SHIPPING HOUSE CONTENTS: from Poland to Moscow. Suggest a company?

I am not sure if this is in the correct section , but no doubt it will get shifted if its not...

I need to move my stuff from Poland to Moscow....

There is no furniture , just lots of stuff in cartons.... I was planning on flying to the UK and buying a big van for all this stuff , but my girlfriend suggested it may be cheaper to put all the stuff in a container , or have a removals firm take all the stuff for me....

Can anyone suggest a company that can move stuff from Poland to Moscow.....?

I am in the Polczyn zdroj area of Zachodniopomorskie , the stuff is going to north central Moscow...

I would doubt that she is right about that, removals companies tend to charge an arm and a leg. A year ago my girlfriend moved from Slupsk to Warsaw and had a van full of stuff: she ended up paying 1,200zl and that was by far the cheapest quote, most quotes were well over 2,000zl.

If I were you, I'd ask her to get some quotes from a few removals firms near her for the job (average wages in Russia are a lot lower than in Poland). And ask her to speak to a few scrap yards to find out which vans are worth the most when broken for parts (and how much you could expect to get for a van of that type and in total if you broke it yourself). I'd think that you could at least cover the cost of the van from the UK and most of the petrol too.

I am not too worried about getting rid of the van in Moscow once it has served its purpose , its not a problem to sell something like a Mercedes sprinter van over there...Unlike Poland its no problem to register a vehicle that has the steering wheel on the wrong side...Russians love Merc vans , and i could get back what i paid for it just selling it for spares...

I will check out what it costs for a Russian removal firm to do the job , but i don,t expect it to be cheaper than a Polish firm , yes Russia has low wages etc , but Moscow is not the same as Russia , its like another country , its the most expensive city in the world to live in , and wages are higher there than anywhere else in Russia... The Russians have a saying...there is no life outside Moscow... Wages , the cost of living etc in Moscow bears no resemblance to life anywhere else in Russia....

I planned on paying about 1500 quid for a Mercedes van in the UK , and i am not too worried about making a profit on it when i sell it , i might even keep it for when we move out of the appartment in Moscow to our house in the country , or use it for making some dosh moving stuff for people...

Even if i get my stuff shipped by a removals firm , i may still buy the van , i have a Harley to get to Moscow , and i am not trusting anyone with that....

By the time you pay for your flights as well that is going to be about 7500zl I would be surprised if that would not be enough to get someone from Poland to do it. Don't look at removal companies look at independent guys with vans there are loads of them here on gumtree

poznan.gumtree.pl/f-Firmy-Uslugi-taxi-transport-na-lotniska-przewozy-osob-W0QQCatIdZ9147

The point is that he will recover much of the money selling van in Russia.

Thats really usefull , thanks...I will check out some of these people....

As for the expense of going to the UK , its not a problem , i need to go there anyway to get one final document i need to get married in Moscow , and i also need to buy a newer Jeep as this one is worn out... If i buy a van also the Jeep will stay at my sisters untill i get back over for it , so there will be a bit of flying to the UK to do in any case...

Like Poland , cars in Moscow are much more expensive than in the UK...

Good point Grubas, forgot to factor that into my calculations!!

.. as tourist. ;) And I'm not sure that Moscow still hold this "award".


BTW, did you check if any special cases in tax code is applicable for you (as person moving from abroad to permanent residence in Russia)?

Concerning moving your stuff - check at cargo.lt - you can find some truck there to move your container.

I did not think about that , but i will check it out once we have got moved in , married and all the other stuff....

I will have a look at the cargo.it website , and see what the prices are....

Of course if i decide to move all my things in my own van , i need to check out what the rules are for crossing the border into Russia with a van full of stuff....

All the boxes are labelled as to what the contents are , and i will have a list in Russian to show the border people...

I supose they may want some proof this stuff is my house contents , rather than for sale in Russia....?

check if you have to pay duty on your stuff, but since you are relocating, you might be exempted from it.

Check what the duty rules say about relocation.

I hope so... my girlfriend is checking out what the rules are ...

Once we are married it will be a lot easier to cross back and forth across the border , and i will be a resident of Russia rather than a tourist...

I don't think it's possible to do that, not without paying taxes.

If I recall rightly, Russia puts a notice in your passport that you've imported a vehicle - if you attempt to leave without the vehicle, or stay beyond a certain time, you'll have tax to pay.

They didn,t stick anything in my passport about my vehicle on any of my trips....but that does not mean they did not make a note of it on some computer...

A while back i took an off road monster to a competition near lake Ladoga , we wrecked in in a bad crash and i gave it to some Russian friends for parts....not had a bill for that yet...?

maybe they will get me on the next trip....?

Wildrover ... I've asked for a quote from some removal companies in PL. As you know I am moving (some of) my stuff as we speak. They all wanted between PLN 5.000-6.000 for a distance of 1.920km. I have about 30m3 of stuff. They would have sent 3 guys in my case. Maybe you might want to calculate the volume of your stuff and rent a van.

For the first three months I will live in my wife's apartment, so I am only taking some of my things (clothes, and some other things that are a little old at my wife's place). I've just rented myself a van (Ford Transit). 6 days for 1.301,01PLN, without km-limit. The van is 9m3 so that's enough for a washing machine, cooker, 15 removal boxes, 2 bikes.

Just to give you some idea about costs. Maybe it is different in your case cause you'll be moving outside of the EU.

Good luck.

Thanks for your good wishes...best of luck to you too..

I think there may be problems hiring a van , if i tell them its going over the border into the badlands of Russia , and no doubt they will want me to return it to Poland , could be a problem if my visa restrictions do not allow me to leave Russia for a few months untill i have a residents permit...

You'll need to think about this earlier, as usually relocation exemptions have quite narrow time frame. Good planning may simplify things a lot..

There is government program that provide some help and taxes/duties exemptions for people planning to relocate to Russia from abroad, but I don't know who can apply for this program.

Well , we have a Moscow lawyer doing all the hard work for us....Hopefully she knows what to do...