Driving from Tbilisi/Georgia to Russia via the Upper Lars border: how long does the crossing take and what practical road pitfalls should travelers expect?

Practical tip for the Upper Lars crossing: instead of overpaying pushy taxi drivers at the border, take a taxi into Tbilisi (e.g., Kote Afkhazi street in the center), where numerous car rental stalls line the curb with cheap rates and a contract signed on the spot in minutes. This lets you continue on local plates rather than paying border taxi markups.

If you also need to move a pet onward from Georgia to Europe, travelers report using private road carriers, for example to Germany. One recent quote was $1,000+ for a dog, not including paperwork.

One recent Upper Lars crossing went like this: arrival at the traffic queue at 13:45, Russian border at 16:20, out of Russia at 16:50, Georgian border at 17:09, and fully through at 17:26. That gives a practical estimate of about 3 hours 40 minutes from queue to completion.

At night, especially when trucks are lined up, the crossing can be much slower: one car arrived around 23:00 and only got through by 04:00 Georgia time. Another practical warning on Georgian roads is stopping behavior: police issued a 200 GEL fine after travelers got out because of a dog on the roadway.