Into the bears den in Russia

Editors note: These blogs have been a long time coming as I have been at the pub for most of the last week. So the programme is Russia today, Finland by maybe Thursday and then a comprehensive London update after that, unless I continue to get waylaid at the Elgin.

We flew into Sheremetyevo UAC, didn't get much sleep last night.
On the way the paper bag was onmy knee, man I had a dreadful flight.
But now I'm back in the USSR, don't know how lucky you are boy
Back in the USS, Back in the USSR!!!!

Or at least that's what it seemed like we were arriving in what with all the invasions, diplomacy, border disputes, talk of sovereignty and insurrections we kept hearing about from the Caucasus on the BBC as we left Uzbekistan for Russia. We were half expecting to see the corpse of Lenin rise, smash its way out of Red Square and restart the Revolution; he would not, however, need to travel far to find the capitalists or even the tools of the bourgeois. He would probably get run over by one in a large black Mercedes or Porsche right out the front of the Kremlin where they scream around the corner flat out next to St Basil's Cathedral.

But, as so often seems to happen with these blogs, I digress. I actually didn't get much sleep that night, owing to a 4:50 AM flight from Tashkent that we arrived at the airport for at 2:35 AM. The previous night we'd planned on getting plenty of sleep but had ended up staying up late eating pizza and talking about pets with our new friends from Perth, Jasmin and Mark.

The lack of sleep affected Michelle somewhat more than me, which I could tell from the serve she gave a armed member of the notoriously corrupt Uzbek customs who dared tell her she was in a line for Uzbek nationals only. Allow me to relate the story, which we will now refer to as When Michelle Lost Her Mind.

When Michelle Lost Her Mind

A True Story

By Brock Mills

It was 2:35 AM when we arrived at the Tashkent Airport, tired and unkempt due to too many beers and not enough sleep the night before. Also weighing on our spirits were our very heavy packs that weighed on our backs. We were cheered by the existence of our flight number on the departures board (a welcome change from Vietnam) and by the nice Aeroflot employee who offered to upgrade us to Business Class for $100 each, an offer we would have taken had we actually had the money.

Having got our tickets and filled out the necessary forms, we headed over to customs where the procedure was mercifully straight forward compared to when we entered the country. From customs we went to passport control where there was a group of about 30 school girls from Russia in one line and about 3 people in the other line. We stood in the short line for about a minute when a young, armed Uzbek customs official came over and asked to see our hotel registration forms (Each hotel you stay in has to "register" you with the authorities and they all give you a little slip of paper, which you have to keep in case a customs official wants to look at them. Why? We have no idea. Blame the Soviets.)

We showed him our forms and he nodded. He then proceeded to tell us we were in the line for Uzbek nationals only and we had to get in the other line with the 30 Russian school girls. At this Michelle decided to give him a bit of what for, pointing out that the same "Uzbek nationals only" sign was above that queue as well, that the other queue was much longer and we didn't much feel like standing in this line any longer than is necessary. All said with the threat of violence in her voice that I sometimes fear. The official didn't know what to say as I'm sure he had never been spoken to in that manner by a woman in his whole life, and certainly not by one at the airport trying to pass through immigration without any problems.

Sensing danger, I tactfully defused a potential international incident, by grabbing my wife and dragging her over to the other line and hiding behind a large pole. I didn't say anything about it, until after we were safely in the departure lounge.

"Have you lost your mind?" I asked.

"Yes. I don't know what came over me.." she answered.

"Well luckily we didn't get shot. You should have a little sleep before we need to deal with any officials again". So she went to sleep and was much nicer to everyone after that.

And that was it. The Aeroflot flight was brilliant, almost the best food we had in Uzbekistan, with good service in a clean, comfortable and almost brand new A321. Some people were pretty surprised when told that we were flying Aeroflot owing to their poor safety record and Soviet standards of service but the flight was very good and there were no annoying holes in the hull, like what you get QANTAS at the moment. People did clap and cheer when we landed so I guess that the cultural memory of Aeroflot is still alive in people's minds, but they do that in Greece for Olympic Airways as well.

Now for all the trouble it took, which was considerable, to actually get permission to travel to Russia, what with all the visa support and quick processing fees and the like, actually entering Russia was so easy it was almost a bit of a let down. We lined up for 2 minutes at immigration (with Shell keeping her mouth shut) and then walked straight through customs and we'd arrived. A short 3 hour bus/metro/walk trip later we were in the heart of Moscow quickly coming to grips with the reality of being in the world's most expensive city.

Moscow is fantastic. We stood in the shadows of the Kremlin in Red Square, savoured the view of St Basil's Cathedral with the Onion Domes and the magnificent GUM department store in what is a place that far exceeded my expectations. It's pretty cool to stand in a place that you know so much about, mostly from movies and Cold War spy novels, and watch people simply going about their daily lives. I was hoping to catch some KGB guy following us from a distance, or perhaps see a dead letter drop in Gorky Park but we didn't get to see any of that. We did get to see the changing of the guard at the Kremlin and there were many large black Mercedes with tinted windows that may have contained Vladimir Putin or Dimitry Medvedev but that was about as far as it went. We did get to see these amazing office buildings they built in the 1950's that seriously look like they are out of Gotham city and there were quite a few gigantic churches.

Most if the stuff I'd read about Moscow said things like "it was a great city, but was ruined by the commies" and "90% of the old parts of Moscow were pulled down and replaced with horrible Stalinist towers". If that's the case then Moscow must have been one of the world's great marvels as it is still really good. It's a large modern city with some great Baroque architecture in the centre of town that has great weather in the summer, even into late August. A bit like Melbourne but not as hot and more daylight. And it has the Kremlin, Red Square, St Basil's Cathedral, Lenin's Mausoleum and all these icons of 20th century history.

We had a great time. We walked around town taking photos, we rode the subway to the souvenir market where we got some great Babushka Dolls, T-shirts and little badges. We managed to buy some train tickets to St Petersburg from a lady who didn't speak a word of English and we even went to the hands down best local supermarket in the whole world on Tversky Boulevard - it's in this amazing old classical building that sells caviar and all sorts of fancy foods we hadn't seen for months like bread and milk. We went through Cathedral Square in the Kremlin and even went and saw a rubbish movie out near the 1980 Olympic Stadium. And, apart from accommodation which is outrageously expensive, it doesn't actually cost that much to do things there. McDonalds is cheap and there's these Pancake places everywhere that will feed you for about $3 and even real food is comparatively inexpensive on a 1 for 1 basis with Australia. We got a really good pasta meal for maybe $8 AUD each, and they do good coffee.

My favourite part of Moscow though, was when we were having a beer at a sports bar before we headed off for our 2:35AM train to St Petersburg. We were watching the Olympics and more or less minding our own business when these Russian guys, who were obviously dying to talk to us, struck up a bit of a conversation with us. Before we knew it, everyone in the bar that could speak English was helping our new friend out with his questions as everyone became fascinated with our trip and the fact that we were actually real Australians in Russia. We talked about this and that - this guy used to be an officer in the Army, now was in sales of some sort and was going to buy a new car - and then we did some shots of Vodka. The manager of the bar told us he lived in Sydney for 3 years and wanted to go back and we all generally had a good time when he explained a concept of the Russian language I'd been missing. We were talking about Vladimir Putin shooting that tiger and our friend said "I've got a shotgun" and I said "Kruta" which is Russian for cool. He said "Nyet - Shotgun is not Kruta. AK-74; this is Kruta"

With that we left for St Petersburg, which I will probably write about in the near future!