ST. PETERSBURG. July 2 (Interfax-AVN) - The equipment of checkpoints at the Russian border with Estonia does not meet the new requirements after Estonia's entering the European Union, officials of the Northwestern Regional Border Guard Directorate think.
"The higher command tasked us to reduce the time required to fill in all forms for the people and vehicles crossing the border, but re-equipment of the check-points at the border is very ineffective. The Estonian ones can let through people much faster, and there is always queuing on the Russian side," Colonel Andrei Makhov, Chief of Ivangorod border checkpoint, said in an interview with the Pogranichnik newspaper, dated Saturday.
The border with Estonia is the border with the European Union now, and therefore, it has become as attractive for trespassers as the Russian-Finnish border, he said.
According to him, the volumes of smuggled goods, seized at the border, have grown. For instance, three attempts of smuggling alcohol and tobacco were cut short during the recent few days. It turned out to be very profitable to resale excise goods in Estonia, as the prices on them are almost equal to the average European ones. Tobacco and alcohol smuggling has become a business, as smugglers have no problems in finding clients in Estonia, Makhov said.
He also said that the Leningrad region's administration has adopted a plan of constructing the Parusinka walking checkpoint, and the work will start in autumn. Also, it is considering the re- equipment of checkpoints for vehicles, and constructing another bridge over the Narva River to canalize trucks out of the Ivangorod checkpoint.