 1,600 kilometers across one of the most remote places on earth with hardly any roads to speak of can scare you a little bit, especially when you get lost… which seemed to happen at least once a day. It was really slow going as well. Try driving from Denver to California on rugged dirt roads at an average speed of 25 mph while constantly keeping your eyes on the compass to see if you are actually on a road or just a trail that leads to an abandoned ger (yurt).

We are now currently in the Russian Siberian city of Barnaul. It is actually really nice here and reminds me a lot of Colorado. We made a clean entry into Russia, although I can hardly say that about the Toyotas and ourselves. We got pulled over by a Russian cop because he could not see our license plates and the smell emerging out of the trucks and off of our bodies after 8 days in the middle of nowhere was enough to make the cute Russian girls at the hotel cringe. I am happy to say that we are now showered and are working on eliminating the smells inside of the Thundra and Little Pepe.

We are still on the move though and are leaving for the Kazakh border tomorrow morning. Once we get to Almaty, Kazakhstan on the 18th, we will have some time to update everybody on all of our adventures, encounters and future happenings. There is a lot to talk about.

Dasvidanya for now…

So, after a long and seemingly endless trail of crimson, soviet-style red tape, I finally got my visa for the Russian Federation. Sometimes, I question my own sanity when I wait weeks and cough up serious dollars to spend a very limited period of time in a county. In the case of Russia, getting a visa cost me personally nearly $300, countless trips to the Embassy here in Ulaanbaatar and a good amount of my time in order to spend less than a week on Russian soil. Many of the travel forums such as Boots N All, Lonely Planet’s Thorn Tree and even the LP Mongolia guidebook itself warn about the headaches involved in trying to obtain a Russian visa here in Ulaanbaatar, but given our route and timeframe, we did not really have much choice. Besides, the Russian Embassy in Beijing reportedly no longer issues visas to foreigners at that particular location and trying to obtain a visa before we entered China would have been pointless considering we did not really know when they were going to let us in. 

In order to try and avoid some of the headaches of the Russian visa process here in Mongolia, Steve and I applied online for a double entry business visa. The business visa would allow us some more flexibility in case we needed to change our route heading west towards Europe. Obtaining a Russian visa requires obtaining an invitation letter, but this is a formality and mostly just a scheme for people to make money… more on this later. Steve and I paid $90 a piece for the visa invitation letter which took about two weeks to process. The company told us ahead of time that some Russian Embassies and consulates only accept original copies of the invitation letter when processing a visa, but since we were on the move in China, we did not really have a place for the agency to send the originals. We asked if the agency could mail or fax the invitation letter directly to the embassy in Ulaanbaatar, but apparently, the embassy tends to loose such documents so they would not send them there.  As a result, we told the agency to send us electronic copies of the invitation letter and we would try our luck at the embassy… if that did not work, they could send the letters to our guesthouse.

We arrived in Ulaanbaatar and of course, the Russian Embassy did not accept copies, so we had to have the originals sent somewhere. Steve was heading to the states shortly to take care of some TWBR business and we determined that it was best for him to try and get his visa processed there. Steve spent another couple hundred bucks to get his visa rush processed in the US and has his visa in a few days. I on the other hand, was staying behind in Mongolia so had the letter sent to me. It cost $75 to ship the letter via UPS express service which I needed to do… 5 business days for the letter to arrive here and another 7 for the embassy to "rush" process the application - normal processing time at the embassy was 12-15 days. (By the way, the amount of time needed for the Russians to process a visa here is total b.s., because they typically do not perform any type of background checks on visa applicants and in our experience, processing can usually be completed next-day for a higher price. This was the case with China, and even here in Ulaanbataar, we obtained Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan visas in 24 hours without paying extra, but apparently no can do with the Russians.)

I waited for a weeks, however,  according to UPS parcel tracking, my invitation letter was somewhere in the Philippines and had been so for about 5 days. Maybe someone had dropped the letter and it got kicked under a desk, but whatever the case, it definitely was not here in Ulaanbaatar. Time was starting to become an issue so I was forced to abandon my quest for a business visa and instead start the process of obtaining a tourist visa.  The only place to get a tourist visa application and the required invitation letter in Ulaanbaatar is a place called Legend Tour. I had read a few threads on forums about the hassle involved with going through Legend Tour, but everyone here in town said it was a piece of cake and that Tatiana is very helpful.

The process of obtaining a visa at Legend Tour was pretty straight forward: pay $120, copy the application form they provide substituting your personal information when necessary and come back in 9 days. If everything had worked out with the business visa, it would have cost me $120 to get the actual visa at the embassy anyway, so I wasn’t too bummed about having to fork over another $120 and Tatiana was indeed very nice.

Well, I am happy to say that today, on the 9th day, I got my tourist visa for the Russian Federation as promised. As for my business visa application letter, UPS still indicates it being in the Philippines nearly two weeks after it shipped via express service from Moscow. I contacted the company who issued the letter about my lack thereof and they said they would look into it… that was five days ago and I do not really expect to hear back from them nor receive any sort of refund.

My Passport is starting to fill up at the expense of my sanity

In the end, I probably should have just paid for a tourist visa here in Mongolia and saved myself $165. However, after finding out a little more about the Russian visa process here in Mongolia, I learned that it can change at a moments notice and is far from reliable. Rumor has it that amidst budget problems back home in mother Russia, the Foreign Ministry stopped or reduced the pay embassy staff in Mongolia and other countries received for processing visas. Because they were not getting paid, staff turned visa applicants to tour companies like Legend who in many cases charge 2-3 times the "normal" price of the visa, but the cost is really for the letter. After issuing a visa invitation letter, the tour company would then send the applications back to the embassy along with a chunk of the fee they had collected in effect, covering the diminished portion of the embassy worker’s paycheck. Depending on how things are going, the tour company’s fee and the cut sent to the embassy can fluctuate quite a bit, so the cost of a letter/visa one day is not necessarily the same the next. Rumor also has it that many of these tour company operators are somehow "connected" to embassy staff or diplomats. Many people here in town frequently speculate about just what type of connections Tatiana has. Thankfully for me, I seem to have come on a good day.

Situations such as this  that make you take a step back as say wow… if this is what it is like dealing with Russian officials on the outside, maybe all of the rumors of corrupt cops, disgruntled border guards, curious ex-KGB mafia thugs and general disorganization are true. At any rate, with my Russian visa in hand, I guess I will all find out about that other stuff in a weeks time.