A great set of pictures and a sense of humour to go with the captions. Thanks
Wheel Nut:
A great set of pictures and a sense of humour to go with the captions. Thanks
+1 from me, a nice snapshot of life in the north 
~ Craig
Hi all.Nice diary Milodon.There are so few diaries of people driving in Scandinavia[with pic].Always nice to show people what life is like up here.When did you do the trip 
because it’s not stopped snowing now for nearly a week. 
Compared to now those piccies almost look like summer.I don’t mind because we get it for nearly 6months so its life as usual but for the middle and southern parts of Sandinavia[S,N,FIN]it’s real chaos. 
Why did you leave the Swedish company,was it to have a change or was it the time away or money.Were you on Swedish wages or something else[as i dont know your nationality].I’m just curious as we have some foreigners up here[me included]and there was a lot of trouble last year from the unions that they must speak Swedish[for safety issues]and be paid the same as the rest.This is in the mining industry.
Good stuff, be nice to see an IRT type program about this sort of work rather than all the American / Canadian ones.
The trip was the current week and last weekend, I am well aware that it’s a very mild weather compared to the north. I remember driving in skane on a very nice and warm september night and on the radio it was said that the border at riksgränsen is closed due to a heavy snowstorm
I left the swedish company due to the time away (8-10 weeks at a time) and due to the job becoming very repetitive. I was on a very good swedish wage and can speak basic swedish so otherwise it was a great job.
Hi Milodon.Thanks,i was merely being curious as to what make people move around from their countries of origin.As you say there can be vast differences between north and south, Riksgränsen can be right ■■■■■■■■■■■■ even had snow there in July.
As 8 wheels just posted it would be fantastic for people to see a European version of IRT.For example driving from Oslo up to Kirkeness.That would knock the so called IRT program into a cocked hat.Ispent 1 winter driving for a Norwegian company from Oslo to the NATO base at Bardufoss with my wife.It was one of the toughest winters i have ever driven anywhere,and Yes,i have driven U.S.S.R,middle east,and 1 winter in the Canadian arctic so can compare a bit.But for variety of challenges in 1 country it takes some beating.But i can say i have a great deal of respect for the Norwegian drivers,during winters you can’t have better colleagues.
At the moment it’s warm here -12c and snowing hard,about 50cms in the last 36hrs 
,but hey,it’s good for snowscooters. Take care.Mike
milodon:
The trip was the current week and last weekend, I am well aware that it’s a very mild weather compared to the north. I remember driving in skane on a very nice and warm september night and on the radio it was said that the border at riksgränsen is closed due to a heavy snowstorm
I left the swedish company due to the time away (8-10 weeks at a time) and due to the job becoming very repetitive. I was on a very good swedish wage and can speak basic swedish so otherwise it was a great job.
I used to work at sea and would often come across Estonian flagged or owned ships and to my suprise they would have few Estonians on them, usually Russians who they pay a fraction of the price. So in that respect I’ve never really considered Estonia to be a source of cheap labour in the same way as say Poland or Lithuania. You mentioned that one company there used to be a good company to work for, but now they can employ 3 Romanians for the price of one Estonian. Is this a problem in Scandinavia now that companies are getting rid of drivers to make way for much cheaper drivers or is it just driving the wages down for those that remain?
yes I recently watched a whole season of IRT or “primadonnas on ice” while waiting in oskarshamn for a load and I would like to see them run in northern scandinavia as well for a change
estonia is a big supplier for workforce in scandinavia, but in many instances they receive the same pay as locals, filling jobs that would otherwise remain empty. in my case, you’d be hard pressed to find a swede who’s willing to spend two weekends away from home at a time, nevermind doing little things such as boarding a ferry at 2am (nights are only for sleeping after all). the international (european) transport in sweden is almost totally done by bg,ro,mk,pl,cz,lt etc so a swedish company willing to do international transport is faced with a very low pay as well. my former employer only does groupage with 20+ drops and collections per roundtrip, so he’s a little better off, but the competition is very tough. We had a driver come from Nils Pagh last year, they do dk-spain groupage. He was earning around €1000 a week but one day there was a latvian driving the same lorry for €1500 a month.
Hi all.Yes, the insidious disease of Eastern Europeans is even making its way up here.The only good thing is due to the influence of the unions and the nature of the work in the mining industry is that companies must pay the same rate of pay to everyone.BUT there is an obligation that every employee MUST have a basic to moderate knowledge of the Swedish language.This is for safety reasons within the mine as much of the intertruck\machine communication is done by radio.
Even above ground they require a basic level of communcation.
The Swedes seen quite rasist and intolerant of foreigners[exept English,who they find quaint and eccentric and generally quite violent] 
which pleases me no end as i feel quite at home here.
The problem is less than in other parts of Europe as we are so far away from ‘civilization’ and an exiting social life for young people,and the winters are not to everyone’s taste Mike
Its always been my impression that Estonia is considerably more developed and prosperous than say Latvia, Lithuania and obviously Russia. Do Estonian transport companies only employ Estonians or do some of them go for the cheaper option? I know some CZ companies now employ Romanians, Moldovans and Ukrainians etc.
