Domestic Air - Russia Style

If Russian ticket agents cared to ask the same question that US aiport agents do "Have you left your luggage unattended or has anyone asked you to carry anything for them?" the lady standing in front of us would have had to answer "Yes".

It was an unassuming white packette with an address but no stamps. We shrugged our shoulders unable to speak Russian when the two teenagers offered it to us. But the lady in front of us took the packette without hesitation and toosed it in her carry-on bag. "Makes ya feel really safe, huh John?"

People stood in mass confusion at the airport taping packages and having their luggage wrapped in brown paper at the window two down from us. Brown paper-wrapped packages, each now indistiquishable from the next, were shuffled around the floor. Welcome to domestic air, Russian style.

We checked our packs and I made sure the sticker on them said "Irkutsh", our destination in Siberia, before they disappeared behind the rubber curtain at the desk. We shook our heads unable to understand the droll of Russian questions issued at us from the ticket agent and took our boarding passes.

We now had 2 hours to kill. Not much to do in the airport. So we looked at the planes lined up on the tarmac - KMV, Gerogian Air, Subur, Russian Air, AVIA, Siberia Air - not one airlines I recognized. When we tried to get into the gate area, we were turned back by the agent there. "Wait," she said in Russian. It was 10:50 am at this point (our flight was at 11:40). When we tried the gate door again, it was locked.

"Uh oh. This isn't good," John reported five minutes later after looking at the departure monitor. "Our flight isn't listed anymore."

I ran up to a man I had heard speaking perfect English on his cell phone. "Excuse me, can you help us out. Our flight seems to have disappeared."

"Where are you going? Irkutsk? Oh boy. That flight has already borded," he said looking at the monitor. He ran frantically to each of the gate doors banging on them until someone answered. Lots of Russian words, some pointing. "This way," he said to us and we ran to gate #5. They had changed the gate and never displayed it. "Quickly, in here. Show them your tickets. Run," he yelled. "Good luck," he called after us.

A stewardess, perhaps seeing our plight and sypathizing, raced us to the tarmac and questioned every bus driver remaining there. We hustled onto one bus, and we were whisked off while the stewardess banged on the plex-glass partition behind the driver yelling, "Irkutsk? Irkutsk?"

It was all frantic at the plane too. "Get on board, get on quickly," the flight attendants urged. "take your seats, hurry."

We collapsed into our seats. "Whew! that was close," John sighed. It was 11:28am. We sat on the tarmac ready to jockey into take-off poistion. We buckled up. It was 11:35. Soft drinks were offered around. It was 11:45. It was 12:00. It was 12:15. Not a wheel had turned. I loosened my seatbelt. It was 12:28. Finally we rolled to the runway. At 12:40, the flight attendants went through the safety instructions. John looked at me. The sweaty sheen I'd had from our frantic pre-take off dash had long since evaporated. "Yeah, that was really close," John reiterated. We settled in for a long day. ------------

The flight was good. We were 2 of only 22 passengers onboard. The entire back cabin was empty save for a few people who had sprawled out to sleep back there. A big TU154 plane is needed for the range we were covering on our 5 hour, 5 time-zone crossing trip (Russia covers 11 time zones).

Our delayed take off meant a local time arrival of 11:30 pm. The buses and trollies weren't running anymore and it was dark when we landed. Our attempts to call four hotels resulted in one with no rooms available, two that didn't speak English and hung up on me and one with no answer.

The taxi drivers that had been mulling around when the flight arrived had either gathered fares or given up trying. Ahh, alone at last in a deserted airport, at night, in a foreign country, not speaking the language, with no hotel. What could be more condusive to...fear! Two diferent Russians that we've met had told us that we were so brave for travelling here without speaking the language. I didn't feel so brave. I felt lost.

I walked back outside and asked the one man standing on the sidewalk if he, by any slim chance, spoke English. No? I didn't think so. I pantomined sleep, did my best at a Russian sentence "Is there a hotel nearby?" He directed me to the policeman in the airport (A kid really) who spoke about 5 words of English. "Hotel" must have been one of them and we found ourselves following these two strangers down the street and into an alley. "Stay behind them John," I said. "In case we need to make a run-for-it." How much of a run-for-it we could make with 22 lbs on our backs was debatable, but it was my only plan.

Bam,Bam,Bam. They knocked on the locked door of a dingy looking brick building. The entryway had a faint odor of old, stale urine. "This is gunna be home, John. I just got a feeling."

A lot of Russian words were exchanged between the two men and a cleaning lady and we were shown room #24 - 2 beds, 2 chairs, a toilet (no seat), a tub I would never set foot in, and a TV. "Yes, Da," we nodded. We took it.

The receptionist showed me her calculator with 472 (~$16) on it as the room price. I took the calculator and punched in 300 (~$12), my counter offer. This place was worth maybe half that, but I didn't want to insult her. She looked at me hard, considered this and then countered me with 252 (~$8.50). Maybe she is really bad at math or doesn't get the concept of bargaining. At any rate, there we were with a quiet place to sleep, clean sheets, 2 small towels and the Stanley Cup Playoffs on TV; no soap or toilet paper but we came equipped with those.

Nighty Night!!