Roberta Goes To Russia

Try not doing anything with it for two months.

I came back and couldn’t remember how my cell phone works.

It took me several tries to get my computer on-line.

I can’t remember how to turn on my bedside lamp, which is connected to a dawn-and-sunset light regulator.

I’m sure some of it is due to jet lag and to having been awake for over 24 hours (my brain refuses to try to figure out exactly how long). But to pick up the PDA which was my brain for years and realize I had no idea how to turn it on was — a striking experience.

1. My passport
2. My ATM card
3. Not my hairbrush — I joked that the FSB (successor to the KGB) had snuck in and stolen it to get my DNA, but as I began unpacking this morning, bingo! there it was.
4. 20 lbs. of myself — I weigh less than 200 lbs. for the first time in probably a decade. Shows what climbing stairs every day and walking a lot, even on sore knees, can do for you.
5. My Oxford Beginner’s Russian-English dictionary — lost it somewhere during the frenzy of the day when I lost my passport
6. My Kastner’s Russian-English dictionary — left for Irina to make use of as she sees fit
7. My unwillingness to ask for help
8. My glasses, but Sergei says he’s found them and will send them to me when he gets back to Boston
9. My traveler’s battery-powered electric toothbrush — I got it to avoid having to figure out electricity conversion for my SonicCare. I’m not sure it did much more than hum officiously, but I’m glad I had it while I did.

While I was in the Amsterdam airport, I wrote two blog entries. I had no internet access, so I couldn’t publish them until now, and when I arrived home yesterday, I was too zonked out to do so. In the interest of historical completeness (and because I hate throwing any of my words away), here they are:

Quick Takes #21

1. I hereby declare that it is not possible to be comfortable in an airport for longer than two hours maximum. It is further impossible to remain pain-free after remaining in an airport for more than six hours. One’s feet hurt if one trudges around tugging one’s luggage behind one. One’s rear hurts if one sits too long in airport chairs. If one is of a certain age, one’s knees hurt in either case and find a way to hurt no matter what position one takes, including lying down.

2. I like the Dutch. Their airport is clean, clearly marked, and full of graceful amenities. They manage to be disciplined without having that German sense of being vaguely mechanized. The security guard who took away my little bitty Swiss army knife, which I had carried in my pocket from late May until now, was apologetic but clear: no sharp objects in the cabin. I suppose, with proper training, damage could be done with a rather dull 1 ½ inch blade, an ivory toothpick, and a surprisingly effective pair of itty-bitty scissors, and the line must be drawn somewhere.

3. Sheremetyevo was not kind to me last night. In addition to the problems alluded to in point #1, the guy at one coffee bar refused to let me pay with my credit card, and the woman at another coffee bar had a broken espresso machine. I fell asleep on a set of three chairs that were old enough not to have arm rests to render them un-sleep-on-able, only to be awaked by a janitor rapping sharply on the frame to get me to get up so he could move the chairs so that guy driving the floor-washing Zamboni could hit the floor under me. It was like Russia had finally agreed to let me go home, but it wasn’t going to pretend to be happy about it.

4. If nothing else, this lost-passport adventure has added three Russian taxi drivers to my experience of Russia. The first, the one I negotiated the 600 rubles price with, was clearly on the edge of respectability, not quite to the point of cruising the highways looking for people with their hands out seeking a ride, but only a step or two above. I liked him. The second one, the guy who drove me to Domodevovo and back to get my luggage, was a clean cut middle-aged man in a sports shirt and slacks driving a clean Ford sedan. He drove with what, for a Russian driver, was relative restraint, and at the end of the ride, I was rewarded with a big grin when I cried, “Bravo!” and applauded his skill. I liked him. The third one, the guy who drove me to Sheremetyevo, was somewhere in between, with a clean car and the face of a pirate – a handsome pirate, but a pirate nonetheless. I liked him. When I explained my situation to him – the uncertainty about whether I’d get the exit visa – he offered to wait for me so he could take me back to the Aquarium Hotel if I didn’t get the visa. The offer didn’t feel entirely commercial, which was nice. You get a lot of that in Russia: people who, if they like you, will go out of their way for you. You also get a lot of the coffee shop clerk who, I’m convinced, refused to take my VISA just because he didn’t like my face. I was fortunate to have encountered about 90% of the former and 10% of the latter. Yes, Ksenia, maybe I do idealize Russians, but it’s what I experienced.

