Back in the USSR (former)

Well, lest you think that Mother Russia welcomed me back to her bosom with open arms... I can somewhat grumpily report that Sheremetyevo airport is every bit the horror it was 11 years ago - only this time, I was fending for myself. As you arrive in Moscow, the first thing you notice is the stampede down the stairs to Passport Control, which is a smallish room, no services, and a low, waffle-iron type ceiling that flickers flourescent spotlights. As I realized later, the smart people are the ones that literally run to be first in line, because if you are not at the beginning, everything else is total chaos. Russia has a passion for queing up into various lines, which I think must be holdover from the Soviet era - if you don't stand in a mismanaged line for at least an hour, it doesn't count.

So, 2 hours later, I finally made it through, with no less than 3 red stamps, to the baggage claim area, which by this time has the luggage from 4 different flights scattered all over the floor. At this point, the fun really begins with the descent of the Russian airport mafia (I am so not kidding). I suppose I was mentally unprepared for what I knew was likely to happen, a scam around every corner, starting with the "porter service" who tried to funnel me right into the waiting taxi vultures. I had anticipated the difficulty of getting all the way across Moscow to the hostel in the evening, and had arranged for a driver to meet me there. But of course, after a 3 hour delay, I was scanning all of the signs in vain: there was no one to meet me. If it had been during the day, I would have just dove into the process of catching a bus to the center of town and then taking the metro, but it was now 9:30 at night, and I just was not feeling ballsy enough. The taxis originally tried to charge me 5,000 rubles for the 60 km drive, which is about 160 US dollars. After approaching the "informatzi" booth and asking for a map and help dialing the hostel number, a completely unsympathetic troll looked at me from under her heavily made-up eye-lids and couldn't be bothered to help. A kind gentleman, who also was part of the taxi vulture crowd, offered to try dialing the hostel - but all we got was a series of beeps. This really made me nervous, since i would hate to go all the way across the city to a place that wouldn't let me in for the night. (I looked at a lot of places to stay in Moscow, this one was recommended and also arranges for visa invitation support, etc., and is one of the less prohibitively expensive places to stay - but at this point, I was thinking it was not such a hot idea, unfortunately, part of the process is to pay the first night up front. It is an understatement to say that finding reasonable accomodation in Moscow is not easy).

I decided finally I would have to bite the bullet and take a taxi, because by now it is 10:30 pm and I am really not going to chance public transit. It took some tears to negotiate the price (some of which were real, more from anger than anything) but we got it down to half of what they originally told me. Still an astronomical amount, but unreasonable charges every once in a while in order to save my sanity are built into the budget. More or less.

I had a great driver (although driving on the roads of Moscow may be even more frightening than driving the streets of Beijing. It is metro for me from here on out) who only had a few words of English, but it was amazing how much Russian came back during the hour drive. I've been speaking very little English since, just making my way along with a halting vocabulary. I almost always preface by saying "I speak bad Russian" which makes people smile. I take pity on the solo traveler entering this country with not even the basic language skills, it has so far saved my bacon many times over.

It is rather amazing and surreal to be back here, some of it is so familiar, from the synthetic pop to the smells of cigarette smoke and perfume- walking around the neighborhood this morning at sunrise, just taking my bearings, I watched people sweep in from all directions toward the metro station, the rush hour to work. There are many kiosks around the station, so I had my breakfast pieroshki and tea and was happy. The hotel/hostel has turned out to be a great value, with the most unexpected thing being a wonderful bathroom, complete with tub and amazing hot water. There is no one in the other room, so I am enjoying the space and solitude before the long train ride. I am still waiting on my official registration (one more process in the beaurocratic cog) but it should come through by noon, and then I am off to the city center for the day. The next post should be much less rant and more about what it was like to be back at Krasnaya Plochadz (Red Square). Dobra Pazhalovat!