Our day in Russia: Santio to Lappeenranta

22^. June to 23^rd of June

We were quite curious but also a bit anxious when entering Russia on the way through to the Saimaa Canal into Lake Saimaa, our most northern and eastern destination on our cruise. We are now in sunny, with a very different sweet water ‘riviera’feel, Lappeenranta (61º 03’N 28º 11’E).

But let’s start at the beginning with our Russian experience.

The construction of the Saimaa Canal commenced in May 1845, and was finished in September 1856 and opened at the coronation of Emperor Alexander II. Through the war and post war treaties it is now basically cut in half, leased back and now managed by Finland. This arrangement of course leads to a great deal of Red Tape:

First, you have to pre-announce your intentions about a week early before you can enter the canal and Russia

Secondly, after announcement to the Saimaa canal authorities with a type-written and downloadable form from the internet, and information emailed to the Agency Inflot Vyborg (Russian authorities) 12 hours before you reach the Russian border and have to wait for the (positive) response. My response from the Russian Agency was by return of email, very short and in Russian, so that we assumed it was positive.

Thirdly, you have to pay the canal fees at a Finnish Bank (33.60 Euros), and fourthly you have to provide Crew list in multiples (about 8 copies), which were duly stamped and collected at different points during our transit through the canal .

I could continue for a while, just to mention that the passports were controlled four times on a 40 km stretch of water. Furthermore, you are only allowed to navigate between 8.00 and 20.00 hours Moscow time while passing through Russian waters. You are not allowed to photograph or to stop anywhere on Russian territory.

After calling the Finnish border guard on Santio Island (the Finnish Border Crossing Point) in the evening to clear customs we spent the night on the pontoon not being allowed off the pier or anywhere on the island, we set off at 6:45 a.m. (7:45 Moscow time) and reached the first of 8 locks in the canal eight hours later. We had great winds at first and could sail very fast for the first 10 Miles, but had to use the engine the rest of the way through beautiful scenery and ugly industrial towns, passing by Vyborg. Of course, we were approached by the Russian Coast Guard, duly photographed, but fortunately we were not stopped. Later on we heard our boat’s name mentioned a few times during official Russian VHF traffic.

We arrived at the canal at 14.00 and were fortunate (after custom control, passport inspection and provision of several crew lists) to be allowed to proceed to the first lock. We entered together with a motor boat where the delivery skipper had been  waiting already for 6 hours because he didn’t have the original boat registration document with him.

The locks are absolutely massive, high walled and intimidating at first (70m height difference from the Gulf of Finland to Lake Saimaa have to be overcome). The organization of the locks and bridges was extremely efficient, we never had to wait for the next lock to be opened or the next bridge to be lifted. We tried to get on as fast as possible in order to be able to leave the Russian territory by the prescribed time of 20:00. We just managed by 30 minutes and continued, quite exhausted after a 71mile trip from Santio to Lappeenranta, the major timber processing harbour and wood wharf of Finland. On the way to our mooring shortly after 22.00 we had to dodge a few tree trunks, which had ‘escaped’ the log pond.