I crossed that border for the first time in the fall of 1991 when it was just becoming an independent country. I crossed that border as I wrote at least once every year for the next 30 years and as many as 16 times a year to play golf in Tallinn on long weekends. The "tax" was, yes, a bribe I had to pay for getting past the checkpoint into Ivangorod, which sits across the river from Narva, Estonia. The police would always find something to warrant a bribe. Once, it was my baseball mitt! The stupidly, and mockingly, held up my mitt with a baseball and questioned whether it was a bomb..."We might have to call in the bomb squad...Sergei, how long before they could get here...They could make it by Monday (this was Friday afternoon). So , my choice was to offer them a "view" or be detained for the week. I would say, "Choose your view and I will see what I can do." On a lot of Russian money, there are cities..."I think a view of 5 views of Nizhny-Novgorod would suffice." That would be 5000 rubles to pass go.