Russian Bus Trip

       We use words like "learning experience" or "it was up to local standards" to usually defend an entitled position or belief. I've done it and I am not ashamed to admit it. The sense of entitlement is only wrong if you haven't earned it, or don't deserve it. Part of this deserving is the intelligence and understanding that most of the world doesn't share the idea that by virtue of being born in a privileged society one automatically is entitled to the standards that come with it while abroad.

We see this perhaps best when booking travel. In Africa, I was offered First and Business class when booking rail or flight tickets. The person didn't offer me any of the three levels of coach, nor the lowest class that is on the top of the rail cars themselves. In Africa, the system of judging where someone belongs is much more obvious and simple for travelers of the western world.
    This is not the case in Russia. We encountered some difficulties with the amount of luggage we had in our possession and how to get it all from Moscow to the resort city of Anapa, located on the Black Sea. Flying was out of the question as we had already encountered overweight issues flying in Canada. Anapa, being a tourist area, usually means people flying there for a couple of weeks take one twenty kilogram bags. Rail was our next choice.

      We checked into various rail options and again ran into issues of weight and volume. Depending on the type of train, and where you're going dictates the type of classes and cabins available to you. On this trip, we had first, with two people sharing a cabin usually occupied by four or six, or second and buying out all of the four positions. While expensive by Russian standards a relative bargain compared to Canada where freight is given priority over people. The difficulty was getting the luggage on the train as people are on the lookout for people pulling too much. So with another roadblock we explored other options.

     Bus was the easy answer. This bus transportation is very luggage friendly as people in the smaller towns go to the Moscow market to buy wholesale goods and then pack it all home to sort, tag, and sell in their little shops. An entire industry has developed around this practice. Entrepreneurs travel from their hometown to buy goods imported from Korea and China. They spend the day bargaining and getting their goods wrapped and ready for transport. When done skinny porters with incredible strength bring all their stuff to the bus. The purchases get loaded and then tired from the days transactions these Entrepreneurs crawl up to the second level, find a bunk, and sleep. This leaves the first level virtually unoccupied. I say virtually because there is a kitchen and it gets used to prepare food and coffee at different intervals during the twenty-five hour journey from Moscow to Anapa.

    So it is here I found myself, bags in tow, surrounded by the cacophony of Russian and Korean calls for porters to move faster, in a different direction, or stop entirely. The drive through Moscow had been as exciting as usual and from my Canadian time oriented perspective we were late. I watched as our luggage was buried and tried to calm my rising sense of doom. The bus was not a sleek euro cruiser like I had seen on searches I'd made looking for "Russian busses" It was old and of a manufacturer I'd never heard of before. The driver's seat did have a Mercedes seat cover and I tried to take comfort in this, thinking perhaps it had come with a new engine job. I failed to convince myself on any level that this was true, lowered my head and sense of entitlement, thinking "Once more into the breech."

    My wife Inga and her sister decided it was time to leave me, most likely sensing my mood. So I stowed my bag and settled in a seat sure that I would die here in a fiery crash or killed and looted by the various characters moving in and around the bus. One of these characters was barking orders ferociously. Now small disagreements in Russian do sound, to a westerner, quite serious. This was more than that. He was a large man with military demeanors and a drill sergeant voice I thought I was long immune to. I physically jumped as directions launched from his mouth like Russian mortars. Over the back of the co-pilot seat was a safety jacket with some Russian Cyrillic on it so desperately needing a distraction I brought out my phone. I have an AP that is supposed to translate from pictures taken on the camera, it had yet to work at all but I needed to keep busy to avoid grabbing my towel and running in panic. It worked!  The one time it actually worked is the one time I wished it hadn't. The safety jacket said, "Tank Driver."

    Seeping deeper into doom, I was joined in the kitchen area by an older lady. In Russia, these ladies are called Babushka and can be very unpredictable.  In North America Older ladies may wear purple, here they can give you purple bruises. So I quietly sat there trying to disappear and hoping if I didn't obfuscate that the girls would return. The Babushka started talking, not to me directly but in that way people do to fill uncomfortable silences and encourage the other person to join in. Lacking the skills verbally, I chose instead to sing quietly to myself in English. It worked, she understood I was a visitor and sensed I was as uncomfortable as she was. She set on a new task with renewed vigor and while I sensed this has something to do with me I had no idea what.

    She joined me at the table with several small plastic containers and a bag filled with different types of bread and started making sandwiches. She finished two, took a bite smiled and handed me the other. I accepted it and noticed it was bacon and tomato! Thick pieces of smoke cured uncooked bacon with slices of fresh organic tomato. It was incredible. I said "thank you" in Russian and followed with, "I can't speak Russian." She replied simply by saying "Me neither." She continued to cut and arrange different delicacies on the table between us and then got up to make coffee. When her coffee was ready she simply pointed to another cup. I shook my head and said "Yes Please." She put milk and sugar into her cup and then looked at me with a questioning look. I said "No" and the questioning look was replaced by confusion.

