- 2/12/2008 10:00:00 PMMoscow Trip - Day 2We landed at Shermetyevo airport a few minutes before 11:00 (Local Moscow Time). Earlier in the year, our church had a missionary from Russia come and he explained what the layout of the airport was like. We were thankful for that, as it was laid out just like he said. We exited the plane along with a few other American women who had made this trip many times before. They helped us get into the correct line. Unlike some other foreign cities where signs are often in the local language and English, all the signs here are in Russian only. If you did not have help, you would get lost.
We stood in line with our passports and a special Visa form that we filled out on the plane. I wasn't paying attention to the person in front of me and when they were done passing through the Visa station, I was supposed to step forward. Before I knew it, I was being scolded in Russian by the Visa agent. It was a female and she was dressed in some kind of Uniform. I don't know if she was part of the military or some other government organization or just airport security. All of the uniforms look the same to me. She was a very nice looking woman who had the ability to make you feel like you had done something terrible by the way she looked at you. I said nothing and handed her my passport and form.
She looked at my photo and back at me then back to my passport. I think she grunted something at me a few times and I just smiled back. She typed a few things into her computer and then grunted at me again. Then she tossed me my passport. I think that means she was done. I grabbed by passport and left the window. Yikes!
Now keep in mind that I have no idea what anyone is saying to me, I can't read any of the signs and I'm in a line with lots of other people hoping that it is the correct line. I'm carrying a lot of cash strapped to my body hoping no one will notice and hoping that my luggage didn't get lost. Because if it did, I wouldn't know how to ask about it or how to understand the answer should I receive one.
We both got through the line and went directly to the baggage claim. This is perhaps the best part of the Shermetyevo airport. You cannot miss it as you must walk around it to exit the terminal. Within 5 minutes, all of our luggage appeared. We loaded it onto a cart and headed for the metal detector. Peggy was ahead of me pulling the two carry on bags. They waived her through and she did not have to be inspected. Being the kind of guy that I am, I followed her. MISTAKE.
They waived me back over to the metal detector where I had to unload all of the luggage and run it through the detector. It was no big deal, but in America we would call that kind of behavior "profiling", "discrimination" or "random security". We passed through the detector and made our way for the doors. There were many taxi drivers waiting to take you anywhere. Along with them was our driver "Victor". He was holding a sign with our last name. That was a relief.
Victor drives a Volga sedan. That's Volga with a "B". The correct Russian spelling for Volga is "B O N A". Looks like Bona, sounds like Volga. Lots of signs around here are like that. Additionally, some of their letters look like numbers and others look like no other character I've seen before. What ever...
So we climbed into the Volga Bona mobile and began to drive. Victor speaks about 10% English which means you must listen very hard and carefully guess about the parts you don't understand. Victor said "One. Clinic" where the word "clinic" sounds like "kleeeeen-ik". I think that means we are first going to the clinic for our medical exams. Got it.
First question to Victor, "Two?". It seemed a logical question based on the level of language we are engaged in. Nope - wrong again. Victor responded with "Huh?" Oh boy... where do we go from here. This went on and on for a long time while we drove to the clinic.
The clinic was about 35 kilometers from the airport. After the clinic visit, we were to go to Tatyana's flat. Tatyana is a woman who has agreed to host us until next week Thursday. We knew that we were supposed to be on the train tonight and we did not expect to be going to her flat at all. Perhaps we would have time to shower before we left on the train.
As we entered deepest Moscow there were some things that stood out in my mind. The most striking thing is that Moscow is in a state of heavy construction. There are cranes, bull dozers and heavy equipment every where. The earth is dug up, with big holes, large piles of dirt and construction tape blocking off large areas. An interesting side note is that a large percentage of what you see under construction is abandoned. For example, we passed by what was supposed to be a large long bridge. All of the concrete pylons were made but there were no cranes around them. Victor says they quit working on this around 10 years ago.
Another subtle aspect to all of this construction is that you don't see many construction workers around, just the equipment. I don't understand how a city can sustain this much growth. It must be a large financial drain and they work on things as they can and when they can.
One final thing I have to say about our trip to the clinic is that traffic in Moscow is Crazy. I mean Crazy with a very capital "C". Victor says that there is somewhere between 12 and 15 million people. Prior to this, the next largest city I've ever been in is Chicago. In Chicago, drivers are aggressive They go fast, change lanes and merge with traffic with intention. Here, they do unspeakable things. For example, at one intersection we were in 6 lanes of traffic - one way. Traffic had stopped due to a stop light up ahead and it was bumper to bumper for about 10 or 12 rows of cars. Using some quick math, that is like 60 to 72 cars stopped. We were in the part of the stopped traffic that was blocking an intersection. This is not a problem for the other cars attempting to cross the intersection. They just go anyway - weaving their way through the 60 or 72 cars! Here is the kicker - the stopped cars... they allow it! Cars are going every direction at all times. I could not figure out the traffic rules by watching what was going on. Peggy said, "I can't look out the front window". It was Crazy. If I wasn't so tired, I would have been scared to death.
