Vlad customs: what can we take in our shipping container?

[robbie.gray]

Gidday everyone,

We're planning to head from Vladivostok to London in April, which means we're needing to ship our bikes from New Zealand in about a month's time. We've recently heard a couple of bits of info that we hadn't heard before that got us a bit worried:

1. We've been told we might need to get permission from Moscow for our bikes to enter Russia? And that this would need to be done BEFORE the container left New Zealand?

2. We've also been told we might not be able to take anything else at all on our container. We were hoping to pack our riding gear, spares and possibly our tents etc into our crates as well, but were warned this could result in everything being denied entry.

Has anyone had recent experience with shipping bikes etc into Vlad? Did you bring anything else with you? What documentation did you need? What permissions did you have to get?

Cheers heaps, fellas!

We've made contact with this guy Yuri in Vlad that someone recommended in a previous post re customs brokers. Does anyone else have other recommendations for who we could use to clear our bikes through customs?

Thanks - we appreciate the advice!!

Rob

51st Traverse

[farqhuar]

Robbie, I don't know if this helps, but I also heard horror stories about shipping direct to Vladivostok. To get around this I shipped from Oz to Busan, rode up the Korean Peninsula and then took the ferry from Sokcho to Zarubino (just South of Vladivostok).

Getting the bike into Korea was a breeze - took around 1/2 an hour for celarance, and getting the bike (with all my luggage including riding gear, camping eqpt and spares) into Russia took around 1/2 a day.

Yes, there is an additional cost because you have to pay for insurance for Korea and for the ferry journey, but costs addd up very quickly in Vladivostok - allow yourself $100-150 per day for on ground expenses, and I have heard of people waiting up to 2 weeks to get clearance.

[ilesmark]

G'day Robbie

I shipped my Landcruiser into Vlad in April 2008. There was no requirement to seek advance permission from Moscow or anywhere else to import a vehicle, beyond a description of your trip on the visa application. There was also no hassle in importing other things apart from the car itself (but these things were inside the car).

2 things to bear in mind though - make damn sure the engine and chassis numbers are on the Bill Of Lading and (assuming you're flying into Vladivostok Airport) declare the other things on arrival there, before you go into town and visit the port. my website explains more - overlandcruiser.net

As for people to help you - there are quite a few Vladivostok bikers on this forum, so you should be OK. Alexei (Shustrik), Grandy and Fridrih are 3 I got to know quite well.

Have fun!

Mark

[Chris D (Newcastle NSW)]

Hi,

We chose to enter Russia via Zarabino via Dung Chun Ferry out of S Korea. Based on others experiences in Vlad we chose to take the easy option, we still took all day to clear Russian Customs but better than a week in Vlad as we have heard from others.

Here is a ref to out blog for you:
My Blog - Member - Chris D (Newcastle) @ ExplorOz

Chris

[Henn]

We spent a couple of weeks in Vlad getting our bikes off the docks in mid-2008. We had lots of other gear in there, and after customs inspected the container we got a full list of absolutely everything we'd packed. They would have been happier if it was just 4 motorbikes, but we got all our stuff.

Ben