Nothing to see here

Remember how I mentioned that wedlock is slightly more unlikely than spending time in prison? It turns out that I was right.

But let's not get ahead of ourselves. There's so much to tell and now that I have your attention, we should start from the beginning.

An autumn celebration, a night of horror : Halloween came to Moscow. After selfish prompting, my adopted mother in Russia, Peggy, graciously offered the use of her apartment for this night. We cooked, ate, and drank non-stop. Some of the food was good, like baked apples smothered in honey, raisins, nuts, and whatever else we could find. The pumpkin soup was a miracle, and the mulled wine divine. But the eggnog turned out less noggy and more like a bottle of Jameson with some raw eggs mixed in (but it was almost redeemed the next morning as it made a reappearance for French toast).

The most important part of the evening, however, was that this was the first time that I introduced the different groups of friends to each other. Up until this point, I felt like I was living separate lives. One with the other foreigners in the Math in Moscow program, one with the Russians at the dorm in which I used to live, another all together with the friends I've made outside of the dorm and Math in Moscow. It's emotionally exhausting at times to be constantly meeting new people. I was dropped in this city knowing no one, and it takes a lot of effort to get to know people, to let them get to know you.

Anywho, all in all, this night was a success.

You might have noticed that I mentioned the dorm in which I used to live. Where am I know? Deported? Not yet, you'll read about that in a few paragraphs. Under a bridge? Sometimes I find myself under bridges, but I have a real place to sleep. In a real bed. In a room, next to a real shower, which is right next to the kitchen with a very real stoven (stove/oven).

I've moved into an amazing apartment. As idle curiosity will be the punchline for the story about the police in Michurinsk, it is also the reason for this change. I have been on the lookout since I've gotten here for goodwill-esque stores. A place to buy clothes and gadgets cheaply. Of course, such a thing doesn't exist in Moscow. So I gave Craig's List a whirl. No one uses Craig's List. Well, almost no one. I looked through the housing section and saw a posting : 11500RUR Kutuzovsky 1 BR - Looking for a roommate. I emailed the gal, we meet up, see the place, the university sends someone out to look at the place and I move in shortly thereafter. My roommate is a manager for an art hall in Moscow that is the home of a contemporary dance troupe, that hosts cartoon festivals, film festivals, and much more. She's a riot, and the sweetest person I know. She can also read me like a book. Which is fine, but it gets unnverving when she decides it's story time and reads me aloud. She knows what I'm thinking, how I'm feeling... It's all very strange, but she's great. Катя is sort of like my Russian big sister.

So. About Michurinsk. Along the lines of wanting to find a cheap place for clothes, shoes, even haircuts, I was told that I should go to Voronezh. The home town to not a few of my friends here and even to a friend in the states. So I invite Bill and Наташа (also from Voronezh) to come with me. We start from Moscow at 730 in the morning and travel in a southerly direction. Much like a falling leaf we have no idea where we are sometimes, we backtrack, find our way, and continue on. One thing leads to another and we find ourselves on an electrichka (intercity, cheap, eletric train) to Michurinsk, already about 390km from Moscow. Voronezh is 460km, however Michurinsk to Voronezh is 150km. Anyways, we arrive after dark in Michurinsk at 8 in the evening. We check the timetables to find the next means of transport to Voronezh. The earliest is an elektrichka at 4 in the morning. We now have 8 hours to kill. We find the main drag, buy some supplies for the night and take on the city. We find a monument for wokers at Chernobyl, we pick up a stray dog along our walks, and we wander around until we find the other train station in the town. We sit down, relax, play cards, and eat.

It is the stroke of midnight (give or take a couple of hours) and in walks the militsiya. Here we are, a couple of Americans and a Russian with our feet on the chairs, our stuff scattered all across the floor, a bottle of wine, food and cards. One of them walks over and looks at each of us in turn.

"What are you doing here?"
"We're waiting for our 4 o'clock train."
"Oh, ok. Would you like some tea?"

We were completely floored. He brings out three cups of tea, sits down and starts chatting with us. His name is Viktor, he visits his mother in Chernobyl each year ("I'm telling you, it's completely safe there"), used to be in the military, and has a son my age. We ask him to tell us about the city (it used to be named Kozlov, and is now named after a Russian polymath, it's a fascinating town), and he has a great sense of humor (he had us going for a few minutes that he didn't believe we were foreigners). We were the first Americans he's met, and he was really interested in our opinions about things that we just didn't have the vocabulary to talk about. He got up to go back to his office in the train station and we continued to play cards.

He comes out again, and tells us he's sorry to disturb us, but he's just doing his job and may he please see our documents?

To make a long story short, we had the local and federal police along with the ФСБ (KGB with a new name), printing us, questioning us, and taking our statements all night and all morning. I slept in the cell (it was more comfortable), the other two in the lobby, and we walked out of the station after noon with 2000RUR fines each to pay and one infraction of statute 18.8 "Violation of a foreign national or stateless person, the rules of entry to Russia or the regime of stay (residence) in Russia" One more infraction and we're deported and can't return to Russia for 5 years.

вот. All is well, we're back in Moscow. Some details are clearly missing from the narrative, but if you are in the area, you've got a place to stay and we'll have to chat over tea.