There was a much bigger gap between what I told you last night and reality than the distance between a cat and my desire to say hello to it. The place was anything but quiet. During the night, Russian vans started arriving in droves, and dozens of people began setting up tents, talking at the top of their voices. They weren't exactly masters of social distancing, as they camped literally a metre away from our campervan. I could practically smell their socks from my bed.

With our sleep patterns a bit shifted, we left at eleven in the morning. We were barely fifteen kilometres from the border control. The queue was already starting to show, but leaving Georgia was a flash: quick and efficient. The real limbo began afterwards, in no-man's-land. A monumental queue of cars welcomed us. Better not even talk about the lorries, but they had their own kilometre-long lane. Moving forward was like watching grass grow. To ease the wait, the humans had set up those plastic portable toilets that were so disgusting that just looking at them made my toes curl.

After a few hours of dogged patience, we finally reached the Russian passport control. It was time to inspect the camper. They made us take out a few boxes, but the military personnel were super friendly. I got the impression they were snooping inside more out of curiosity about our home-on-wheels than out of official duty; they even made Daddy Edu pop the roof to get a good look.

The last window was for the temporary import of the car. It is a mandatory procedure where you register the vehicle so they let you move around the country legally. Just when we thought we were home and dry, they kept Daddy Edu's driving licence because they sent us straight to the X-ray scanner for lorries. This was where my human’s ears pricked up and he started breaking into a cold sweat because of the drone. Given the current situation around here, mechanical birds are not at all welcome, so he had taken it completely apart and had it semi-hidden and spread across different corners of the camper. We were stuck for a few hours waiting for our turn, with Daddy Edu more tense than a high-tension cable, but when we went through the machine... hallelujah! They didn't detect anything. Besides, the scanner operators turned out to be really lovely again and made a huge fuss of me.

Back at the import window, the exam of filling out the form began. Thank goodness it was in English, but it was more confusing than trying to chase your own tail. Daddy Edu had to redo it three times from scratch because he always got some detail in the wrong box. The clerk at the window, who initially had a sergeant's face that commanded respect, softened up in the end. She was very kind and explained to my human where to take out the compulsory car insurance (since the famous European Green Card does not cover Russia due to the sanctions) and wrote the name of the little office in Russian on a piece of paper.

At half-past six in the evening, freedom! We went straight to the office they had told us about. The girl there was a machine of efficiency, doing a thousand things at once and in a jiffy she handed us the insurance.

With all the paperwork done, it was time to find somewhere to crash. We saw a spot on the map near Chmi, about ten kilometres north of the border. But no sooner had we arrived than a military van appeared. Two young soldiers got out to tell us we couldn't sleep there. They were super nice and were even embarrassed about not speaking English, but with hand gestures they indicated that we could cross the river. We crossed the bridge, went through a small village and found our nook.

Right now we are in the middle of nature, although sadly the humans around here have left everything full of rubbish. But we don't care. We are locking ourselves up in our camper, well-protected, having something tasty for dinner and going to sleep, as we are now officially in Russia.