The silent ride
The taxi driver took me through town and there were a lot of people wandering around, it being a Saturday. We stopped at a taxi rank and it took him a little while to round up a taxi driver. I transferred my bags in to one of the Soviet era great engineering masterpieces, the Lada sedan, and we set off for Blagoveschensk. The driver pushed the Lada up above 100 kilometres per hour (that was as far as I could see) and we were rocking from side to side more than what the train did. For the entire hour and a half we were on the road the driver said nothing to me, other than offering me a cigarette. The view out the window was more expansive than the train however there wasn't much to see - flat, muddy grasslands to the horizon.We rolled in to Blago, a big, dirty industrial town that looked all the more ominous with dark rain clouds hanging over it. The taxi driver had some trouble finding the port and then tried to rip me off with the fare but my friends on the train had insisted that I not pay more than 250 roubles so I was ahead of him on that one.
Customer service, Russian style
I walked in to the ticket office at 4.40, twenty minutes before it closed, however there were still a couple of surprises in stall for me. Reading the notice next to the ticket window I noticed to my alarm that the ticket was going to cost me 1500 roubles - alarming because that is the equivalent of $US50, and I only had about 600 roubles left. The ticket woman barked passport at me before I had time to say anything, and had printed out my ticket and boarding pass before showing me how much I had to pay with her calculator, through the plexiglass. Every time I bought something in Russia there was a barrier between myself and the person serving me, normally with a very narrow slit to speak through and a chute at the bottom for passing things through - it was as though there had been a lot of hold ups at some point. I handed over what I had and she punched in how much more I needed, so clearly I wasn't going to get a discount. I tried showing her my credit card and she just shrugged her shoulders. I said ATM, and made an inserting the card action and she said "Hmmmph". She took the ticket she had printed out and threw it in the bin and then walked away. At this point a little frustrated with the help I was getting, and very worried that I was in a Russian border town, not able to speak a word of Russian, needing about 800 roubles to get out of the country before my visa expired, not knowing where either the town or an ATM was, and having roughly 20 minutes to buy my ticket before the office closed. I can't remember exactly but I think I said something along the lines of "Shit, shit, shit" to myself as I walked away across the big, open marble floor towards the door. I was about to approach a guy standing to the right of the door speaking on a mobile phone - I was running out of options - but decided against. I turned to look back at the ticket window, and there - ten metres in front of me, unable to be seen from the ticket window because it was to the right and behind a wall was an ATM machine. I wandered over, it was on, in service, and it gave me 1000 roubles. I went back to the ticket office and waved about the 1000 rouble note in front of the woman - who said nothing. She reprinted my ticket, took my money and gave me the change and my ticket - without a smile of course.Interrogation
I then managed to find the entry in to the port and then had to wait a couple of minutes for the x-ray machine operator to appear and send my bags through the scanner. Whilst I was waiting a couple of women working in immigration sauntered past, and they looked exactly the same as the woman who had stamped my passport when I came in - bleached blonde hair, 3 inch heels, and the 1950's futuristic blue with gold trimmings uniform. My bags were scanned and I handed over my passport to the woman (behind the window) in a small booth and she checked my passport, my visa and then my Tourist Card.At this point I should probably explain some of the finer points of visiting Russia. Everyone who visits Russia needs a visa, and in order to get a visa you need an invitation from somebody inside Russia - a hangover from the Soviet era. In this the capitalist era hotels/hostels and travel agencies simply charge you $30 for such an invitation. Once you arrive in Russia you are required to register in any place where you spend more than three consecutive nights, not counting Saturday and Sunday. Registration is actually done by the people at the place you stay, and again there is another charge of $30. The law is a bit vague about what you are supposed to do if you are like me - spending all your nights on a train, but since you don't spend more than three nights in any one place supposedly you don't need to register - supposedly.
After all her initial checking the woman makes a call and a couple of minutes later a guy in uniform with one of those crazy peaked caps arrives and looks over my passport. They have a brief discussion and then she makes another call and a couple of minutes later a third guy in uniform, with an even bigger crazy peaked cap arrives, looks over my passport and has a conversation with the other two. Needless to say, by this time I am starting to get a little worried - clearly something is wrong, and I have visions of being thrown in the clink and then sent off to Siberia (technically I am already there) and spending the rest of my days working in pointless building operations attempting to write long and involved novels about the human condition. The guy with the bigger peaked cap steps out of the office and asks me if I speak Russian. I tell him no, and he asks me to sit and wait for a moment. About five minutes later another woman appears, she is an older woman, sensibly dressed in flat shoes and a skirt and jacket. She has a brief conversation with the other three and then says to me "You have not registered" showing me the empty side of the Tourist Card. A little relieved, I explain to her that I have been on the train and then frantically search my pockets, money belt and bag to find my tickets. I show the tickets to her and she says OK, and then asks me to wait again. Five minutes later she reappears, has a brief conversation with the initial immigration woman and then heads off. I get my passport back, and the guy with the bigger hat leads me out the door and points me down the stairs towards the boat. I walk over to the boat not really believing that I have managed to pull it all off, and actually get out of Russia on time. I think to myself that if that is the hassle I get when I leave on time, imagine what would have happened if I had overstayed.
Across the river to the future
The boat is very empty - there are only two or three other people on board and it leaves a little after 5.30. It takes us less than twenty minutes to cross the river, but I get a good view of Blagoveschensk as we move away from the bank. And then I focus my attention on China, and soon I recognise the huge, shiny glass and steel building rearing up before me as Chinese immigration. And I can see into the future - but that belongs in an entry about China.
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