Exporting Of Items.

[Ed Maier]

I've had a number of fun experiences with Russian customs and have never had anything taken away. The funnist story is the first time I went to Russia in 1995 with a University group. I had about 50 medals in my suitcase and my Professor almost had a heart attack when he found out. Being a wise veteran of Russian travels he showed me how to pack the bag so that the medals would leave as little x-ray signature as possible. He then told me to get in the line with a young male customs agent, right behind the best looking girl I could find in line. His reason was that the kid was underpaid, bored, and since we were leaving at 6 AM all he would want to do was to have some enjoyment while killing his shift by going through the good looking girls bags to look at her undies.

Fortunatly for me, we had a great looking girl on the tour and I tucked into line behind her. Right on que, the customs agent went through all of her bags, played with her bras and panties, and called his buddies over to take a look. By the time they finished, and she walked away (with them watching her every step), my bags were through the xray machine, he was late, and I skipped right through.

Thank God for young, underpaid, horny customs agents. Its been 5 years since I last traveled to Russia, but so far things have worked pretty well.

Take care,
Ed M.

[Dave]

I had a great experience with customs agents back a few years ago... I was living in Moscow, and my parents came over to visit. I had sent home awards with other tourists that I knew, and never had a problem. I finally saved up about 35 awards and planned to have my parents take them out. I divided them into each of their suitcases, and readied them for the flight.

It was a bright, sunny day at SVO, and I had also (stupidly) packed a 1920's pole top in one of the suitcases. They had four suitcases between them, and the first one went through. All was well. Number two went through, and it happened to have the pole top. Stop... Reverse... Forward... Stop... Uh Oh.... the sinking feeling that something was VERY wrong...

The customs agent had seen the pole top and wanted to see it. While my dad pulled the pole top out, he looked into the suitcase and prodded around. In his prodding, he found a medal... then another... and another...

Next thing we know, the customs agents descended on my elderly parents like a flock of wolves, and went through every bit of the luggage. I had a number of uniforms, including some very nice M-1943 and 1945 generals uniforms, and they didn't even give them a second look. They even tossed the pole top back into the suitcase! All they wanted were the medals.

They gathered up everything, and once the half-dozen agents got done fingering them, they bagged them up at the customs booth, and took them over to the registrar for weighing and annotation. She gave my father a receipt for the awards, and told him that he could pick them up if he returned to claim them within two months. I told her that I still lived in Moscow and would be glad to take them home with me. That didn't fly.

Well, my dad never made it back to Russia, and so the customs folks kept the awards. It amazed me that they were so glued on the awards, yet the value of the uniform items outweighed that of the awards five to one!

Oh yeah, the first suitcase was never opened...

--Dave

[Chris]

But because of his chronic inability to behave himself within civilized borders in a multinational forum, use of foul language, and insulting other users (not just one). On both occasions the reasons were clearly explained to him.Unqoute


It was one person over one medal. There was no explanation ...just an inability to gain access....this failure to gain entrance happened in seconds of my reply...I was impressed with reflexes.

I was wrong I have made that clear

Christ.... you have changed your tune.

Also I was provoked which still is unexcusable ( I learned to turn the other cheek in NI)...for my back comment.... however the moderators have a luxury of being punters and judges.


Not impressed with the bending of the truth.

Alexei….You encouraged me to stay on the forum…how two faced and not worthy of a guy I held in so much respect.

Of course you could always publish my admonishment...which do not exist.

How boring it is to have to change a thread to a twist, but I will not stay quite over this untruth.

