Best Route to Moscow from UK and down to Cyprus anyone?

[BigonaBianchi]

It's a little plan I have for a year or so time....but it has to start with the route. I know it will be France, Belgium, Holland, Germany, Poland, Latvia, Then down to Georgia, Turkey and over to Cyprus.

I know I will need visas...and if there is a well pedalled route then I may just follow it...at least as far as Moscow.

I'm kind of keen to avoid making the same mistakes Napoleon and Hitler made regarding the weather situation as well....so I may need a warmer sleep bag and better tent etc?

So Im just fishing for tips, experiences, suggestions, and see where it takes me...so any comments appreciated.

Ta

 

[SatNavSaysStraightOn]

Poland to Latvoa won't work... you need to go via Lithuania first if you plan to cycle all the way - or you could consider Belarus & then into Lithuania if you really want to go to Lithuania. We enjoyed Belarus for the few days we were there, but the visas are comparitavely expensive. We had planned much longer in Belarus, but a foot injury meant we had to hold up in the spa town of Druskininkai, Lithuania (great fun if you like things like Go Ape but much bigger and much cheaper and so much more fun & no issues with H&S - all exceptionally good but they let you get on with enjoying yourself...and they were not bothered about how long we stayed on the course (was meant to be 2 hours...)).

The visa for Russia must be obtained before leaving the UK and you can't obtain it more than 6 months in advance, at least could not when we were looking into it and we had been on the road for much longer than that, so had to change our plans.

The only other thing you will need to be careful about are crossing points in and out of Europe. So Lithuania to Belarus, Belarus to Poland were both issues and we had to cycle through major crossing points - big roads and the Polish side was not so nice because of the traffic. This is a passport issue. The minor crossing points are for local countries only so if you don't hold a Lithuanian or Belrussian passport for Lithuania-Belarus, don't try a minor road crossing point - you get turned away as we found out!

Useful website for visas is http://www.visahq.co.uk/visas.php


As for a well pedalled route - eurovelo 2. Galway to Moscow, via London

 

[BigonaBianchi]

That's very helpful..thanks!

I did some poking around on the euro velo 2 route. I need to find a lower level (more detailed ) map/gpx files...or I guess I have time to build my own based loosely on the euro velo high level map above.
I see from the vias site that 30 days in Russia is the naximum (or did I miss something?) 30 days may be a bit of a push to get to Moscow then down and out via turkey...hmmmm.

What were the roads like surface wise generally? I'm thinking of using my Dawes galaxy with schwalbe marathon 28's fitted...they were perfect across America, are the Russian roads good, or just rough dirt tracks?

Interesting point about passports at smaller crossings...weird...but hey ho...erm..so what qualifies as a minor and major crossing point? ...Minor roads no go..major roads ok??

 

[SatNavSaysStraightOn]

Belarus (not Russia) has a good road network because of the olympics back in 1980 I think it was. Russia - don't know for definite but I do know they have a lot of dirt tracks which can be hard going (think they are the 'black' roads - the equiv of our white unclassified roads on maps - we could not get a russian visa having been out of the UK for more than 6 months - we would have had to send our passports back to London for the visa and that was not what we wanted to do, so we didn't go Finland, Russia, Estonia, we took a ferry from Finland to Estonia instead). Belarus on the other hand had fantastic roads which were pretty desserted of traffic by our standards. This was the M6 near to the Polish border in Belarus. Occasionally we had cobbles in towns, but more often it was wide open roads with little to no traffic except in bigger towns.

Visa wise, you would need a Belarussian visa for Belarus (max 31 days where we purchased ours in Lithuania), then a Russian visa (max 31 days for private individual but there are ways around this) and you could then leave via the Ukraine just over 1200km - so few issues with a 31 day visa I would have thought, but not great admittedly. depends largely on why you want to go to Moscow.

 

[Mad Doug Biker]

I have always had a vague idea of cycling across Russia, but this talk of 31 day visas doesn't sound good. How can you go about getting longer ones as you mention?

