Vladivostok, Russia

When we were doing our research for this trip, we heard multiple good comments re Bill Nicoll and Silver Wind in Melbourne. And a major advantage was that the parent company was based in Vladivostok. In our conversations with him, he advised us to get a Customs Agent in Brisbane, which we did and all went well.

In our conversations with Bill, he had always seemed very laidback in relation to the sort of information that we should have to put onto the Bill of Lading. But then, we were introduced to Barbara Watson who had been to Russia only the year before. After listening to Barbara, we had hit panic stations! She had horror stories to tell us about their experience with Customs in Vladivostok! It’s true that they problems started before they left Australia because of industrial action by Patricks, but they basically told us that we had to provide a DETAILED inventory, eg 4 x bowls, 4 x spoons, etc.

So, we used a day up at the farm unpacking every single box and with Nick calling and me writing, we managed to produce a complete inventory (all 10 pages of it!). Next, we were concerned about the Russian Customs ability to read English, so we contacted an acquaintance in Melbourne, negotiated a price, reduced the list down to 7 pages and then we had an Inventory in Russian! We felt as though we had covered all bases and things would go smoothly.

Meanwhile, we had booked our flights quite some time before the car was booked and selected our arrival dates based on information received from Bill. So, we arrived in Vladivostok on Monday, 25 March. Bill had told us that the car would arrive on 28 March, but then he said that he would try to get it trans-shipped in Busan onto a faster boat and that it might arrive on 25 March. Poor Nick got his hopes when he heard that – and, dear old Murphy got involved and the container didn’t arrive on 26 March – in fact, we don’t know when it arrived, but that it did eventually arrive.

On our arrival in Vladivostok, we located the Silver Wind Shipping Office – which wasn’t called Silver Wind any more because it had been sold, but they eventually located a Customs Agent for us in Vladivostok – Yuri & Sveta from Links-Ltd.

So, they came around to the hotel to meet us and we gave them the inventory – and they said “Oh no, you won’t need that” and then they looked at the Bill of Lading from Melbourne office of Silver Wind and said, “Oh no, there’s too much information on here. Can you get it changed?”. Then a couple of days later, they informed us that they didn’t know why we had Silver Wind on the Bill of Lading because it didn’t have anything to do with them, but was being shipped by another company (CMA-CGM).

So, we come to yesterday (1 April) and Nick and Sveta went to the Customs Agent to submit all the paperwork. The Customs Agent expressed some concerns that the packing list and the Bill of Lading did not agree, so Yuri amended the packing list to a more acceptable form and then finally at about 10:30pm last night, Customs approved the car for release. Yippee!!

Ahhh, but don’t get too happy, because whilst Customs have cleared the car, the Port won’t release the container because of the discrepancy! Damn! And the Customs Agent who cleared the car is now on Rostered Days off (2 days) and won’t be back until Thursday! So, we are now waiting for Thursday, and we will ask the Customs Agent to amend the clearance so that the Port will be happy to release the car. So that’s ANOTHER 3 days here in Vladivostok.

And all the time, Yuri keeps telling us “It would be better if the Bill of Lading just said 1 used car”.

I suppose one good thing is that it will allow my to recover from a small dental surgery procedure that I had to undertake. Yes, I had developed an abscess on a tooth and after 3 days of no solid food, Sveta took me to a dentist who drained the abscess and gave me some antibiotics. And at the moment, I have a fat face and a huge bruise and look like I’ve been 1 round with Muhammed Ali (I wouldn’t last any longer). But Nick is going stir-crazy with frustration at not being able to do anything!

So now, we’re are waiting with fingers crossed for Thursday!