Transit with bicycles through Russia from Georgia to Kazakhstan

[iavhb6pu]

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We are a French couple travelling by bicycle. End of February 2024, we crossed Russia in six days after leaving Gudauri in Georgia. We chose this option to go to Central Asia as Azerbaïdjan ground borders remain closed and we really want to avoid the plane. The other way would be to go through Iran-Turkmenistan, but we read that crossing Turkmenistan was only with a guide (though apparently a Belgian cyclist has recently done it without a guide)
We’ll shortly summary how we got our transit visa and the main steps of our journey, which was a mix of bicycle, bus and train.

1) Transit visa in Yerevan
• The type of visa :
We hesitated between a tourist visa (can go until 90 days with multiple entries), and a transit visa (maximum 10 days, single entry).
Be careful ! A good option for crossing Russia is now the e-visa application (15 days, single entry, possible online), but it’s not possible to cross all the borders with this e-visa. For example, no Kazakhstan border accepts the e-visa. The list is here : https://evisa.kdmid.ru/ and a map made by an agency here. This might change.
Tourist visa pros (+) and contras (-) :
(+)
- We plan to come back to Russia on our way back to France so the tourist visa could have avoided us to do a new visa request
- avoids the stress of a short-term period of travelling.
(-)
- more expensive (because of the price of the visa, depending on the duration and number of entries, but anyway more than the transit visa + the price of the agency to get an invitation letter)
- takes more time to get
- you need to send your passports back to you home country (though we read that French people manage to get it from Russian embassy in Yerevan)
- we also read that at the Kazakh border the controls can be more complicated with a tourist visa (but still ok in the end)
Conclusion : we decided to ask for a transit visa.

• Why Yerevan ?
The transit visa is also delivered in Tbilissi but for a maximum of 3 days. To be more “flexible” and because it was an opportunity to visit Armenia, we decided to do the application in the Russian embassy in Yerevan, where the transit visa go until 10 days. If you still want to do it in Tbilissi, there are a lot of useful details in this document written by two French travelers : https://docs.google.com/document/d/1B-3 ... G1maI/edit

• The protocol to get the transit visa :
We were really helped by this post on the forum where you can find everything needed : viewtopic.php?f=3&t=870&start=10
We added some details on this thread in our February 8th post (especially that the price has doubled in 2024).

2) The journey through Russia
For the visa application, we asked for 6 days with the following steps we booked and printed (prices are per person) :
21/02 – Bus from Yerevan to Vladikavkaz (20k DRAM = 46€, company avazar-bus.am found on https://www.rome2rio.com/map/Yerevan/Vl ... #r/Bus/s/0, only whatsapp reservation)
We booked 2 nights in Rok hostel (fully refundable on zenhotels.com) in Vladikavkaz.
23/02 – Bus from Vladikavkaz to Astrakhan (25€, on tutu.ru, possible to pay with French bank card, refundable except for around 10%)
We booked two nights in Gagarin hotel (booked but not payed, on zenhotels.com)
25/02 – Train from Astrakhan to Atyrau (class “coupe” for 43€ on tickets.kz)

But for different reasons, our final journey was this one :
21/02 – Cycle from Stephantsminda to Sunzha (50km north of Vladikavkaz) where we slept in an hotel
22/02 – Cycle from Sunzha to Grozny
22/02 – Night bus from Grozny to Astrakhan (booked in train station, 1500 rub = 15€). Two nights by a warmshower host
25/02 – Train from Astrakhan to Atyrau (same as booked for visa application)

• First, we preferred not to take the bus from Yerevan because our bicycles were in Gudauri, a ski resort in Georgia 40km from the border with Russia. So we cancel the bus ticket (booked via whatsapp without payment) and did the first part by bicycle.
• Second, when we arrived in Vladikavkaz, we went directly to the bus station to see how was the situation regarding the bicycles. The bus station is very centralized, so everybody buys ticket at a central office (like a train station actually). The woman at the office was really clear about the bicycles : no way to put them in a bus from Vladikavkaz. She sent us to Grozny because there, there was supposed to be a bigger bus.
For those in a rush, we tried to ask for taxi drivers the prices to go to Astrakhan. None of the 4 taxi drivers present in front of the train station accepted to go to to Astrakhan but one taxi driver offered us to go to Grozny for 4000 roubles (40€). A large taxi to Grozny should not exceed 2500 roubles according to some passerby who helped us.
As we had time, we decided to cycle to Grozny (110km from Vladikavkaz). The E50 = P-217 road (see on OpenStreetMap data) was too big and dangerous so we fell back on the norther parallel road (at some point named 26K-001) which was both safer and nicer, crossing villages where people offered drinks and accomodation.
• From Grozny, we considered two options : there is a train every 4 days that leaves at 6 am. In the train station, they told us it was ok with packed bicycles. We took the other option, the bus. It leaves every 2 days from Западный автовокзал bus station (https://osmand.net/map?pin=43.28991,45. ... 1/45.68277), at 8 pm. The bus was a marchroutka, so not so big. We had to dismantle the bicycles, put everything in plastic bags we had bought before and pay 2000 roubles to the driver (we negotiated from 3000 roubles but you may get a lower price maybe). The driver was already present at 7pm and it was useful being there in advance to fit all bicycles pieces inside.
• We arrived at 4am in Astrakhan, not the best to reconstruct the bicycles, but if needed, the stop is close to the train station which is open 24/24 and safe (and warm!). We went there. To avoid a thorough examination of our panniers, we let the bicycle outside. It could have been possible to change our train tickets and leave with the train of the day (this train goes every two days) but we had to pay extra so we decided to stick to our first booking.
• The train to Atyrau was very fine. We had to dismantle the bicycles again (just the wheels) and put everything in plastic bags. The ticket inspector was helpful. On arrival though, he asked for money. We gave him 500 roubles (5€) and he seemed satisfied.


