This essay was written by the late Dr. Robert Hunter Greene, and appeared on biberfan.com under the section entitled "The Moscow Muse," showcasing essays contributed by Greene.
An Encounter with Moscow's Finest
No, Dear Readers, this is not another prostitute story. Although you could say that, in a sense, it does involve getting screwed.
On Saturday evening I met two friends of mine for coffee at a pleasant and fashionably-furnished downtown café. (Not run by Turks and not frequented by Slavic singing sensation Slava Ol'khovskii). My friends – let’s call them, oh, I don’t know, Gabriel and Marina – suggested the Street-Blues Café as a good place to spend a balmy Russian summer evening, and indeed so it proved. The staff is friendly and attentive and the prices are accomodating. The coffee was a bit murky, but the art deco interior and cozy interior more than made up for it. But, I digress, Gentle Readers, this is not an Admiralesque restaurant revue of the latest steakhouse to hit Downtown Short Pump. Oh no! For, sadly, my tale involves a scene more scandalous and a situation far shadier than an overbrewed cup of joe….
Our company parted ways as we exited the café: Gabriel took off for the station to catch the elektrichka train and make a fashionably late appearance at a friend’s birthday party in the Moscow suburb of Odintsovo, and Marina and I headed for the subway station to take the metro back to our respective apartments. Marina suggested we walk down Tverskoi Bulvar and take the scenic route to the metro station. Fine, I agreed. Nothing wrong with that. Oh but wait! The garden median down Tverskoi Bulvar is notoriously muddy and the residue of sodden soil after a summer’s rain may do irreperable damage to Marina’s fine Italian shoes! Fine, I agreed, we’ll take the sidewalk. Oh, Dear Friends, such is Vanity! For Marina would have done far, far better to chance a speck of mud on her leather soles than to have undergone the uniformed horrors that were to befall us!
As we rounded the corner and headed up the sidewalk we could see two militia men standing about 100 yards up the road. These two representatives of Moscow’s finest were clad in their trademark short-sleeved blue button shirts, with sweaty caps perched atop their unwashed hair and loaded machine guns slung carelessly over their shoulders. A familiar sight for anyone who’s visited this fair city. The militia men were not alone, however, oh no. They had stopped a pair of rather swarthy-faced gentlemen and were in the midst of examining their documents to make sure they were legally registered to live in the city of Moscow. Again, this is also a familiar sight, and it’s not uncommon for the, how shall we put it, ‘darker’ residents of Moscow to be stopped by eager militia men looking to root out secret Chechen terrorists lurking in the Russian capital. Of course, it seems to me that real terrorists would probably not risk venturing out into a bustling street in downtown Moscow when they could be much safer holed up in a stuffy one-bedroom apartment up at Cherkizovskaia metro station making bombs and fomenting unrest. Nevertheless, the diligent Moscow militia take great pains to stop everyone of ‘southern’ complexion and check their papers, which diligence is either a great testament to their civic pride or their innate racism…
Marina flinched as she saw the document check going down up ahead. What’s the big deal? I asked. Your documents are fine. You’re an American. Not to worry…. Ah, but that’s where I was mistaken, Gentle Readers. For Marina’s documents were far from being in perfect order. Turns out she had procured her entry visa from a fly-by-night shady little enterprise run by Russian emigres in Washington, DC, who specialize in selling illegal visas to Americans who don’t have the time to go through the hassle of a 4-week application process. For when you just have to get to Russia in a hurry…. Though, of course, there should never be a time when you have to get to Russia in a hurry…. Well, Marina’s visa said she had been invited to do research in the Russian Federation from a university based in the Siberian city of Chelyabinsk. That’s the first fishy part. Who would go to Chelyabinsk? Who even knows where Chelyabinsk is? And if you are going to Chelyabinsk, what are you doing walking the streets of Moscow? It’s not exactly a day’s roadtrip away. Second, her visa misspelled the name of the sponsoring university; again, another strike against this fly-by-night visa company. And third, Marina’s visa didn’t have the registration stamp that you’re required to obtain within three business days of arriving on Russian soil. Why no stamp? Well, probably because it’s rather difficult for a non-existent university in Chelyabinsk to stamp a visa from 6 times zones away.
So for all of the reasons above, Our Friend Marina was understandably quite agitated as we saw the document check going down ahead of us. What if they check my papers? she asked. Oh don’t worry, I said. Deputy Dog and his sidekick have their hands full as it is with these two Chechens. We’ll just walk past real calm-like, see, and it’ll be like taking candy from a baby. Oh, what hubris, Dear Friends! For the candy-loving baby that was this Moscow militia man was clutching his chocolate bar in a kung-fu deathgrip and even the most intrepid sneak-thief would have been hard pressed to dislodge its rich creamery goodness from his icy grasp!