Chris

[paddywhack]

although not from a russain airport i did get stopped at stanstead airport in england we were coming home from a school tour and i had a laser sight for my bb gun but i total forgot to declare it and of course it set the x ray off! the guy who searched me was having a very bad day and started shouting at me "what the hell is this" and after i exsplained it i got escorted to a small room by 2 armed gaurds!!! needless to say i wassh*tting bricks!!! AND what didnt help was on my way there my other class mate thought it would be hilarouis(??) to shout that id been stopped for caring drugs before!! so with thoughts of spending a night in a cell i was intervied by a guy who had a sense of humour! so in the end i was let go not before they checked my record and phoned my parents!!!!!!!!!!!(i was 14 at the time!!!!) who needless to say were a wee bit miffed at me when i got home!!! but thats life i guess!!!!!
and about 4 years later i going through the same airport and toke out a load of geramn ww2 medals and yep of course the medal that was on top of the see through bag was a iron cross with a nice big swatiza(??)on the front of it and i got some VERY strange looks from the guys on the x ray machine!! but i got through no bother!!! hurra!!!!

[new world]

Another Western colector caught at the Russian customs. Why go through all the trouble if you can easily buy Red Star in the USA????

"2003.08.26/13:34

US citizen tries to take away Soviet order and old coins from Russia
The customs workers detained a US citizen in Khabarovsk (a city in the Russian Far East) international airport on Tuesday for an attempt of smuggling. When he registered the documents for Khabarovsk-Seoul flight the Red Star combat Soviet order and two 18th century coins were found in his luggage.

The rarities were not mentioned in the declaration, and the American citizen did not mention them when answering questions.

The combat orders, according to the Russian legislation, should not be a part of any collection and are categorically prohibited to be taken away from the country.

According to representatives of the Khabarovsk customs house, launching of the criminal case for the attempt of smuggling is being discussed. "

[Dante688i]

A very interesting story. I remember when I first began collecting, I heard some rumors (or so I thought they were) of the illegality of removing medals from Russia. As a teenager then, I didn't really know much about it. After reading this article, I see there is such a situation in Russia today.

Just an inquiry, does anyone have any past experiances or knowledge of this legality issue when it comes to collecting in the US? I didn't know if there had ever been major discussions among collectors or with authorities in regards to the awards and medals (i.e. when they are brought into the U.S.)

Thanks for the article!

[Al-muell]

Originally posted by new world
Another Western colector caught at the Russian customs. Why go through all the trouble if you can easily buy Red Star in the USA????

Perhaps because it's few times cheaper?

[Ed_Haynes]

I have never had any "legality" problems coming into the USA. But have had problems:

1- Security insanity - random decisions that anything with sharper points than fingers was a new kind of shuriken and ought to be seized (stolen) by the ever-vigilant secret police.

2- Curiosity issues - where the surveilance police wanted to chat about my odd deviance of medal collecting - honest curiosity to be sure, but when you have a connecting flight to catch and know you can be taken away by the FBI for being impolite to the police ...

3- Potential theft - when you are forced to leave anything "dangerous" (like Red Stars or Burma Stars) out of carry-on baggage and must put it all in checked baggage, which must be unlocked so everything can be searched and stolen at leisure.

And I am sure arriving passengers with dark complexions or "odd" names would have had more trouble.

And, perhaps, if you were bringing back a Medal of Honor the FBI would intervene. They have, I think.

Ed

[paddywhack]

there was a case there a few months ago about a medal of honar winner who was taking a internal flight in the us and had his medal off honar on him and one of the guys checking the bags apparently started saying why are you taking this ninja throwing star on board to which the vet replyed its the medal of honar the countrys highest military combat award ,and the guy checking the bags then asks who gave it to you and where did you get it! and the vet replys "well it was eisinhower in the white house"!!!! my own sister was almost arrested coming home from a flight in the states cos she brought a pen knife on board!! so i woudlnt be surprised if in the states they would take things like red stars cos of the points!!
as for russia i do know a dealer friend who had to post most stuff cos the 1st time he tried a lot of stuff got taken of him!

[Keith]

Hello,

Does anyone have any ideas of how to get items out of Russia from a Russian seller? Sometimes I find rare but inexpensive badges for sale on the internet in Russia, but they will only ship to Russian addresses. Has anyone else encountered this problem?

Keith