We arrived at the clinic and went in. It is an unremarkable building - no different from the buildings that surround it. We walked in and there were people smoking in the foyer - something that would definitely not fly in America. Victor brought us to the coat check. The clinic distributes cloth slip on booties to put on over your shoes so that you don't track any dirt from outside through the clinic. The clerk told Victor where we were to go and he attempted to relay this message to us, "two floor, 5 cabinet". A young man standing near told us that he means "second floor, room 5".
We walked up stairs and sat in a long hall that was filled with many older people. They all looked confused as if they had not received any guidance about where they were to go or what they were supposed to do. Periodically they would get up, walk around and attempt to open various doors as if they were looking for someone who might answer some of their questions. Most doors were locked and the ones they were able to open contained no people. They went back to their seats and looked frustrated.
We waited about 20 or 30 minutes and the other driver came. His name is Dima. Dima was toting around another adopting family who had arrived the day before and spent the night at a flat. Dima had made arrangements for us to have an appointment with the health inspector at 1:00 PM. When the time came, we were escorted into one of the offices to wait. As I looked around, I noticed that the building and all of the offices looked very old and dated. All of the hallways and rooms have their electrical wiring ON the walls, not IN the walls. It is as if they thought about electricity after they built. I should note that the plumbing is the same way - an afterthought.
The inspector offered us coffee and some cookies and crackers. The coffee of choice here is instant NesCafe - again, an afterthought. In America, most offices have a coffee maker. Here many people drink tea and some coffee. As long as your keeping water hot for tea, adding instant coffee is not a problem.
I had one of the cookies. It was as hard as a cinder block and I thought for a moment I might break a tooth. "CRACK!" Was that the cookie or my jaw bone?
We waited with the other family until the doctor's got their act together. In a nutshell, the physical exam is sham, scam. Whatever you want to call it. The first exam was the health exam. We went into a room with 1 male doctor and 4 female doctors. They asked us questions like, "do you have any cancer or diseases?" Then we had to take our shirts off.
One very angry woman came up to me and had me hold out my hands. She verified that I was able to bend my wrists and elbows. Then she began to hit my hands with a small rubber mallet. She told me to turn around and hit me in my lower back with the heel of her palm. "Did that hurt?", she asked. She asked me to turn around again and had me close my eyes and touch the tip of my nose with my finger tips. Then she said in an angry voice, "stick out tongue" followed by "show teeth". The next woman doctor came up to me and took my blood pressure and then listened to my chest. That was it, I was alive and healthy enough.
The next doctor we visited was the Oncologist. He asked me if I had any cancer or disease. I said "no". He asked Peggy when was the last time she went to the gynecologist and then told her she needs to take better care of herself and that he liked the sound of our last name. That was it. No cancer.
We went back to the inspector's office while the other family was "examined". The medical commissioner told us we were "hero's" for doing this. I didn't feel much like a hero.
When the other family got back, they were told they had to go to the "Substance Abuse Specialist". No sooner had they walked out the door than they walked back in. The husband said, all he asked us was, "What are your thoughts on drugs and alcohol?". We said "no" and that was it.
The exam schedule was supposed to also include a psychological evaluation to determine if we were sane but we didn't see anyone for this. The exams that I just described above:
1. health exam
2. cancer exam
cost a total of $1,490.00. That's One Thousand, Four Hundred, Ninety Dollars. I didn't even get to answer the question about my feelings towards drugs and alcohol! We have a phrase for that here in America - RIP OFF!
Before we left the clinic, I had to make a quick stop in the rest room. I had mentioned earlier that I thought plumbing was an after thought - here's why:
First of all, toilets and sinks are not located in the same room. The toilet is in a room about 2 or 3 times the size of the toilet itself. There is enough space to go in, close the door and sit. The toilet had no seat to sit on - just the bowl. Someone had been in there previously and the paper was still in the bowl. I tried to do what I came in there to but it was difficult being so tired and trying to levitate above the bowl and not touch the porcelain.
The toilet paper there is about 3 inches wide and coarse. When I flushed, the paper did not go down. After you exit there, you wonder how many other people also exited there and touched the door knob before washing their hands. In America, the toilet and the sink with soap are generally located in the same room. When I was all done, I began to tell the father of the other family about this and the paper not going down. He said that many of the plumbing situations here were not designed to take the paper because it doesn't break down very well. He said the appropriate thing to do was to put the waste paper in the trash. YUCK!