 

[SatNavSaysStraightOn]

hummm usually the trick is to set up a small business, and obtain a business visa by complying with as few of the regs on business visas as possible - that gives you 90 days I think. Register when you get into the country - just the once and you are fine - this is basically a recongised hotel stay where the hotel register you... they don't like doing it, but have to if you insist. you can try registering yourself but it can be very problematic. We used hotels for the countries we needed a registration stamp for (Belarus and a couple of ex-soviet states we cycled through.)

Another option is to 'pay' someone to be your friend and sponsor your 90 days in russia....
There are companies such as stantours who do this for you. We used then for the obtaining our stans visas and an iranian company for the iranian visa (though in the end were never able to use the visas).

Luke Perry-Gore on CBOAB is currently cycling through Siberia and went down the business visa route. He has 90 days.

 

[Mad Doug Biker]

hummm usually the trick is to set up a small business, and obtain a business visa by complying with as few of the regs on business visas as possible - that gives you 90 days I think. Register when you get into the country - just the once and you are fine - this is basically a recongised hotel stay where the hotel register you... they don't like doing it, but have to if you insist. you can try registering yourself but it can be very problematic. We used hotels for the countries we needed a registration stamp for (Belarus and a couple of ex-soviet states we cycled through.)

Another option is to 'pay' someone to be your friend and sponsor your 90 days in russia....
There are companies such as stantours who do this for you. We used then for the obtaining our stans visas and an iranian company for the iranian visa (though in the end were never able to use the visas).

Luke Perry-Gore on CBOAB is currently cycling through Siberia and went down the business visa route. He has 90 days.

Thanks, it looks like its bad enough on a motorcycle never mind a bike!

 

[SatNavSaysStraightOn]

Thanks, it looks like its bad enough on a motorcycle never mind a bike!

yep and he is on a bike! would love to do it myself but suspect my health is not up to it really!
still I can dream and follow his journal. maybe when I am a touch better.

 

[Mad Doug Biker]

Yes I've just read through it all, my my, what a challenge, but it is certainly something I'd like to try too!
I sometimes volounteer for a children's charity (Clic Sargent), and a few years back, one of the member of staff had cycled across part of Russia for the charity. He isn't there any more, but I'd love to know what his route was now and all the other related details. I do remember him saying exactly as in the blog though that the people were fantastic.

I think that had subconsciously planted a seed in me as I want to do the same now!

Some of the other members of staff thought he was absolutely bonkers by the way, which I think makes me over more determined to do it too!!

 

[BigonaBianchi]

thanks...

so just suppose I took more than 30 days to get in across and out of Russia...they gonna shoot me?

 

[SatNavSaysStraightOn]

thanks...

so just suppose I took more than 30 days to get in across and out of Russia...they gonna shoot me?

deport you, fine you, confiscate your belongings and ban you from the country permanently? I guess they could lock you up as well if you don't pay the fine at the border. but more usually as I understand things, you get sent back into the country to obtain another visa from the capital or local administration city wracking up more time in the country and more costs.... just best not going "there" ("there" being over the visa limit that is) really.

 

[BigonaBianchi]

Hmm think I'll pedal faster.

 

[sabian92]

Keep in mind it took Ewan and Charley 12 weeks to go London to Vladivostok on BMW GS1200s on long way round, so even 3 months to cross Russia on a bicycle could be bloody tough going.

 

[SatNavSaysStraightOn]

Keep in mind it took Ewan and Charley 12 weeks to go London to Vladivostok on BMW GS1200s on long way round, so even 3 months to cross Russia on a bicycle could be bloody tough going.

I can't remember the 3 who did, but it took them 12 months IIRC. there is a book on it, they went east to west on mountain bikes... shall go and see if I can find the title of the book, but it was a couple of years ago since I read in and I have had a 12 month tour since then...

 

[BigonaBianchi]

not thinking of crossing Russia...just ride to Moscow...then maybe, and its a big maybe, turn south towards turkey..