October 1, 2025 10.10PM

After multiple trips to two Russian embassies, a lot of questioning, and more than a month of waiting — I have been granted permission to enter Russia. On September 30th I crossed out of Georgia and into Russia, where I was held at the border checkpoint for nearly eight hours, questioned by four different agents/officers of variously the police, the army, and the FSB (state security services), before a young soldier walked me through the checkpoint, bid me “Welcome to Russia”, and told me to try Ossetian pies when I reach Vladikavkaz.

The experience put me in a slightly disturbed mood, as though I had entered an intensely liminal world, and afterwards I had the strange sensation of every single little thing feeling different simply because I was now in Russia. Twenty kilometres further inside the border this feeling of strangeness intensified when I discovered GPS was no longer available (GPS is scrambled or spoofed in much of Russia, a measure taken to thwart drone strikes, making it impossible to navigate using GPS positioning when near any population centre). For this reason, updates to the map will likely not happen while I am in Russia.

In the meantime, I have 27 days left on my visa, and anywhere from 600 to 900km of Russian territory (depending on the route I take, and how many times I get lost without GPS…) between me and the Kazakh border.