5. I’ve got only about enough juice left in this computer to save this, so I’d better do it and shut down until I can plug in at home and recharge the computer’s battery as I recharge my own.

Omigod, I’ve lost my ticket to Portland

This is how tired I was by the time I got to Amsterdam en route home.

It was a two-stage flight: Moscow to Amsterdam on KLM, then Amsterdam to Portland on Delta, all booked as Northwestern flights. In Moscow, I got two tickets, one to let me board in Moscow, and a second to let me board in Amsterdam.

As I sat at a table near a deli in the Amsterdam airport, I casually looked at where I thought the second ticket should be. Omigod! All that was there was the first ticket. Somehow, I had managed to lose the ticket that would let me get to Portland. I knew I had had it when I got off the plane from Moscow, I must have dropped it somewhere (or the domovoi isn’t done with me yet). I carefully searched my purse. No second ticket.

“OK,” I thought, “I’d better hit the restrooms before I try to deal with this or I’ll embarrass everyone.” Showed some remnant of good thinking there. And afterward, I decided to try the purse search once more. I carefully cleared all umpteen compartments of my travelers bag. No second ticket. Finally, I looked REALLY CAREFULLY at the ticket I had.

It was the one I needed. Everything was fine. All I had left of the first ticket was a stub, the complete ticket was the one that hadn’t yet been torn as I boarded the plane in Moscow. I was so tired and so traumatized at the repeated pattern of losses (passport, ATM card, Moscow phone numbers) that I was hallucinating another one.

I need my home and my cat.

It took a while to get online. Nanette drove me home from the airport, Lizz lugged my luggage upstairs and sat with me while I got sufficiently settled in to collapse. I had a three hour nap, woke up unable to believe I was home in my own bed, finally figured out that, indeed, I am. Ochi is speaking to me again — a truly magnanimous cat. There will be much, much more — for instance, advice on why you should never change your admin password when you’re zonked out from time change and no sleep — but at the moment, let this be my announcement that I made it.

I’m at Sheremetyevo. Contacting the Russian consul representative involved talking into a very anonymous, battered intercom on the wall between the VIP lounge and a kiosk selling books and magazines. A very prosperous-looking man without a tie came down from above (wherever the consulate offices are), asked to see my documents, then took a cell phone call. Being a diplomat, he walked out of my hearing to talk, but he kept the passport in his hand. I was not at ease about it. He told me it would cost $25 for the visa and had to be in cash.

I had, again, given all my Russian money to the guy who drove me here. (It wasn’t much of a tip, as it turned out.) I had earlier had to change a $10 bill I’ve carried with me all this time to pay the storage for my suitcase. I had acquired a 10-euros bill in Frankfurt on the way to Russia, and I had a few US bills stuffed deep into my purse. All told, they just barely made up $25 — except that the $5 that I had carried around for over two months was kind of worn, and the diplomat said his cashier would not accept it.

“But,” I hear you ask, “don’t you still have a credit card? Why not just go to an ATM?” Well, you’d think that, except that my domovoi can go back in time to the middle of July, when First Tech, who originates the VISA card, did something to their VISA accounting and disabled the PIN I know. “You can bring the card in when you get back, and they’ll reprogram it for you,” the First Tech lady told me when I called to enquire. “Meanwhile, any bank that handles VISA will give you a cash advance.” Maybe in the USA, but so far, I’ve encountered only suspicious looks over bank counters here.

So there I stood, my passport and my last cash in the hands of a man who, I realized after he had left, I had never asked for identification.

“Wait here for me, maybe 15 minutes,” he had said. It got to be 15 minutes. It got to be 17 minutes. It got to be 18 minutes. I had no passport and no money, and I was feeling just the slightest tad concerned.