Apart from bicycles, how did it go ?
• Everybody was really nice on the way, especially in Ingouchie everybody tried to help or offered us food and gifts.
• Borders and checkpoints : at the georgian borders they were curious but mostly amused and nice. You pass checkpoints between each province where they can stop you. We were not stopped at the first one with the bicycles but at the second one (Ingouchie-Cecen), we had more questions - nothing terrible. The border with Kazakhstan was the most “impressive”, we were in the night train then. The Russian border guards came in our cabin and asked a lot of questions. They took our phones to see photos and also registered the IMEI (unique ID of the phone you can get dialing *#06#). But in the end it was ok. Then, Kazakh customs controls came a few hours later and ask to open all our bags…
• Good to know, they will often ask “Kuda… ?” which means “where… ?” to ask you either “where do you come from ?” or “where do you go ?”. Easy to answer and often it makes them happy. But we also followed a good advice : we printed a map of our itinerary and a short description in Russian (DeepL translation), it was really helpful for the interactions !
• Yandex : for transportation, hotels and restaurant, we advise you to use the Russian app “Yandex maps” or use the web version if you don’t want to install a Russian app. Yandex was often more complete and up-to-date than OpenStreetMap and Google Maps.
• Money : It may be obvious but European cards don’t work in Russia, so we had to enter the country with a certain amount of money. We changed GEL against RUB in Tbilissi where the rate is better than on the border. We resorted to an exchange nearby the Didube but those agencies nearby the bus station may not have the best rates of the city.

[Ulysses]

Hi. We're heading that way soon. I am just wondering what nationality you have. We're from UK and I am wondering if you have any feedback on Russian proples attitudes towards the UK currently? Cheers, Ulysses.

[iavhb6pu]

Hi Ulysses ! I edited the post to add this important information we forgot, thanks. We are French and I don't think you would face a different attitude as English travelers. People were very welcoming and friendly, nobody talked about politics or the current war.

[Tizman]

Hi everyone,
I'm Quentin and with my girlfriend Lucile we are also travelling from France to Japan with trains to Kungrad, Uzbekistan, and then with bicycle from Kungrad to Japan.
We crossed Russia from Tbilissi, Georgia, to Atyrau, KAZAKHSTAN.
We took the exactly same path than Claire-Lise and Samuel (we by thé way met them in Kungrad few days After).

One thing changed in our experience. The driver accepted to take our half disassembled bikes in the "marschrutka", mini-bus from Vladikavkaz to Astrakhan. He put our bikes on the 4 seats at the back of the bus. We paid 6000 roubles for that, the price of the 4 back seats.

We had a 3 day transit visa made in Tbilissi so we might could not have done same as Claire-Lise and Samuel withtheir 6 day transit visa if he refused.

Also, the border crossing from Tbilissi to Vladikavkaz went very smooth, no questions, no luggage control, in 30 minutes we crossed.

Same from Russia to Kazakhstan, the bordercross went smoothly.

I hope it will go as fine as it went for us for other cyclists travellers that don't want to take plane for obvious ecological reasons.

Don't hesitate to ask questions.

[sinclairsin]

This is interesting. My experience with getting a visa in USA for my upcoming summer travel from Georgia - Russia - Kazakhstan was very different, in that the NYC consulate refused to offer a transit visa for my car travel, even though it was single entry for less than 10 days. I had to apply for a tourist visa.

The agent also did not recommend driving through the regions you went through, Grozny, and instead recommended to go through Sochi and cross more northern to Kazakhstan. it seems you felt safe the entire way? Any thoughts?

[Tizman]

I can speak for ourselves and for the period we took this path (February 2024) ; we felt very safe and russians were hostful not talking much about Ukrainian war and french or European political positions on that.

[Tizman]

We wrote an article in french about travelling from France to Uzbekistan with bicycles in trains and buses. It includes the section between Tbilissi and Atyrau : https://rayons-dorient.com/guide-pratiq ... -son-velo/