Right, let's go to Russia.
Let's go to Russia!
Russia.
If you're a British tourist, Russia isn't easy to get into.
You have to book your travel,
then request a formal invitation from the hotel you're staying at,
and then apply for a visa weeks or months in advance.
You can't just arrive on a plane and ask them to let you in.
And you certainly can't ever, ever just drive across the border.
That pole is where they're spying from.
Oh, you're right! They must-- yes!
'Cos that is lumpy at the top.
Cell towers normally go right at the top...
There is going to be someone who job is
counting the cars in and counting the cars out.
And if they see anyone walking towards here...
Yeah, of course. That's where the cameras are. Good spot.
I'd get my zoom lens out, but I'm not doing that on a Russian border.
The area behind me is the Saatse Boot,
and it's about one square kilometre of Russia that juts out into Estonia.
When Estonia was part of the Soviet Union, that wasn't a problem:
but when the country became independent in 1991,
a couple of villages on this side of the Boot,
including Saatse here, were cut off. Until recently,
the road over there was the only way to reach them:
there is another way round now,
but that's still the quickest route by far.
So, for convenience, Russia allows people to use that road...
as long as they don't stop.
That's the no stopping sign.
Yeah. No stopping for... 1km?
Right, you see that post, the red and green post?
-- I do. -- That's it. That's Russia.
If you're on foot, you're entering Russia, and you can be arrested.
If you're in a car, you've got to keep moving:
if you stop or if you break down,
you're entering Russia, and you can be arrested.
Estonia... Estonia...
-- Russia! -- We're in Russia.
And I know, immediately, people are going to ask, how far can you push this?
What happens if you're on a bicycle?
What if you drive 1mph but don't technically stop?
What happens if you stand half in and half out,
or stop just on the Estonian side of the border and take loads of photos?
What happens if you break the law on promoting homosexuality in Russia
by playing the Village People out of your car's speakers at full blast?
The answer to all of those is: I don't know.
It depends on if any border guards see it, and how they feel that day.
They might just escort you back to Estonia...
they might arrest you and lock you up for the night.
Either way, we are not bloody finding out,
because it is a really, really bad idea to mess with Russia at all,
let alone on their territory, while you're filming it.
Now, at some point, like many of the complicated borders in the world,
the Boot is going to be fixed.
Officially, it was fixed and handed over to Estonia
in a treaty back in 2005, and then again by another treaty in 2014.
Russia agreed to give up that bit of land
in exchange for getting a couple of bits of Estonia somewhere else.
And... Estonia!
-- That's it! -- Yeah!
But diplomacy is slow, and so is government bureaucracy, and right now,
it is still possible to drive through a little bit of Russia without a visa.
Just very very carefully.
We just drove through Russia without a visa!
Wow.
It's actually a bit of an anticlimax.
Hello! Tourist. Tourist. Yes.
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