Craig 111:
Wheel Nut:
A great set of pictures and a sense of humour to go with the captions. Thanks+1 from me, a nice snapshot of life in the north
~ Craig
+2, good read and interesting pics
Thanks
TC
Great Diary Milodon! 
Yes Bulgarian drivers to work for Kim Johansen at moment!
I just curious is that correct - Estonia are better off than Latvia and Lithuania in economy way? because I have seen lots of Latvia & Lithuania trucks around in Europe as cheap competitive
Also what about Parme Trans - subcontractors work for RH Freight Nottingham UK - most of them are double manning in Mercedes Actros Megaspace, does they paid well or not
Thanks
robinhood_1984:
Its always been my impression that Estonia is considerably more developed and prosperous than say Latvia, Lithuania and obviously Russia. Do Estonian transport companies only employ Estonians or do some of them go for the cheaper option? I know some CZ companies now employ Romanians, Moldovans and Ukrainians etc.
we are better off but how much better is hard to say as there’s a saying from soviet times: “there are three types of lies: a small lie, a big lie and statistics” 
ukrainians, russians, belorussians, latvians, bulgarians even are a very common occurance nowadays driving estonian trucks, parme trans to my knowledge doesn’t have any estonian-speaking drivers. there is a company with ca 600 car transporters here that have predominately russians driving on only tourist visas but c’est la vie
milodon:
we are better off but how much better is hard to say as there’s a saying from soviet times: “there are three types of lies: a small lie, a big lie and statistics”
ukrainians, russians, belorussians, latvians, bulgarians even are a very common occurance nowadays driving estonian trucks, parme trans to my knowledge doesn’t have any estonian-speaking drivers. there is a company with ca 600 car transporters here that have predominately russians driving on only tourist visas but c’est la vie
Very interesting. Do these Estonian companies employ them at the expense of local Estonians or is it because so many Estonians are seeking better wages in Finland, Sweden etc leaving a vacuum in Estonia? Thats whats happened in this part of Canada I’m living and working in since 2009. Its one of the poorest parts of Canada so many skilled Canadians have left for Ontario and Alberta for better wages and quality of life, meaning theres a huge demand for workers here, hence they import drivers from the UK, Holland, Germany etc and lately many from Russia, Ukraine and Romania. Although there are thousands of European drivers in all parts of Canada, not just in this province.
Hi all I think this is a problem in many ‘developed’ countries now,especially countries which have an uneven population distribution such as Canada,Sweden,Norway,Australia,etc.Last year the Northern Sweden\Lappland development ageny together with various job centers took part in a ‘job fair’ which took place in Utrecht Holland to try and encourage people to emigrate up here.
They were offering various incentives.It seemed that the Dutch had the right mentality to uproot and move up here.After living for 30yrs in Holland like a sardine in a tin i can understand the difference of ‘‘quality and pace’’ of life here.
The same situation applies in Canada due to the vastness of the country.
Moving somewhere ‘only for the money’ though as opposed to ‘emigrating’ and ‘integrating’ and contributing to the local environment both financially and socially are one of the major sources of friction and antagonism from the local population. Mike
robinhood_1984:
Its always been my impression that Estonia is considerably more developed and prosperous than say Latvia, Lithuania and obviously Russia. Do Estonian transport companies only employ Estonians or do some of them go for the cheaper option? I know some CZ companies now employ Romanians, Moldovans and Ukrainians etc.
You should do some research to get the correct impression.
Estonia, more developed than Russia, now thats a good one.
Riho:
You should do some research to get the correct impression.Estonia, more developed than Russia, now thats a good one.
some people do rate living in a dump with a dictator over democracy, open borders, free speech and capitalism. I’ve seen honest personal opinions represented in this thread but if you have nothing better to add than a sad little bit of trolling, could you be so kind as to add yours somewhere else?
Hi all.Riho.I do not wish to dispute your idea that Russia is more developed than,say Estonia.BUT if that is the case then any development is concentrated is a very few areas[or should i say pockets].
I have yet to see vast hordes of Western Europeans,Eastern Europeans and people from the Baltic states fleeing like lemmings to work in Russia[or any parts of ‘‘developed’’ former U.S.S.R] to obtain a ‘better life’'.In fact it seems to be the inverse.Mike
Very nice read there Milodon, is that an ex Post Danmark R420? If so then it sure will have had zilllions of pilots! So you’re leaving the job? No doubt you saw the recent thread on here about those that leave only to return a short while after, happened to me 4 years into it, diesel in the blood and all that so maybe we see you back in the Isri early part of next year. By the way did you ever work for Rynart from Klundert NL, they had a lot of EST dvrs back in the day, all BG last time I noticed. Anyway all the best for the future.
it sure does look like an ex postal truck, I never have to announce my arrival at a postal depot gate, its always opened thanks to the looks of it but it was bought new in estonia like that. we’ll see about the return, trucking for me has always been about seeing places I haven’t seen before and I can say that there’s not much more to see . I’m way too young to have ever worked for Rynart, but a lot of my coworkers did, actually the picture I have of the port of kapellskär has a black lowride scania on the left - it belongs to an o/d ex-coworker who worked for rynart, doing kazakhstan