Most relocators leave in a hurry and with little luggage. It’s not as careless as it may seem – if the situation is unfamiliar to you, being overloaded will increase your stress level. You will lose more by making wrong decisions in the first few days upon arrival than you will spend on sending your things separately.
But how to do it in practice? After all, it won’t be you who will have to send, arrange, and spend hours of your time on it, but your relatives or friends.
The cargo must be delivered 1-2 days in advance, from 10:00 to 18:00.
Up to 200 kg can be transported without accompanying separate baggage.
Food products cannot be transported.
Things are packed in bags, which are wrapped with tape on the outside for strength. If the employees of the railway baggage department are packing, an additional fee of about 300 rubles per bag is charged for this action.
Bags can be opened if the X-ray shows the presence of prohibited items during inspection.
To start, you need to get to the baggage department and receive a declaration for filling out, according to the sample.
Then – to the customs officer, who will give an inventory for filling out. In the inventory, you should indicate all the components of the baggage with their value. It is desirable not to declare the value of the cargo above 1000 rubles if you are planning to save money because otherwise, the tariff will increase, although this is not explicitly declared at the beginning of the process.
The inventory is submitted to the customs officer who fills out the codes. Then you need to go to the baggage department.
At the baggage department, you will be given another application for shipment. Then you need to weigh the cargo on the scales of the department. In the inventory, the total weight will need to be distributed among all the specified components so that the total weight matches the overall weight.
Then the papers must be certified by the head of the department.
After that, returning to the baggage department, you need to get another set of documents and, together with all the papers, go to pay – usually near the cash registers.
The price for unaccompanied transportation is initially declared as one, but at this stage, many additional payments appear:
- acceptance of the cargo
- storage of the cargo
- transportation through Kazakhstan
- insurance
- calculation of the tariff using a formula that takes the declared value as a coefficient.
In theory, everything should not cost more than 10,000 rubles if the cargo is around 30 kg. If you have multiple shipments like this, you should send them no more than once a month for proper registration at customs.
The number of baggage items is calculated based on the number of bags.
The recipient should provide the passport information of the person who will receive the cargo at the baggage department in Bishkek.
Approximately 10-14 days later, the cargo will arrive in Bishkek, and they will call the contact phone number provided. Try to be there on the same day; otherwise, an additional fee will be charged for storage.
The timing of your arrival determines whether dogs will be called to inspect your cargo.
You arrive in the customs control area, where you fill out a declaration with a description and evaluate the cargo (i.e., just copy the declaration that was filled out when sent from Russia; a copy will be given to you with the general package of documents).
At the customs post, you will need to receive a certified letter of arrival of the cargo from the recipient, and then take all these documents to close the cargo. The paperwork can take up to 2 hours.
Next, you will need to take these documents to customs, where they will be processed.
You will also be asked to fill out a statement confirming that you are not transporting goods prohibited for import.
The cargo is sealed, and you will need to return to the baggage department to collect it.
You will need to pay for storage (if you are not collecting the cargo on the day of arrival) and processing. This will cost around 2000 rubles.
Finally, you will receive your baggage.
The procedure will take about two working days, one at the sender’s and one at your end.
Refusing to collect the cargo is classified as an administrative offense and will make you unable to leave the country until the debt is paid.
In conclusion, if you are shipping a lot of things “to furnish your home,” it is better to order a cargo container because you can transport many times more in one go – literally, everything you need.
For small items (up to 15 kg weight per package), it is better to send them by mail – it will take much less time, and you can send/receive them at offices much closer to your actual place of residence.
