June 7th
Perhaps it is true that Americans are used to being able to do whatever they want. But, it is also true that my last 27 hours have been more than a bit ridiculous.
As I write this I am sitting in a smokey “restaurant” in the puny Moscow international airport. [Google search “Moscow airport”, it’s beautiful. Turns out, the finished product on the website is what will be the construction sight that I’m looking at through the window. Jerks.] Tuesday when I left JFK in New York the Russian airline Aeroflot which we were flying refused to issue us a boarding pass for the second leg of our trip from Moscow to Delhi on the grounds that they couldn’t find the flight in their computers—only one that left a day after our scheduled flight. When we inquired about spending the night in NY so as to catch the combination a day later, they said, “No, go now!”.
Fast forward nine hours, 8’55’’ of which have been on an aging 737 Boeing. We deplane in the Moscow airport and try to get our boarding passes issued. Oops. There actually IS NO flight. Hahaha. It’ll 27 hours before the next flight to Delhi. “Where are your Russian visas?” “We don’t have any, we don’t want to be in Russia!” “You cannot enter Russia then, but we will put you in a hotel”. (no you can’t buy a visa. Nice try.)
Translation:
You will be sent through a variety of passport checks, escorted to a sleezy-looking backdoor of the airport, escorted onto a van and driven to a hotel across the street, where the escort is dropped off at the front door and we are told to “Wait!”. The van takes us to the back door of the hotel and we are escorted into a small lobby and they confiscate our passports. Then we are escorted by a security guard to a locked service elevator and taken to the third floor where a security desk and guard are seated. We are escorted to our room and told to “Stay!”—lunch will be served at this time, breakfast at this time, the van will leave two hours before your flight.
We had entered the TRANSIT ZONE, we weren’t quite sure what this all meant, but surely we couldn’t be locked in our rooms, could we? Ahhh, but this is Russia my friend, anything is possible. For the next day and a half we were not allowed out of the 3rd floor hallway where our room was located and where a not-so-friendly Russian guard sat. All attempts to go downstairs were treated very unkindly and adamantly.
Perhaps it is true that Americans are used to being able to do whatever they want. But, it is also true that my last 27 hours have been more than a bit ridiculous.
As I write this I am sitting in a smokey “restaurant” in the puny Moscow international airport. [Google search “Moscow airport”, it’s beautiful. Turns out, the finished product on the website is what will be the construction sight that I’m looking at through the window. Jerks.] Tuesday when I left JFK in New York the Russian airline Aeroflot which we were flying refused to issue us a boarding pass for the second leg of our trip from Moscow to Delhi on the grounds that they couldn’t find the flight in their computers—only one that left a day after our scheduled flight. When we inquired about spending the night in NY so as to catch the combination a day later, they said, “No, go now!”.
Fast forward nine hours, 8’55’’ of which have been on an aging 737 Boeing. We deplane in the Moscow airport and try to get our boarding passes issued. Oops. There actually IS NO flight. Hahaha. It’ll 27 hours before the next flight to Delhi. “Where are your Russian visas?” “We don’t have any, we don’t want to be in Russia!” “You cannot enter Russia then, but we will put you in a hotel”. (no you can’t buy a visa. Nice try.)
Translation:
You will be sent through a variety of passport checks, escorted to a sleezy-looking backdoor of the airport, escorted onto a van and driven to a hotel across the street, where the escort is dropped off at the front door and we are told to “Wait!”. The van takes us to the back door of the hotel and we are escorted into a small lobby and they confiscate our passports. Then we are escorted by a security guard to a locked service elevator and taken to the third floor where a security desk and guard are seated. We are escorted to our room and told to “Stay!”—lunch will be served at this time, breakfast at this time, the van will leave two hours before your flight.
We had entered the TRANSIT ZONE, we weren’t quite sure what this all meant, but surely we couldn’t be locked in our rooms, could we? Ahhh, but this is Russia my friend, anything is possible. For the next day and a half we were not allowed out of the 3rd floor hallway where our room was located and where a not-so-friendly Russian guard sat. All attempts to go downstairs were treated very unkindly and adamantly.
It is very unsettling to be treated like a prisoner while on a lay-over, especially as a result of a mistake the airline made. Leigh and I did not get a Russian visa because we had a 5 hour lay-over in the airport, it was completely Aeroflot’s fault that we are in this predicament.
Talk about suspicious—it is clear that the KGB has quite the lingering influence. We were not allowed out of sight of personnel the entire time, were taken only through back ways, our paperwork was checked and rechecked at all opportunities and we had to stay in the “transit zone” 3rd floor hallway with a security guard in the hotel. This morning we managed to convince them to take us back to the airport to wait for this evening’s 7:35pm flight instead of being locked in a hotel room. Luckily, they arranged a van. And so here I sit, waiting for a flight to Delhi in the Moscow airport. Unbelievable.
Russia was not high on my countries to visit, but unfortunately after being treated this way any desire has been completely extinguished. I’ve never felt so unwelcomed, anywhere.
Side note:
Leigh and I met a very nice young professor from Penn State named Frank and a 21 year old, jolly Indian fellow named Aravind. They were in the same plight (and flight!) and so we at least had buddies with which to marvel and complain.
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