Tag: Road

From Russia to Estonia

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I drove to Estonia from Russia yesterday. The total driving time from St. Petersburg to Johvi, Estonia is about 4 hours, but the border crossing can take anywhere from an hour to 5 hours. Yesterday I made it across the border in 50 minutes. That was nice.

I’m working on Sunbeam, a day center for children with disabilities we are opening here in Estonia. You can read the latest news here. I’m helping set up some administrative items, and I’ve been building a simple website for Sunbeam.

I made a couple of videos of my drive in Russia. I’ll call them Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. First, the nice Dr. Jekyll:

And the rough Mr. Hyde. (It’s no wonder I need to get my car fixed pretty often.)

And another:


Just AFTER I made that last video, I saw a sign that said Rough Road Ahead. (!)

I’d like to point out that this is THE main federal highway from St. Petersburg into Europe.

The Road to Primorsk

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Yesterday Zhenya Koltakoff and I drove from St. Petersburg north and west to the small town of Primorsk. It’s a pretty drive up the coast of the Gulf of Finland, into Karelia.

This area was a part of Finland until WWII; Koivisto is the Finnish name for the town. We visited a church, built by Finns in 1904, which is now a city meeting hall and has a small museum in one section. The church is a classic Finnish Lutheran church of the era; I really like the architecture.

First, a video of the road we drove (you’ll see the frozen Gulf of Finland at one point), then just a few pics.