Hi - thanks. I didn't realise the Vilnius stop was actually usable until recently by passengers on the "intra-Russia" transit trains. I'd always assumed that they were "less policed" by Russian officals, being seen as an "internal" trip, in return for being effectively "no entry" and "no exit" at any stations after Belarus and before Kaliningrad.
I also didn't realise this, but it makes sense - Russian and Belarusian citizens need a special transit visa and a special railway pass for this journey, although it (was?) is issued with minimal fuss. From looking online, it appears that trains in Kaliningrad went through border control on-board at Chernyshevskoye, whereas it was previously done on-board at Nesterov.
Like you, I was under the impression that these trains operated as corridor trains, but I've found elsewhere that there are (were?) definitely controls carried out on both entry and exit from Lithuania. It seems that the same applies/d to the Kaliningrad-St Petersburg trains.
Thanks for this. I didn't know that there was a "border" set-up at Vilnius station these days. On a Tallinn-Warsaw through journey many years back, though post Soviet Union, there wasn't a great deal of border activity anywhere in the 3 Baltic states - including during the station stop at Vilnius - other than checking passports on board a couple of times. But at Grodno - the Vilnius-Warsaw through route went through that corner of Belarus in those days - it was a different story ... hours spent in a hut by the trackside arguing with Belarusian officials about what visa I should or shouldn't have had, while they were changing the bogies in the middle of the night. (More like a proper old-fashioned border experience!)
Yes, there's a border crossing somewhere within the station at Vilnius. I'm not sure at all that the passenger stop at Vilnius used these facilities, as it appears that full border control was carried out on both entry and exit to Lithuania. To the best of my understanding, the railway travel document essentially allows people to transit through Lithuania without complying with full Lithuanian entry rules, including duty-free allowances.
I *think* the only purpose of these border crossing facilities in Vilnius was to speed up the Vilnius-Minsk train (and possibly the Vilnius-Grodno train, when it ran), as otherwise it would have to make a lengthy stop shortly after leaving Vilnius. The controls themselves were carried out somewhere in the basement of Vilnius railway station, and I believe that it was planned (but not implemented?) for Minsk Railway Station to have the same - so the train could then run non-stop between the two cities.
As a curious aside, Vilnius railway station also has a duty free shop 'railside'.
Some very weird things are going on with the Moscow-Kaliningrad train as well. I've just checked the timetable, and it takes 9 hours to go from Smarhoń in Belarus to Chernyshevskoe in Russia. Surely this isn't normal?