It’s a proven fact that when you’re trying to be inconspicuous you end up drawing more attention to yourself than you would have otherwise. Like some dead German physicist said, the very act of observation (or in this case, self-observation) disturbs the results of the experiment. So, needless to say, despite our best-intentioned efforts of cultivating an affected aire of nonchalance it was nothing going. The militia saw through us like a pair of see-through pants on a Moscow prostitute. The Chechens (who turned out, it seems, to have been honest law-abiding citizens) were waved away and the militia stood with arms folded to block our path.
The first militia man grazed the brim of his cap in a lazy salute. "Good evening, citizens. Your documents, please?" Trapped! I handed my passport and visa over to the first guy while Marina reluctantly showed her papers to his partner. The flash of a blue passport sufficiently impressed my interlocutor. He quickly glanced at my photo, thumbed through the passport, and glanced at the visa to check for the registration stamp. "Vse poriadki" (everything’s in order), he said and handed me back my papers. I quickly stuffed them back in my pocket, leisurely took out a stick of gum, and leaned back against the wall to watch the action unfold in Marina’s corner. "Oh no, we have a problem here, citizeness," the second guy said, showing Marina’s papers to his partner. The other guy leans in, takes a quick look and nods, yeah, we’ve got a problem. "You must to have …. stamp, yes? … three (holds up three fingers) days, yes? …. stamp in three days … no stamp means problem…" A valiant effort on the part of the militia man to sum up all the English he could muster, but it proved in vain as Marina responded in a torrent of fluent, albeit panicky, Russian. I tried to get a stamp when I arrived, she said, but my unviersity’s out of town and no hotel would let me get a room and stamp me because I’m all by myself (i.e., the management thought she was a prostitute), I’m leaving in two weeks anyway. Marina’s eloquent defense went unheeded. The militia were too busy re-reading every line on her sketchy visa. "Chelyabinsk? What were you doing in Chelyabinsk? And why’s the university name misspelled? Oh, this is a problem." The first guy is holding her papers in his meaty fist and waving them towards me, "Your friend here, he knew to get a stamp. [Yup, I nodded] How come you don’t have a stamp? You know, in America you can’t just walk around without the proper papers [not sure where he picked this info up]. And we do have rules in this coountry, you know [not sure where he picked this up either]. Well, I’m going to call for a car to take us all to the police station and resolve this matter." He gets on the walkie talkie and pretends to call in a car and Marina says, ok, look, how much is this going to cost? The militia man’s eyes light up.
So now, Dear Readers, we’re getting to the heart of the matter. Sure, it’s illegal to be walking around for a month on a bogus un-stamped visa. But who’s to say it’s illegal if no one’s any the wiser? Maybe a little ‘favor’ or ‘bribe’ under the table (pod stolom) can clear up this whole misunderstanding…. And indeed it can. A hundred bucks, the militia guy says. (By this time, his partner is halfway down the street hassling another couple of pedestrians). A hundred bucks, I don’t have a hundred bucks, Marina protests. Maybe your friend can help you out, he suggests. Nope, I’m broke, I say. Nonplussed, the intrepid militsioner suggests we all walk a few streets over and find an ATM. Reluctantly Marina agrees. Me, I’m just along for the ride (or walk) at this point, thinking that it might be cool to walk down the streets of Moscow side by side with a militia man as if I were some foreign dignitary or local mafiosa boss. It wasn’t as grand or glorious as I thought it would be, however. Our militia escort led us into a deserted alley past overflowing dumpsters, illegally-parked cars, and wild dogs in search of an ATM. Just when it seems as if there is no ATM and that our new militia friend is leading us astray just so he can try out his handy machine gun on a couple of Americans, the glorious green banner of Sberbank looms out from the corner of the street ahead. Obviously, I thought, this militia man has played the old "let’s find an ATM" switcheroo once or twice before. Marina and I step into the snazzy booth (with western-style card-activated glass doors) and she proceeds to take out the money, all the while muttering in curses and obscenities most dreadful that this is nothing more than a *&&%^$$ bribe. Which, of course, it was. She pays the militia man, he returns her documents (still unstamped) and our happy little company parts ways, some a hundred dollars richer and some poorer by as much.
What’s the moral of this hair-raising little tale, Dear Friends? Only this – that when You plan Your next trip to the Russian Federation be sure to procure a legitimate visa and be certain to get it stamped in a timely fashion. But if You don’t, Gentle Readers, do remember to bring your Visa card. Because Moscow militia men don’t take American Express.