     Russians almost always put sugar in their coffee so this yes I'll have coffee then no confused her, as no one would drink coffee without sugar.  But after a little bit of sign language and gestures we worked it out, once again settling down to cut veggies, fruit, bread, cheese, and bacon.
 Inga and her sister arrived back to find me lounging and eating and feeling if not comfortable then accepted into this new environment.  They too had bought food, drinks, and snacks for the journey and quickly set to sharing. We were joined by an older man that could have played many different roles if cast into a movie, all of them villains.
 
     He was a shorter man with tiny, powerful hands that bore the scars of a life spent using them. He had sharp facial features wrapped in well tanned skin that had lost its elasticity years ago, and now could be compared to the wings of a bat. But his eyes were what you'd notice first. Piercing eyes are easy if they happen to be green or icy blue. This man's were muddy brown, tinged with red and tore to the core of what they looked at. They didn't so much dart to things as they moved, they just changed focus like a fast sport's photography lens.

     I stood up to make room and those eyes catalogued me just that fast. Displaying the shortest of pauses at things he noticed; tattoo, clip from a knife, scars. All accessed and weighed as he raised his hand gesturing no and smiled a mouth full of gold.

    I sat back down beside what I was understanding to be his wife and he dug a bottle of Russian Standard vodka out of an old seaman's shoulder bag. Finding plastic glasses, he poured a round and raised his glass. Instead of trying to make a whole toast in English, he only said.  "New, Journey, Welcome to Russia." We all touched glasses around the tight little table, I lowered mine below the rim of his, a sign of respect in Russia, and was rewarded with a larger gold smile and even more appraising look.

Traffic in Moscow is amazing

I entered the arrivals area of Terminal three to the usual throng of waiting family and friends and looked for my ride. He was not to be found. So I made my way to some benches and set myself up to wait, enjoying a fair amount of people watching. Sitting there, I must have looked like low hanging fruit as the amassed taxi drivers kept approaching me, viewing the stacked luggage like a junkie views a spoon. I politely waved them off or spoke in Russian politely, the two words I’d learned to deal with airport types. “Nyet Spasibo." No thanks.
 
However, they were persistent and I was forced to abandon my rudimentary Russian for English to explain that the driver knew I had lots of luggage and it wouldn’t be a problem.
 
            This use of English quickly rang the bell to those around me that I wasn’t Russian. Something I like to avoid in new countries as it has many far-reaching, and potentially dangerous results. The most annoying of which is what I call the “Lemming”  effect. Two people nearby immediately walked over, got close, and started talking to one another and trying to engage me in English.  This cultural same same grouping behaviour is exactly what you shouldn’t do. An Airport is a long grassy field. The tall yellow swaying grass hiding the lions that are sure to be there. You’ve just got off a long flight, you are tired, confused and packing a great deal of good stuff. Nothing personal but at this point you’re just food and you’re the weakest one in the group.
 
So I got up and moved away from this clucking mass of perhaps soon to be statistics. People who would claim later that they don’t how anyone knew they had X explaining  to cops that could care less, not because they’re lazy, but because you rang the dinner bell.  Cops all over the world hate stupid people about as much as they do the ones that pray on them. Difference is in some countries they don’t hide it so the average Joe can tell.
 
            My ride showed up a few seconds after I moved. His apology two words “Crazy Traffic.” I followed him outside pushing my towering set of bags toward his car. It was a beautiful black G65 AMG Mercedes and it was already gathering a crowd of admirers.  I pushed past some of the taxi drivers that had earlier tried to engage me resisting the desire to ask if they thought my luggage would fit now. I jumped into the front seat and took the time to openly admire the vehicle. Paying careful attention to be respectful but not drool. My driver was a man of little words, noticed my attention and only said “Spasibo.”
 
            We shot off into traffic and I noticed he had a high definition dash cam pointing out the front and two cell phones. One phone was being used exclusively for traffic updates.  “So” I thought, “How could this guy have been late?” My answer came in a few short seconds.
 
Traffic moves in a pattern that probably mimics the forces and motion involved in the Big Bang.  The lines painted on the roads are purely for decoration and this confusion moves in all directions at the same time with only centimeters of separation. Try as I might I could not discern why some cars where jumping into one lane or another. Horns reserved for drivers that dare touch their brakes. While I knew some higher end vehicles had proximity alarms to warn the driver of low fences or dropped bikes I had yet to hear one. In Russian traffic, the sensor beeped like a teenagers cell phone on Friday afternoon. We careened through this deadly looking ballet my guy seeming not to notice close cars or very quickly diminishing angles of entry to off ramps or on ramps. What struck me most about it was everyone looked to be quite calm. No one was in a rage or making gestures at anyone. They were only concentrating on the drive and getting where they needed to be. It dawned on me at that point that the reason for this chaos was necessity and everyone was attempting to cooperate to get home. One accident could tie up a large section of the city for a very long time. So stupid behaviour got a long horn and then blocked out to the curb as no one would let you in. Stupid or inattentive drivers need not apply.

