Not from Russia with love

 Today started at 7:00am with Tony waking me up with his wide-awake voice:

“Trace.”

“Tracey.”

“Tracey.”

“I’m going to turn the lights on. That’ll get you up.”

We’ve discovered Tony is a morning person. A morning person, but also a night owl. I am neither, love my sleep and don’t like being woken up. Not with my name. Not with not my name. And not with lights. But when Tony told me to “f%^$”ing get up!” I gathered that my desire for slumber was beginning to grate on him a little so figured I’d move. It’ll be interesting to see how this develops, won’t it?! :-D

After a hot, high-pressured shower, we grabbed a hotel full English breakfast with frankfurters and other sausages of this ilk and hit the road (jack).

Naturally, I’ve learned a lot about Tony on this trip so far. Here are a few highlights:

• he doesn’t like hotel remote controls (“why is it that, no matter which hotel you go to, the batteries in it never bloody work?”)
• there are three important elements to a shower for this man: pressure, temperature and shower head circumference (I didn’t even think this could be a consideration!)
• he thinks that the man who invented the hand dryer should be forced to use all the shabby ones you get for the rest of his life (fear not; I did float the idea with Tone that it may have been a woman who invented them – he stands by the ethos)
• he’s a big fan of Sheila East (or Sheena Easton)
• he’s as a cool as a coconut (they’re very cool, for those wondering)
• he’s not scared of running into a little bit of trouble with the law.

Today was going to be a great day. Today we would get into Russia. Even if it kills us (OK, OK – not if it kills us, you anxious lot!). We planned to get in through the Lithuanian border and so we needed to cross Latvia. We aimed, first off, for Latvia’s capital, Riga.

On our way, we drove past the (mostly yellow) steep-roofed houses of Latvia and watched as the amount of snow atop them reduced the more south we ventured. We arrived in Riga about 11:30am and were greeted by an abundance of Ukrainian flags. I’m not sure if it’s because we were in a capital, rather than a small town, but the support for Ukraine was definitely the most we’ve seen in our travels so far (there was a small demonstration in Estonia when we stopped for wifi last night but it was a lot more light touch than the flags on show here).

We have a small Ukrainian flag on the dash, alongside the British flag (and we can strip it to the Russian flag in a tic by removing the vinyl on it – what a joker is that Tony!).

The buildings in Riga were different from the ever increasingly knackered isolated wooden huts we’d passed through in the Latvian countryside; the provincial buildings were much more reminiscent of the Soviet era. There was a notable lack of care/maintenance to the buildings (at least so it seemed) and it gave them a nice rustic feel. We grabbed a coffee and an éclair in a large square by the town’s Cathedral and got back on the road towards the Latvian/Lithuanian border.

It was easy as pie to cross the “border”: no fence; no line; no nothing. Just a few border/customs cars. By this point, the snow on the ground had all but disappeared, the number of tin roofs we saw became more plentiful, and the buildings were often than not dilapidated. The pampas grass that fringed the roadsides was gradually replaced with mud, some hints of green and, overall, generally pretty barren-looking terrain.

We drove further south towards the Lithuanian town of Siauliai and followed the ring-road diversion around the town centre. This allowed us to get a glimpse of the suburbs just out from the centre of town; several identical high rise orange and grey buildings. I felt a bit sad thinking about the monotony of what’s on view and certainly felt grateful to have such variety in buildings back at home.

We continued south towards the Russian exclave of Kaliningrad. We held high hopes to be admitted and I read out all of the interesting history around how it broke free from Prussia to Tony (who was very glad to hear so much of my voice! 😉). We realised, en route, that our PCR fit to fly certificates weren’t valid anymore. We crossed our fingers and continued on our way, watching the houses get more and more grand as we approached the border. *ahem* oligarch central *ahem*

Long story short (***SPOILER ALERT***): we didn’t get in.

We were quizzed at the Lithuanian exit point (the officials thought we were quite bizarre wanting to enter Russia for “holiday”) but admitted us upon such pleading looks from us Brits. We crossed over the bridge to Russian soil and were quizzed even harder at the entry point there. The gated entrance to Russian land was pretty impressive (almost menacing looking!) and we were asked to pull over to the side and present ourselves to the office. Thankfully, my “very good” Russian softened the officials, and the sniffer dog, alas the lovely lad’s commander in chief refused us entry. He read out the decree of I can’t remember what and when – basically, an invitation and tourist visa isn’t enough post-Covid and we needed a relative/substantiated reason to enter.

Accompanied by David on our way into Russia

View from inside the Russian border looking back at the gate

Beyond the barriers is Russia...! :'-(

Back out we went only to wait in no man's land for about an hour. Then the Lithuanian officials seemed pretty reluctant to let us back in and I started to ask Tony about what would happen if we were stuck (it started to feel like an imminent reality!).

Once finally back in Lithuania, we headed southeast towards the Polish border and have pushed on into the night, getting some miles below our belts. It's been a quiet journey; Tony and I have felt a bit gutted/depleted/disappointed.

Tonight's hotel was going to be a nice suite in the Russia Hotel of Sovetsk in Kaliningrad. Instead it will be the Transit Premier Suite at the Special K trucker stop somewhere between Marijampole in Lithuania and Poland!

Time for Plan B, Phase iii...!