But he reappeared, visa pasted firmly into my passport, good for one day — tomorrow — plus a receipt for my $25.

It’s really going to happen. Thank you, God. And thank you, all God’s friends who have prayed for me over this.

Now all I have to do is pass the next 15 hours in this airport. I can buy food with the credit card, I’ll get my suitcase out of storage before midnight so I won’t owe that guy any more money, and, emboldened by the presence of an exit visa on my temporary passport, I’ll make another run at the bank tellers. And if they won’t give me money, I’ll plug in my MagicJack and call First Tech and get them to restore the PIN I know. Maybe that should be my first act. Except, of course, while it’s 2 p.m. here, it’s 3 a.m. there, and First Tech is likely to be less than responsive.

So maybe instead I’ll just sit here on the hard plastic seat and bask in the warm glow given off by my exit visa.

So today at noon, I check out of the Aquarium Hotel and ride a taxi to Sheremetyevo International Airport to throw myself on my face in front of the Russian consul to beg for an exit visa. A slight exaggeration. Begging won’t do any good if the diplomatic machinery has not sufficiently turned its inner machinery to indicate “yes”.

Probably I will be able to blog from the airport. The internet access I bought at Domodedovo (and yes, I spell that airport’s name differently each time I write it, but this time I looked it up) should work at Sheremetyevo, and, if things go well, I’ll be there for probably 18 hours waiting for boarding of Northwest (actually KLM) flight #7727 at 5:50 am tomorrow, 8/11. Why not come back to the hotel? Entirely irrational. Being at the airport is closer to home than being at the hotel.

I will then fly to Amsterdam, spend a couple hours there, and board Northwest (actually Delta) flight #763 for Portland. Oregon. Home.

Why do I feel if I write that down often enough I have a better chance of getting the visa? Superstition arises when people feel they have no control over important parts of their life, and they find ways to feel they have more control. So: flight #763 to Portland, Oregon.

Or not.

Watch the eastern horizon. If — when I get the visa, you will see a distant, but brilliant sparkle of fireworks wending their way joyously into the heavens. The fact that it is physically impossible for you to see anything fired heavenward from halfway around the world is, in this case, irrelevant.

And please understand: I am not leaving Russia, I am going home. The books I’m taking on the plane are “Russian Slang” and “93 Untranslatable Russian Words”, though I may buy something trashy at the airport for distraction. Right now, my TV is tuned to a fashion show in Russian (anyone who knows me will not believe this), and I’m feeling sad that I won’t hear this language as often soon. I’ve got Vladimir Vissotsky in my computer’s DVD drive so I can listen to him en route if I need a shot of concentrated Russianness.

But: flight #763 to Portland, Oregon. And in less than 48 hours (I think, my internal time calculator is on the fritz), home.

Victoria, who took me out to dinner Wednesday, comments, “Actually the right prononciation is even worse : товарищ = tavareeshtch’”, emphasis on the “eeshtch”.

It occurs to me that I am in the position of an aboriginal visiting London. I report what I see, but I’m seeing it all through a lens of profound ignorance and cultural presuppositions. Hence, the ad for caviar-flavored potato chips looked to me like an ad for eating caviar with potato chips.

Dear God, I hope I haven’t told you too many fables and mispronunciations. Young people, if you are reading this, do not cite me as a source in your term papers.

I thought I heard the people in the movie (made during the Soviet era, when everyone called everyone else “comrade”) say tobarEESHCH, so I put that in my last post, saying we got it wrong. I was wrong. We get it right. Sufficiently confused now?

