February 28, 2004

Of Police and Passports

Our hero, let’s call him Aaron, was heading home from work at half past nine on Wednesday night…head down, walking fast, yet looking utterly foreign in his puffy black, down coat and his Clark Kentesque glasses.

A militia officer (aka the Russian police) with a sub-machine gun on his chest yells out to our hero and asks him for his documents and starts firing questions rapidly at him in Russian. As the hero cannot answer, it is clear he is a foreigner. The hero is not happy about this because being stopped by the police is always a problem, but he knows it is going to be a bigger problem for him because the school’s visa manager has been on vacation and his passport has not been registered with OVIR (some ministry of something for control of foreigners).

The hero reluctantly relinquishes his passport. As usual, the police are not satisfied with things. They yell at him to open his bag. He does, but the police are not mollified. Of course they look at his documents and see that his passport is not registered; and the fun begins.

Our hero feigns total ignorance of Russian, even though he can understand some of what the police our saying. Like he has read in the guidebooks, our hero asks for the badge number and name of the police officers. They refuse. The hero asks them to call the school emergency number. They also refuse; they have no phone—nor does the hero. He has just arrived...

The police are not happy about this and tell the hero to lower his voice. Our hero decides that it might be a better idea to be chummier with the police with the big gun. The hero relaxes and tells the policeman, lets call him Oleg, is a nice man and this is all the school’s fault—not the police’s.

Our hero is then escorted to the Night Flight Nightclub, where flathead mafioso types abound. They and the police are clearly goods friends, and the police get a sleazoid manager with a hideous tie and a cashmere sweater-vest to translate what our hero already knows: the passport is not in order. The translator’s hair, however, is very well coiffed.

The police continue the spiel saying that they will take the hero to the station, and the hero is escorted to a new Lada police car. We start driving. The police, in very broken English, say we are going to police station to do an “akt, yes ofitsial akt must police.” Our hero nods his head. He relaxes a little, but is still not very relaxed.

We drive some more. Then they offer me a “no offitsial akt.” “Now 2000 ($70) Ruble no problem, no akt.” Our hero laughs. This is the total Russian experience.

Our hero does not want to pay 2000 unofficial Rubles, and decides that he would prefer an official one he could get reimbursed for. He says he want an official act.

The police don’t seem to like this. After driving around some more our hero is let out of the car. However, our hero is quite discombobulated (understatement) at this points and his passport remains in the police car. This causes whole new set of problems much bigger than the police problems.

Posted by Aaron at 11:48 AM | Comments (0)

February 23, 2004

Aeroflot/Азрофлот

At 8:10, the time the flight is supposedly departing, we hear a mysterious announcement. “The Flight will be delayed for 30 minutes due to weather problems.” I guess they must have been problems over then North Pole or something because it couldn’t have been clearer in Seattle. Aeroflot=late. I haven’t seen this mysterious kind of delay for a long time. I wonder if they are even registered with the FCC. Their check in is under “chartered flights” for heaven’s sake.

Once on board, however, the best part about Aeroflot is the aviator sunglasses that the stewardesses wear on the flights. I felt like I was in Top Gun—except that the plane was a very old 767 with seats that were a bit frayed and those old, poorly designed luggage compartments that come down when you open them and conk someone on the noggin.

The only other outstanding characteristic of Aeroflot is the tea that they serve you tea after all of you meals.

Posted by Aaron at 01:19 PM | Comments (0)

February 21, 2004

A Russki Blogski

At my farwell party last night there was much debate over what the name of the blog should be. Blogski (or Blogsky or Blogskiy), was originally proffered, and then this name slowly degenerated into name silliness. I liked Blogovich or perhaps Blogovich Blogskiy, though many people though this was too much. However, the real version should be Blog Blogovich Blogskiy so the blog could have a first name, a patronymic, and a last name like every good Russian should have.

Then there was the the question of the female blog. Would she be Blogaevna or Blogavskaya? To this we may never have an answer.

But how about Blogomir Putin? Blogskana Baiul?

Or adapted literary and film titles: The Death of Ivan Blogovich, War & Blog, Blog and Punishment, From Russia With Blog. The possibilities are endless.

Please put in your vote for you favorite title, and I will take the winner as the final name for the blog.

Posted by Aaron at 12:23 AM | Comments (0)

February 16, 2004

Departure/Name Politics

I leave for Moscow on Friday and am excited to begin blogging regularly from there. When I was in Washington last week, a friend of friend who used to work in Moscow for the American Embassy tipped me off on to a crazy expat rag there that made life sound very strange. You all should check it out. They are called Exile

I also went to the embassy the other day to pick up my visa. How to spell my first name? The linguistic history of Aaron, a name with unknown etymology (maybe mountain), is almost as obscure as its etymological history. The hebrew אהרן transliterated aharon became Aaron, which is pronounced out here in Seattle like the Irish girl's name. On my invitation the cyrillic version came out Эйрон--roughly Ayron but on the final visa they went with Аарон, which is more like the old Hebrew. I am interested to find out how the name is usually spelled--or was when people with the name lived in Russia. The rest of my name is шолом эрлих. I especially like my last name.

More soon.

Posted by Aaron at 07:14 PM | Comments (0)