A Russian Circus

It was a Russian circus - not the kind with acrobats and dancing bears (although that would have been more entertaining). It was a circus of trying to find our way out of Severobaikalsk. Getting in was tough, why did I think that getting out was going to be easy?

We were stuck in another Siberian town. We wanted to get to Ulan Ude but it was the same story - the boat leaves on thursday, the boat doesn't leave on thursday, there are flights to Ulan Ude, there are no flights to Ulan Ude, there are planes with no seats, seats with no trains, and no chance of an autombile.

At the Aeroflot office we were told we could not fly to Ulan Ude until July 7. There were just no seats available. We were told that there were no flights at all to Irkutsk. That left us with the options of taking a two day train or the once-a-week 12 hour hydrofoil to Irkutsk and then training from there around the bottom of the lake to Ulan Ude.

We decided to take the hydrofoil. But wait! Peter, an English speaking Russian guide that we had met and who had invited us over, phoned us to tell us that the thursday hydrofoil would not leave till friday. When we then called Rashit to cancel our taxi for the morning, he didn't believe it. "It will leave thursday," he insisted. But just to be sure, he phoned Victor who lives near the dock. Victor ran to the hydrofoil and talked to the captain. Victor called Rashit, Rashit called us. Yes, the boat would not sail until Friday. We called Peter to say we would be over afterall. All of this back-and-forth took place at 11:00 at night.

Then at 1:00 in the morning, Peter told us that there were flights to Irkutsk afterall. But only if we lined up outside the Aeroflot office first thing when the office opened at 9:00am. So at 9:00am we were there. The office didn't open till 10:00.

Feat one accomplished. We could leave Severobaikalsk. We walked out of the Aeroflot office with tickets in hand to Irkutsk. Now we had the challenge of getting train tickets to Ulan Ude.

We went from one line in the train station to another. The Russian sense of queing once again ceased to impress us. The closer we got to the ticket window, the further back we were pushed by Russians claiming to have been there before us. It appears that simply arriving at the train station then leaving was adequate to secure a place. People were scattered all over the train station, yet, they were all in line. They all knew exactly who was before who, and who was before them, and that the Americans were dead last. One fat lady went so far as to shove me with her butt to make it to the window before me. I had to do a spin on my heals to avoid hitting the floor.

Finally, we were next. Two hours had transpired where we had been shoved, pushed, crushed and scolded. I readied our passports and train ticket reservation that I'd gotten at another ticket window. But the fat lady had gobbled up 25 minutes of time with her detailed train requests and multiple tickets. The 12:00 ticket window break loomed ever close. And then...we groaned. The ticket window closed, my hand poised in mid passport thrust. It wouldn't open again for one hour. The line dispersed. I'm sure everyone remembered the exact order of who was where and that in that list I was invisible.

Eventually a second ticket window opened. There was a mad dash, a new mob. I rushed forward. The man beside me was not happy that I overtook him on the push-the-passport-through-the-tiny-window maneuver. He hogged the window while I waited for my tickets to be processed.

The ticket lady stabbed at her keyboard. She left the room. she returned. She stabbed again. "Nyet!" she said. "What?" I replied. I was flabbergasted. "Nyet!" she said again and closed my passport. "There are no tickets. she pushed my passports and reservation through the window. I sank back into the crushing mob.

When I was leaving, I saw Peter across the train station. "What are you doing here?" he asked when he reached me.

"Trying to get tickets to Ulan Ude. Why are you here?"

"I have to get tickets to Irkutsk for three Americans. They have a flight to Ulan Ude on July 1 and no way from there to Irkutsk."

So there we were. We wanted to get to Ulan Ude but could only get to Irkutsk. They wanted to get to Irkutsk but could only get to Ulan Ude. We could get plane tickets to Irkutsk, they could not. They could get plane tickets to Ulan Ude, we could not.

"We should have trained to Irkutsk yesterday," John sighed. "And tried for a flight from there to Ulan Ude." He pulled our list of options from his pocket. That was plan #8. "Or boated to Davsha like we talked about, caught the ferry to Ust-Barguzin and bused ten hours to Ulan Ude. Or hydrofoiled for 12 hours on Friday to Port Baikal, trained at 4am to Slyvdyanka, then caught another train to Ulan Ude. Or...." Our possible scenarios map looked like a bad football play. Alas - the Russian transportation circus had gotten us again.

A quick Update on Russian Logistics

The man at the Severobaikalsk telegraph office, where we originally sent email, said that an Internet cafe didn't exist yet in Severobaikalsk. They were hoping to set one up for next year.

At the Internet cafe (which in fact did exist, and which we found through an un-marked door in the side of a concrete apartment building off a dirt path) we asked where they got their Internet connection. "Through the telegraph office of course."

Yet another example of the Russian right hand not only not knowing what the left hand is doing, but not even knowing that the right hand exists.