We left the clinic and Victor brought us through the Crazy Moscow traffic again to Tatyana's flat. On the way there I noticed another aspect about Moscow and traffic. People park their cars where ever there is space. For example: there is space on the sidewalk. Consequently, the sidewalks are filled with cars parked facing all directions. However the driver was able to get the car in there, that is how they parked. Some cars were parked parallel along the side of the road, some parked at an angle, some had the passenger tires up on the sidewalk and the driver side tires on the street. Some cars had their front tires on the sidewalk and the back end of the car in the road. When I say this, I mean all these cars are together parked this way randomly. There were some cars that were parked out in the 2nd lane blocking other Crazy parked cars in so that there was no way out. At least no way out to the untrained eye...
In all of this, I must say that Vincent was a very good driver. He didn't hit anyone and no one hit him. Vincent was a very cool and calm driver in what I would call extreme chaos. We did not witness one single accident and he brought us safely to the flat.
== 4:00 PM ==
When we arrived, Tatyana greeted us with a warm welcome. She had been cooking and the flat smelled very nice. She said, "Perhaps you want shower up and eat something?" Ahhhhh! What a welcome relief. I asked her about using the toilet and where to put the toilet paper. She assured me that it would be ok to put it in the toilet. Some how that seemed like good news.
For dinner, she had made some kind of turkey noodle soup with a salad, pork chops with veggies and rice...pickles on the side. She is a very good cook and the meal was delicious. After dinner we waited for Katya - the Lighthouse Russian Business Manager. While we waited, I fell into a deep sleep very quickly. Unfortunately it only lasted about 15 minutes.
Katya collected additional adoption fees from us and explained what would happen over the next few days. We were to get on the train tonight and head out for Cheboksary around 8:45. We will stay in a hotel in town, take care of our court proceedings on Friday and then head back to Moscow that Friday night. We would get back to Moscow Saturday morning and then come back to Tatyana's and stay until Thursday. Then we explained that we had rented a flat and would stay there the rest of the time if necessary - depending on if the judge waives the 10 day stay or not. We got some additional rest after Katya left and waited for Victor to pick us up again.
Victor arrived around 7:30 and drove us through the Crazy Moscow Traffic again. I made another observation. There is no single straight path between any two points in Moscow. Victor would drive for a mile or so in one direction and then make a right or left turn. He would go another mile or so and then make a 180 degree turn onto another road. To the casual observer, this might appear that you are now going back in the same direction you just came from but on a different road. This type of behavior happened over and over again.
In Green Bay and most major American cities, we have this concept of "The Belt Way". In Green Bay for example, if you needed to go somewhere across town, you might head towards the outskirts of town and get on the belt way. Then you would travel very quickly at highway speed to the other side of town and get off at the nearest exit. Then it would be a very quick zip, zoom bang and you'd be where you want to be. I don't think this concept exists in Moscow. It is just a crazy organization of snowy roads filled with hundreds of thousands of crazy drivers and mis-parked cars.
Victor brought us safely to the train station where Dima was waiting with the other family and a train attendant with a large cart for all of our luggage. We quickly headed to our train and got on. Peggy and I had a sleeper to ourselves and the other couple with their two children shared the sleeper right next door. The sleeper looked clean but smelled like it had previously transported heavy smokers for the last 50 years and they only recently declared it a non-smoking area. They provided bottled seltzer water and 4 meal packs. Each meal pack had a small bun and some shrink-wrapped sausage slices. It also contained some cookies, cheese, granola bar and a yogurt cup. It was nice and filling. They also gave us a kit to freshen up in the morning. It had a comb, tooth brush with tooth paste, tooth floss, baby wipe cloth, shoe shine cloth. Here is a little FYI. When you brush your teeth, do not rinse your mouth with seltzer water. You get a reaction that is very similar to dropping a Mentos into a two liter bottle of diet Coke. It is not safe. Don't do it.
On another bathroom/toilet related note, the toilet room on the train is closed and locked while the train is stopped. It is unlocked 30 minutes after it begins to roll and locked again 30 minutes before it stops. I don't think this is for short intermittent stops, just big ones. After we had pulled out of the Moscow station, Peggy went to go and use the toilet. The toilet security guard informed her not to put any paper down the toilet. The used paper should go into a waste basket. So... just to keep a tally - that's 2 toilets where paper was not allowed and 1 where it was allowed.
During the night, we pass through dozens of small villages. Each of them reminded me of Anatevka from Fiddler on the Roof. They were small and filled with very small old looking shacks that had about a foot of snow on the roof. There was a few street lights on, some at the train station and some further back. None of the houses had any lights on. Periodically, I would see a person here or there standing near the tracks. Not necessarily rail workers, but other people. What were they doing at 2:00 or 3:00 in the morning standing at the edge of a small town that looks like it was pulled right out of time from 100 years ago? Perhaps they were boarding the train to go to Cheboksary. Who knows.
