The bus operator Ecolines will direct the St. Petersburg-Tallinn bus, which the company has so far been operating through the northeastern Estonian border town of Narva, through the Luhamaa border crossing point in the southeast, so that passengers no longer have to stand in line when crossing the border between Ivangorod and Narva, the regional Louna-Eesti Postimees writes.
Regular trips on the new St. Petersburg-Pskov-Tallinn route will start on May 15, and according to the company, the border crossing will take place with the bus. After Russia closed the Ivangorod border crossing to car transport in the winter, it became impossible for buses to cross there, and bus passengers had to cross the border on foot.
The bus will depart St. Petersburg and Tallinn every day at 9 p.m. and arrive at its destination at 8:05 a.m. the next morning.
As the company announced in a post published on its VKontakte page aimed at Russian customers, the trip is convenient for those who need to get to Tallinn or St. Petersburg in the morning and who do not want to stand in line at the Ivangorod-Narva pedestrian crossing.
“Our bus travels through Shumilkino and Luhamaa. The new route through Pskov makes the trip more predictable, while extending it by ‘one movie’,” the company said in its post.
According to the company’s website, a trip between St. Petersburg and Tallinn via Pskov will cost 5,400 rubles, or nearly 54 euros, instead of the current 4,500 rubles, or nearly 45 euros.
According to GoSwift, a system that shows information regarding border queues at Estonian border points, the waiting time for buses in Luhamaa to cross the border in a live queue is up to one hour, there were no buses in the live queue at 8:25 p.m. on May 2. The last time a passenger bus traveled to Russia via Luhamaa was on April 30.
Source: BNS
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