The Official Russian Arrival.

    One of the things that strike a person traveling to a new country is the subtle differences. Humans have it programmed into their DNA to find patterns, it is one of the key reasons we survived and evolved while everything around us had much more dangerous set of genetic adaptations. No razor sharp talons, or thick hides for us. We got stereoscopic vision, and pattern recognition. So it is no surprise that when we land in a strange and potentially hostile environment we slip back into our old ways.
I don't want to give the impression that Russia was immediately a hostile feeling place. Quite the opposite actually it was very much relaxed. Too comfortable, in that way a highly competent MMA fighter sits relaxed drinking in an unfamiliar bar.
     Getting off the plane in Russia is pretty much like getting off the plane in any other country I've traveled to. That uneasy feeling you've left something vitally important wedged into the seat cushion you occupied for ten hours mixed with the general dread of what's next and where do I go to find this what. So adopting the "look like you know what you're doing" posture I walked quickly toward this unknown. Faking a confident stride I didn't feel and speed I wished was half.
This is usually the time your pattern recognition starts to come to the forefront of your awareness. A picture showing two gender obvious block people, with undecipherable Russian Cyrillic under it I incorrectly think is a toilet. Finding instead an elevator I march in hoping another follows me and knows where to go as letting the mask of confidence slip is never an option.
Doomed and alone I look at the familiar control panel inside my new box canyon. The cave bear scratching alongside the familiar square buttons mock me. I jab one in the middle hedging my bets.
The doors open and the brightly lit corridor is adorned with an English sign, "Passport Control." I follow it confidently and praise my good luck, once again fumbling myself out a species ending event.
     Arriving at the control point I see citizen lines but nothing for aliens so I veer right until I see one empty lane with a sign saying "Visitors."  This is so much more welcoming than in other countries that let you know as soon as you arrive you have no claim to the soil you are about to walk on.
Inside the booth is a young women, affecting a bored demeanor she takes my passport without making eye contact, instead looking at me via the video display monitor that sits on her desk. She confirms my arrival into the country on another display terminal as a registration card is generated by the printer. All the while she stares at me on the first display screen. This is the point where the "too relaxed" feeling grabbed the lower regions previously numbed by ten hours of sitting on them. A quick, practiced rip and tuck and this paramount registration document is separated from the printer and placed inside my passport with a stamp. Closed she hands me the passport and the briefest of eye contact occur. I spring into a question I have been rehearsing for hours.
"Do I need to pick up an immigration form here at the airport?" Her response could have been a rear naked choke, delivered by the great Gracie himself in the style and ease this young woman demonstrated with her response. "No, no forms here, only stamps. Go now." Defeated and with the creeping feeling all was not as laid back as it seemed I went in search of my luggage.
 Luggage carousels are always a source of frustration and jubilation at the same time. Yeah, my bag arrived and I won't have to wear this underwear a second day and risk creating a new mutant strain of bacteria. Followed by what the unknown people behind the curtain have broken, stolen, rummaged through? This Great Russian reveal was no different. My bags arrived looking as though they had survived some near apocalypse and I moved past the sheep standing in the way to wrestle the 35 kilograms off the moving catwalk. Wondering why, as I always do, people feel the need to pose readily to pounce on their bag like some jungle cat. The device moves slowly enough that a grandmother sporting a cane could retrieve a bag easily if you'd just get out of the way.  The Lemming like gathering along the edge of the device and the spousal banter of; "Is that it?" "Did you pack the black one too?" providing a bit of comedic reliefs. I moved off thinking it had only been ten hours how the hell do these people recognize their own children after a week of summer camp.
     Having passed Immigration and retrieved whatever remained in my suitcases I headed for Customs. Russia has two lines, Red and Green. Red is you have something to declare and Green is you don't. Not knowing what I was allowed to bring into the country and knowing I was under surveillance so sophisticated that it was invisible I stopped at a display that outlined the various stuff that had to be declared. I didn't really read any of it as I didn't want to know and with this knowledge demonstrate a tick or "tell" that this super sophisticated facial mapping software would flag and garner me added attention. Have stood in front of the display for what I thought was long enough I continued down the Green line.
    Rounding a checkpoint corner brought me to two young ladies discussing nails or hair, or perhaps both from what the gestures they were making suggested. Once again they didn't really look up. Instead focusing, between banter, on the display screen. They pointed at me and then at an older looking x-ray machine. Neither moved or said anything. Just pointed for me to put my bags into the machine. I hefted my luggage into the ancient machine that no doubt contained MRI level scanning abilities concealed inside the antique. When this was complete I looked back at them and saw that they were once more engaged in a pretend conversation, this time it looked to be about shoes. Since I had obviously ‘lucked out" a second time in my all too short day I continued into the arrivals area.