A team of Scots
fund-raisers racing a fire engine to be donated to emergency services in
Mongolia has had to change course after being held on the Russian border for
five days. Despite support from MPs, and the British Embassy in Moscow,
officials demanded extra payments and paperwork. Now the team is heading back
into Ukraine, to try a different crossing point into Mongolia.

They are one of 340
teams taking part in the deliberately eccentric Mongol Rally. They are reported
in the BBC Scotland news website as hoping they would find more helpful
officials at a different border crossing. The British Embassy in Moscow had
sent a fax Customs officers had been asking for “but that doesn”t seem to
have got the vehicles released”.

If the team does
eventually manage to cross the Russian border, they will still have about 7,200
km to go before they reach their destination.