The flight to Sochi was uneventful, other than I could speak English with nobody. The regional airline, S7 gave a clean flight, on time, and pleasantly. The big difference to me was in the airline food. Airline food is airline food everywhere. It is mass produced and designed to be delivered to an audience that already knows that airline food is stuffer, not to be enjoyed, Any complaints about airline food bring two responses: “Join the long line”, or “what’s the use?” However, in this part of the world, while still airline food, is a different collection of airline foods and I enjoyed the new flavours. The fact that I couldn’t understand the labels helped immensely.
Still, arriving at the Sochi airport was a treat. It was like arriving in Florida, with a blast of welcome humidity and warmth that let me know that this wasn’t Moscow any longer. The pace had slowed and the sheer size of every is more appropriate for a town of 400,000.
Sochi is important to the world for a number of reasons.
For decades it has been the Palm Beach of Russia, with expensive dachas lining the Black Sea Coast and fabulous resorts like Dagomeys. Lenin had his favourite Dacha in Sochi as did many of Russia’s leaders.
More recently, Putin has placed about $11 billion in investment into Sochi to create a sun and ski tourism infrastructure. Russian tourists were taking almost $2 billion each year out of Russia to go ski and vacation in Europe and Putin wanted to stop the flow of hard currency out of Russia by providing an alternative.
Putin also wanted to ensure that his legacy-to-be, the 2014 Winter Olympics, would be in Sochi. When Sochi was awarded the Olympics, Russia began to pump another $11 billion into the area to bring the infrastructure up to Olympic standards.
Sochi is also 12 miles from the Abkhazian border. The last thing Russia needs is Georgian tanks 12 miles from their Olympic site, and there are many reasons why Abkhazia is what it is, but as a poor and fairly powerless state, Abkhazia provides a convenient 200 km buffer between Georgia and Russia and Russia likes this.
In May 2008 Georgian tanks were massed on Abkhazia’s southern border. The United Nations observers (UNOMIG) are nice fellows who take long walks through the mine laden woods looking for such things. They noticed the buildup and let their chain of command know. French President Sarkozy made a trip to Moscow, then Tblisi, Georgia’s capital and diffused the situation with diplomacy for a short while.
The UN takes a bad rap for its public failures, so it was gratifying to see that circumstances often prevent the UN from receiving praise when they deserve it.
Georgia was also sending unarmed drones over Abkhazia and the Russian air force was knocking them down regularly. These Israeli drones cost about $1 million each and probably were part of a garage sale of unused and soon to be obsolete equipment.
I had not met my friend Max until he picked me up at the airport in Sochi. Maxim Gunjia is well described in one article a few years before as a “hip, 28 and into restaurants, art and jazz. He is also the deputy foreign minister of a country that no legitimate government recognizes…” This, I thought was the antithesis of what to expect from old Soviet leadership but Max fits this perfectly. He once rebuked me (for negotiating over a small purchase) with, “That’s just not cool”, and I understood completely.
After a year and a half of chatting on the phone, and emails, it was good to meet him in person, but I was again distracted by all the sensory input of a strange land. The road from Adler to the border winds along the Black Sea and Max dutifully alternates between pointing out landmarks and chatting in Russian to his friends who he had also picked up at the airport.
The quiet man driving dropped us off at the Psou border crossing and we walked our luggage into Abkhazia, through the customs and nobody seemed interested in checking my luggage. I’m not sure how I would have explained the 19 bottles of Icewine hidden in the suitcase that were leftover from wine tastings and sales calls in Moscow.
The journey out of Abkhazia a week later was also a treat, and I’ll share some stories during that week in future posts.
I left Abkhazia by taxi. The taxi was arranged by friends, and the taxi driver was an affable chain smoker who spoke no English. I could now speak about 20 Russian words and I’m sure that when I did, the Russian speakers wished I would not. I asked in pantomime if I should do up my seatbelt and he motioned “no! no!”.
The main road along the coast is riddled with potholes but that isn’t a problem compared with the cows that meander along the 80 mile road north to Sochi. Abkhazia has a tradition of free range cattle. They are inured to traffic. No amount of honking will move them. Between herds of cows all drivers drive like madmen except when they come to potholes. Crossing potholes, the drivers are almost reverent. I assume spare parts for the cars are expensive.
Timing and a single word is all that one needs to make a joke between two people who don’t speak a common language. We hurtled around a corner and the driver braked suddenly and swerved skillfully. I assume he did. I was wishing for my seatbelt and the only thing I remember seeing was the ass ends of a lot of slowly moving cows. They blocked the road. The driver looked over at me and smiled, lit a cigarette and shrugged. “India” he said, and we both laughed. Eventually they moved and we got to the border.
I had no ‘juice’ crossing this border. The driver pantomimed that I should get out, take my luggage, and go through the customs line, and he would go though the fast lane and meet me on the other side.
I shuffled forward with the line until I got to the big glass window with the tiny little slit to pass my papers.
While I passed my papers, I examined the border guard. I knew that Jan Arden was performing in Canada that week but this could have been her! Under a green fore and aft cap set a round face with pretty eyes, a small attractive beauty mark on her cheek set off a pretty smile. Her dark hair bobbed at the shoulders and just missed the massive epaulets on her shoulders. Her light green uniform shirt was crisp and her skirt was knee length but short enough for me to see dark nylons and imagine uniform shoes that she could march 40 miles in.
While I was taking this in, she was opening my passport, comparing the picture to my face and looking me up on the computer.
There were five people in the booth and she was not talking with any of them as she started to sing in a quiet Russian language. I didn’t know what to make of it and simply kept smiling. She murmered her song and continued to look over the computer, my papers and occasionally looked at me.
Then her forehead furrowed. I started to sweat under my smile. She tapped on the computer and called a colleague over. They conferred in Russian and tapped some more on the computer.
You have to understand that time is relative. One persons time frame as a border guard in Southern Russia is far different than this traveler’s time frame as someone trying to cross a border in Southern Russia for the first time.
Some time later she looked up and said something in Russian to me and pushed both of her hands out towards me.
I didn’t understand. It was my turn to furrow my brow without losing the smile.
She repeated the gesture and I used one of my Russian phrases. It sounded something line “NiPanema” and it was supposed to mean “I don’t understand”. Her colleague thrust her hands out and said in English “Show hands, show hands”
Her colleague pointed at my ring finger and said “Show hands” again.
Are they asking me where my wife is? