Ya Neh Govorite Po Russki....
May 8th 2008 02:28
First Impressions do not usually sway my thinking in a great way. If they did - I would never have returned to Japan, or I would have fled India within hours of touching down. However- good first impressions account for a great deal. Once I have that initial favourable experience - it is bloody near impossible to sway my opinion to an adverse line of thought. This is what Russia did to me.
I flew from London to Moscow via Munich. The plane changed at Munich to a smaller one filled with only Russian passengers (with the exception of me). The guy I sat beside assisted me with my few pages of Russian lingo that I had gathered in the weeks leading up to my trip. I decided that I would treat Moscow as if I had been there before and attempt to travel around and do things as locals would. I could read the alphabet and had perfected a few phrases that should aid me in my endeavours.
The plane touched down at Moscow airport on that bleak early evening of mid November, the runway lined with walls of ice and snow. Even though the flight was smooth and the landing uneventful - the passengers broke into spontaneous applause as we taxied into the airport. Although I immensely dislike travelling by air, I did not feel that sense of relief that my fellow passengers must have felt.
My backpack must have singled me out as a visitor to this country. I was swarmed by taxi drivers inquiring in that universal word that gets hurled at tourists worldwide - "TAXI?" I ignored their charms and walked through the crowds of male taxi drivers - most with missing teeth and bloodshot eyes with the slight aroma of stale cigarettes and alcohol lingering around them like some unnatural aura.
I looked around for the subway that I had assumed linked the airport to the city. My assumptions were wrong. I walked up to a desk which was not busy and asked hopefully "Vi govorute po anglisski?" (Do you speak English?) The woman I aimed the question at seemed to shrug and look to her female companions with a sly mirth. I took this as a sign of being invisible and was about to turn away when she turned her gaze to me and held up her hand for me to wait while she picked up her phone with her other hand. She dialled a number, talked a little as her call was answered - then passed the telephone to me. The lady with the no-nonsense stare had transformed into a kind and helpful being. The person she rang was fluent in English and I asked her about getting into the city. As I spoke, the Russian lady at the desk then understood what I had wanted and wrote down the number of a bus and pointed to where it was to be found as I completed my conversation with the anonymous phone woman.
The bus was packed with Russian pasengers heading the same direction as me. 20 Roubles was not a great amount to part with and in no time the bus emptied outside of a subway station.
The grandeur of these metro stations caught me complete surprise. I had to check that I hadn't walked into some cathedral. The high ceilings, chandaliers and tastefully decorated and immacualtely clean walls was like nothing I had ever seen or expected to experience whilst in the process of catching a subway train. The rewards of understanding the Russian alphabet now came to my aid. Nothing was written in English and I had to sift through the overhead Russian signs to find the path of my destination.
Eventually I got to the nearest station to where my hostel was located. I walked out into the freezing Moscow night, unaware of my bearings. I asked a couple of university-aged gentlemen in broken Russian where I could find the address on a rough map I had printed from an email. They spoke a little English and appeared kind and trustworthy. I followed them as they guided me through backstreets, asking a local policeman and finally pointing at the entrance of my hostel. I shook their hands and they were genuinely pleased that they could offer their help.
After that initial experience of my first night in Russia, what else was I to think but "How good are these Russians?"
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