A memorable day in Moscow...

[MatryoshkaMan]

I'm sitting here writing this from my room at the "Gamma/Delta" hotel in Moscow. Been a rough week! It all started Monday. Another brutally cold and windy day. Day after day the strong wind does not let up! Didn't think it would be so cold here this time of year or would have brought a warmer jacket! Anyways we take the metro out to Park Podeby. This is my 2nd time here (was also in 2003) and I wanted to photograph the collection of tanks and planes outside the Great Patriotic War museum. As we emerge from the metro we are greeted (as usual) by the wicked wind and have to walk head into the wind to make headway towards the tanks. Then rain, then sun but the wind never lets up. We discover that the museums and tank exhibit is closed on Mondays. Damn! No wonder there is nobody around! So we climb the steps towards the 142m WWII monument and L stops to get a hot dog. Sun comes out and the views from here are glorious. As she sits to eat I wander over to the monument base itself and innocently step around a tiny barricade to walk up the 20 or so steps to the base of the monument so I could get some good pictures. After circling the base of the monument, taking many pictures of the soldier and war scenes, oh crap a Moscow cop car shows up below me. Damn I am screwed I think. So I walk down the steps as he waves me over. At this point my girlfriend L is on the other side of the monument and can't see me. As I approach the cop I say "Isvenitia" (sorry) and hope he will just wave me away. No such luck. He demands my "documents". Did I mention he is armed with an AK-47?? I pull out my passport. He acts upset like I just killed someone. He is yabbering away in Russian, I say I am Canadian and I don't understand. He becons me to get in the car. No bloody way I am going to get in the car without my girlfriend knowing where I went! I so point around the monument and say "mya padruga"!! After a bunch of demands I get in the car with the other 2 cops and we move around the monumement and pass my girlfriend. I can she she is not looking at the car but we stop and I tap on the window and open the door. You should have seen the look on her face when she saw me inside the car!! The police begin to haragnue her and make it seem like I have viloated every possible law in Russia. I guess I am committed a capitol offence and am off to the gulag....L tells me that I should have not gone up there and I will have to go to the police station "for a few hours"...um ya...well have a nice life. I MIGHT see you again I am thinking. Somehow I convince her to convince them to have her come along to the police station as I can just imagine what waits me there. First they examine HER documents and luckily do not dig too deep into her situation.

So picture this - 2 cops in the front, me in the middle of the back seat sandwiched between L and the cop with the AK-47. This is a Lada. not exactly designed for comfort. I can feel the buttstock of the AK pressing into my ribs, a not so suble reminder of the s*it that I am in. So we drive a little and L is passed a book of Russian laws. I think they are trying to rub her nose in it. So the car drives out of the park with L arguing with the cops. Then I hear L say "skolka" and I know the game is on. The car stops and L tells me I should pay 2500 rub to get out of the situation. Thank god I just withdrew 6000 rub that morning and pull out the required cash and pass it to L who then passes it to the driver. She says "let's go" and we open the door and the car speeds off. Whew. Dodged a big bullet that time. So we sit on a nearby bench to gather our wits and then she gives me a bit of a deserving lecture and tells me that we are lucky that they did not look too deeply into her registration as she has on-going troubles hereself back in her city.

So a bit rattled we walk throug the gusting winds all the way back to the metro and get off at Plochad Revolutsy as we want to go for a walk on Tverskya, Moscow's main street. We walk all the way up to Pushkin Square, me photographing the scenes along the way especially all the bling-bling cars. Audis and Mercedes here are as common as Chevy's and Fords back home. Welcome to "new Russia" I feel like a bomsch here! So after having a tasty lunch at cafe My-My (moo moo) - my favorite place in Moscow - we wander back to the metro and fight the massive throng of rush hour traffic. Packed like sardines on the metro we head towards Partizanskaya, our home stop. As we are climbing the steps back up to the earth I begin to feel a "scratchiness" in my throat. I knew it! I got sick fighting the firece cold wind and crowds in the metro virus chamber. 2 days later I am still pinned down in the hotel coughing and blowing my nose...

[Vaughn]

Then I hear L say "skolka" and I know the game is on.

I love this story, really. It's the kind of stuff that the "victim" never forgets. Glad you
recognized skol'ko and knew its meaning - it sure relieves the nightmare of a backseat
road trip with the bulls.

Thanks for sharing, MMan...

[Shadow]

Of course passing the barricade was the error that subjected you to the position of victim. 

[Gator]

MMan,

Thanks for sharing the story.  I always enjoy your sense of observation and your reporting style. 

BTW, I think I have been to Park Podeby.  It is the same if contains a submarine, several tanks (that you can crawl over), and a huge railcar-mounted artillery gun.

A few items of American equipment also there because we were supplying the Soviets during the War. 

A former Russian soldier accompanied me.  Between us, we spoke about 100 common words.  Still had fun.

[XMan]

One doesn't have to do anything wrong to get hassled. 

All I was doing was trying to leave Sochi.  At the airport.  Had all the appropriate paperwork, had been there before, no problems, did EXACTLY what I had done previously.  But I was asked for imaginary "tourist papers."  They held me up at the airport forever with BS.  I finally got up, so tired of it that I couldn't take it anymore, and said I am going to miss my plane.   Arrest me, or let me go, and I walked over to check my bags.  They did nothing, to my surprise.  I was certainly SOL if they did. 

That is the main reason I started looking into the Ukraine as an alternative.  In my 2 trips there I had no issues.  Of course, next time (if there is one), who knows.  I haven't completely written off Russia, but as far as I am concerned, one certainly goes at one's own risk, and one has little control over the outcome.

[groovlstk]

That is the main reason I started looking into the Ukraine as an alternative.  In my 2 trips there I had no issues.  Of course, next time (if there is one), who knows.  I haven't completely written off Russia, but as far as I am concerned, one certainly goes at one's own risk, and one has little control over the outcome.

I have never been hassled entering or exiting Russia, but several times I was given the business when leaving Ukraine.

I'd agree that the sentiment towards Americans is generally warmer in Ukraine than in Russia, and the lack of visa requirements to enter Ukraine makes it a lot easier to plan and visit, but wherever poverty + corruption are rampant this sort of thing is bound to happen.

[Faux Pas]

I have never been hassled entering or exiting Russia, but several times I was given the business when leaving Ukraine.

(knock on wood) Me either. I've never had any confrontation with militia while in Russia but I do take all precautions to help in not being put in such a position. Maybe I've just been lucky but if it's luck I'll take that too.

[JR]

And how's it going with the lady MM? Hummmmmm? Don't leave us hanging on that one.

For some reason I knew you were going to get into some trouble with those tanks

[Taz]

Reading this TR reminds me of some of the trip reports I've written. Then I start to think about the ones I've never written and that will likely remain untold. I wouldn't want to scare people into never going...

I will say in general it was the hassle of the visas and the police that drove me to go to Ukraine instead of back to Russia. The shakedowns in Russia were much more intense than in Ukraine. During one little "incident" my GF was told by a police officer that if she didn't put out that we might not get the "help" that we needed in this situation. Let's just say this took place at a very prominent police station in Moscow and if it wasn't for my GF, my evil intentions would have been totally unleashed on that cretin's arse.

I could go on but what's the point. There are likely a thousand of these types of stories every day taking place in Russia. Not to say it doesn't happen in Ukraine but the brashness of the Russian cops was definitely an order of magnitude above the Ukrainian ones.