"What's happening?" Queues on the Belarusian-Russian border are now not only at the main crossing, but even on a remote road
Problems with petrol start after Smolensk.
"We stood for three hours"
A queue of several hours at the Belarusian-Russian border on the M-1 highway is a fairly common phenomenon. To avoid getting stuck in a queue, many commentators in chats advised bypassing the main crossing via Dubroŭna and the Lyady checkpoint. They said the road was worse and it took a little longer to drive, but overall it would still be faster than on the M-1.
"What's happening? We stood for three hours at the Belarus — Russia border. This is the first time. And this isn't even the central one, where it's even longer," a woman wrote on social media.
In the video she recorded, there are dozens of cars ahead of her. And in the rearview mirror, it's visible that the queue behind them stretches very far.
The woman, identified as Anastasia Naumova, believed that the main problem was that they chose the wrong time to return to Russia.
Chose the wrong time?
"When we were going to Belarus, we left Moscow at 4:30 AM and crossed the border very quickly. We went back to Russia in the afternoon, and on a Sunday – and as a result," she writes, and advises travelers to choose the right day so as not to waste time in the border queue.
The woman had never seen such queues.
"This was the first time we had such a traffic jam. We often travel to Belarus. Apparently, we hit a time when the traffic jam was maximal. We ourselves are in shock."
"I don't know the reason. Perhaps many people were returning after the weekend," Anastasia speculates.
More than six hundred comments have gathered under the video. One of the commentators reported spending about two hours in the queue at this border.
Fuel tourism and more than just fuel
Many believe that the problems with border queues have worsened because Russians are now traveling to Belarus, partly for fuel, as it is in short supply in their country.
Border chats note that at least 95-octane petrol in the Smolensk region towards Moscow was a rarity on Monday morning.
"It was available up to Smolensk after the border, then it disappeared (only 92 and diesel were available). At Rosneft, the price tag for 95 hangs on the stand, but at the filling station itself, the signs on the hoses are covered," one of the participants in the border chat wrote.
Those who traveled towards St. Petersburg also write about the fuel shortage.
And a person who traveled to Karelia reported:
"The last gas station before the border is about 40 km away, then the next gas station was only in Ostrov and the next in Novgorod. All the others were not working."
Among other reasons why multi-hour traffic jams are now not only on the main Minsk-Moscow highway, people mention more thorough checks of cars and passports by Russian border guards. The Belarusian side does not control the border with Russia in either direction.
Experienced travelers say that the presence or absence of a queue greatly depends on the day of the week and time. They say that around lunchtime the border is most congested.
"One friend crossed the border at 10:00 AM in 10 minutes, while another crossed at 1:00 PM and waited for four hours," one commentator writes.
Another reason also mentioned in the comments is tourism. They say it will continue like this until September 1st. The increase in queues due to tourism seems quite logical. In addition to the growing popularity of Belarus among Russians in recent years, problems with petrol within Russia and security risks may have prompted even more people to choose trips to Belarus instead of traveling within Russia by car.
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