1. During the Soviet era, people addressed one another as “Comrade” (товарищ, pronounced tovarishch, accent on the last syllable — as usual, we get it wrong intuitively). In contemporary Russia, this form of address survives in only one context: the military. So the private addresses the general as “Comrade General”. Probably not very often, but when he does, that’s how.
2. The question of how one civilian addresses another is apparently still somewhat of an open question. There is no Mr. or Mrs. that isn’t irrevocably connected with the pre-Revolutionary class system. During the Soviet era, someone who you didn’t like well enough to call “Comrade”, you called “Citizen” (граждянин or граждянка). If you know someone, of course, you can address them by their name and patronymic (Ivan Borisovich meaning Ivan, son of Boris, or Nadya Borisovna, Nadya, daughter of Boris), which always sounds intimate to me, but is actually a formal mode of address. But what do you call a stranger whose attention you need to attract? To yell “Hey, you” at a man, the preferred form is “Young man” (молодой человек) and doesn’t seem to be limited to actually young male persons, though I’d imagine it wouldn’t work too well for someone in his 70s. Similarly for women, it’s девушка (young woman), probably until it becomes бабушка (grandmother), which is not considered an insult here. I have not been hailed as babushka, possibly because babushkas don’t wear jeans and T-shirts, at least not in public.
3. Something amazing. I’m watching a movie in Russian, and I understand it. Not just obvious plot points, but entire series of spoken sentences. For all the excitement of this trip, I have been feeling like I didn’t really improve much in my understanding of the Russian language. But maybe there’s a latency effect such that my brain needs to work undisturbed for a while to integrate what I’ve done. Not that the dialogue I’m hearing is any challenge to Tolstoy or Dostoyevsky, but I’m understanding it.
4. Plot twists one would not see in Hollywood movies of the same era (post WW II): the handsome hero whom the beautiful young heroine loves is actually a Nazi spy plotting to blow up the log flues through which brave Soviet lumbermen navigate long rafts of fresh-cut timber (some great footage of lumbermen standing on the logs of the rafts splashing through the flues navigating from the front of the raft with long oars). The not-so-handsome guy who is hopelessly in love with the heroine uncovers the plot, and the heroine’s mother, who discovers that the handsome guy is actually an impostor and that the man her daughter was in love with before he went off to war has died, gets shot by the handsome guy. In American movies, no one ever shoots anyone’s mother. And at the end, the pretty girl is mourning the death of her first love, the not-so-handsome guy and the pretty girl’s mother are recovering from having been shot by the handsome bad guy. No one is happy, but the logs can continue to flow down the river to support Soviet industry. Very Russian.

1. One way in which the Aquarium Hotel might as well be in Las Vegas: the landscaping and cleanup of the acres of asphalt parking space is being done by short, brown men who don’t speak the local language very well and are in the country illegally. Of course, here the short, brown men are Uzbeks, Tajiks, and Kazaks from former Soviet republics where unemployment is even worse than in Michigan.
2. Got driven to get my suitcase out of hock at Domodevevo. Interesting trip. At one point, we were part of a six-lane parking lot on a highway designed for five lanes. I asked the driver if this state of affairs was usual, and he said it was due to an accident ahead, which it was. Then, coming back, it looked like our route to the airport was backed up in the five (or six) lanes going back, so he took an alternative route that took us through the center of Moscow. You look around, and there’s tall office buildings going up, auto repair malls, clover-leaf interchanges, and, every once in a while, gilded onion domes of a church to remind you that you’re actually in Russia.
3. Today after I was retrieving my luggage from storage, I was dragging it one step at a time up to the main floor when a woman who was also going up the steps took hold of the handle and pulled with me. She was talking on her cell phone as we climbed, and when we got to the top step, she just walked away, still talking. I’ve had things like that happen every once in a while here. People are willing to help when needed without any further personal interaction. It seems to be very Russian.
4. Another way in which the Aquarium Hotel might as well be in Las Vegas: their room service menu features sandwiches with french fries, which they serve with ketchup, though the ketchup comes in an elegant little metal cream pitcher sort of dish. The sandwiches are also held together by little fluorescent plastic swords. The Aquarium has an added advantage: the tap water in Moscow is not safe to drink, which means they can charge you for bottled water. I’ve currently got three bottles of Perrier at nearly $4 each. I figure if I’m going to be living in Las Vegas, I might as well live it up a bit. Plus which the insurance will repay me some small amount of what it costs me to wait for my Russian exit visa.