EXPERIENCE RUSSIA - TOURISTS NOT WELCOME

Durag, meaning idiot in Russia, is a card game played with as many people as one can gather. The rules are complex but have a simple point, avoid being the idiot. Avoiding being an idiot as a tourist in Russia who does not speak the language nor resemble anything close to Russia was a feat I had not yet accomplished. In fact for the past two weeks I had stood out like clown attending parliament, and had to continue to endure the stares and scoffs from those around me when I mistakenly would do something out of Russian character. Such as ask for water when I have at my disposal fifty different assortments of beer and vodka, or avoid being squashed in a bus or train – for, despite their prickly exterior Russians love to get up close and cosy when on public transportation. Russia is a quagmire county, it is impossible even for native Russians to completely understand whom their fellow countrymen are or what, they are thinking. It is close to impossible to predict how one Russian will act in a certain situation, and how another would, so much so that after a while one starts to prepare for the worst and assume that everyone is going to exploit the other in some way. Having spent all my life going from school to school, and living in two countries at almost the same time I have grown accustomed to slowly morphing into whatever personality I need to be to not stick out for a long amount of time. While in England the only thing that divides me from others is my American mum and passport while in the UK it’s my British father, my reserved British demeanour, my occasional dry humour and that I say loo rather than toilet. Every part of the world, which I have travelled, I have been able to somehow divert myself from people’s thoughts as being a tourist, a label I abhor and avoid at all costs – that is up until I travelled to the motherland: Russia.

Russia has been an interest of mine for many years, numerous essays on the revolution, the Romanovs, the missing Anastasia, Russian literature and so having it as one of my International Relations concentrations for my major it seemed only natural. My team-mates are from mostly Slavic countries – Bulgaria, Latvia, Serbia and of course Russia so I get a healthy dose of their way of thinking and what they have to say about life every day of the week. It was only natural that I go there and get to experience the country and its people for myself, but while I had little expectations and a good among of reservation what I failed to realize was how I would not be able to done the mask of one who is in fact Russian, instead I would be walking around basically with a huge sign over my head that was surrounded by blinking lights reading – VUNERABLE CLUELESS BRITISH GIRL- TAKE ADVANTAGE OF, WILL PAY. I would become, what I feared most - a tourist.
My trip had started out on a plane made in the early 1980’s, which had an interior, which looked as if it hadn’t quite been updated to fit the necessary requirements of the 21st century. When I arrived, I had in my possession a visa which had been bought with hundreds of pounds worth of bribes, which had been skewed a bit so I could get into Russia during the dates I needed which had me worried as I had to first get past the immigration officer. What I came to fear most in Russia was not the scary mobsters walking around Moscow with their guns fastened to their waist, their gold chain necklaces clanging against their large built up chests from both iron and vodka but rather its women. All the immigration officers were women, and each looked just as fierce as the next, I started to break into a cold sweat, my stomach began to churn and I could feel the blood from my face seep into the floor. When I was called and tried to not look like I was about to be sick and look as “normal as possible,” but what was normal for me wasn’t normal for Russia. What is your reason for stay, said the woman sharply with broken English. Vacation, travel, and holiday I stammered, naming all synonyms I could for what a tourist would be doing in the country. Maybe I should have worn a camera around my neck, something that would disarm her into thinking I was this trivial westerner who had picked Russia because their furry hats were oh so pretty and vodka oh so cheap. She pursed her painted red lips, her eyes peering down at my passport, then visa, and then back again at my passport, then back at me, until finally, before I could come up with more scenarios in my head of being taken away by the NKVD for a somewhat forged visa, she typed information into the computer and then took a red stamp and slammed it into my paperwork. Neyea-xt she said looking over my shoulder at the person behind me, while shoving the papers into my hand from underneath the glass and waving me away before I had a chance to say spaseeba – thank you in Russian and I hurried away regaining the lost blood in my face.

My fear of Russia slowly turned after a few days of travelling on a Russian train in a compartment the size of a loo stall with two other strangers, both men and travelling in a taxi at 60 kilometres down a road without dividing lines or rules, to frustration. Russia is not a place where if you want something done smoothly, correctly or even at all one should visit. Instead if you want to be taken advantaged of, hassled, over-charged, exploited, pick-pocketed by gypsy boys, mentally messed about with – then it’s all there waiting for you. One experience was when my friend and I were buying train tickets to go to Moscow and then onto St. Petersburg from her city, and one, which will forever make me grateful for any other public transportation I might go on. We had already spent two days travelling the 45 minutes by bus from the house to the train station to find each time that they had decided to take the weekend four days earlier than supposed to, and so when we finally discovered that the ticket offices were open were very much relieved. But in Russia, relief is a feeling that seems to be always cut short for when we watched the family in front of us leave sombrely without tickets we started to contemplate if we had a bad teller, and immediately we started to think of bribes we could provide her as an added bonus on top of our money. As I stood on the side, avoiding eye contact with the rather large ticket teller, who looked hot and bothered with the lack of ventilation in her small cubicle, I waited for my friend to give me the sign to run and get a bottle of vodka at the kiosk across the street. The lady would not tell us the train schedule and proceeded to tell my friend that we had to go find it out ourselves despite the obvious computer in her office, which would relay her that same information at the click of her mouse. But click she would not and we left the line, not bothered to use our plan to bribe, heads down like the family had done so before us.
While I stewed in my frustration my friend remained calm and acted as if nothing had occurred after all this situation was nothing new to her. And in fact it was nothing new to me either but before I had only read of the foundations-the history of the culture, which would cause this current behaviour. I didn’t know how to adapt to it, I couldn’t even voice my thoughts to anyone but my friend because I knew little to no Russian and they spoke no English. There was this huge disconnect between me and the people around me and even to some extent my friend as I bumbled through Russia paying too much, and failing miserably to adapt to the Russian lifestyle.
I had just about given up hope that I would find something that would in some way connect me with the people around me, including even my friend at times, when the opportunity arose one night when meeting a long-time friend of hers who had just come back from Afghanistan. He was different than the others I had met and he conversed to me through broken English and I through broken Russian, what it was like in the Russian army and with the additional help of his camera phone. He showed me video after video of cruelties done by the Russian army to their comrades but not because he was wanting my sympathy but because he knew I wanted to learn more about what the culture was really like, and the secrets they try so hard to keep hidden. But it was during a game of dare, where we had to throw back as many shots of vodka as we could without collapsing into a drunk heap, that I really was able to unzip the tourist exterior for the night and feel as if I was one of them. Being capable enough to drink as much or more vodka than a Russian is something that my parents wouldn’t be amused with but, for my friends it produced delight and as for me a speck of confidence that I could connect with them on a more personal level. Durag had been replaced by comrade just because I could consume as much or more vodka, and not turn my nose up to embarrassment or hangovers or the harsh realities of Russian life, which few outsiders have a chance to see for themselves.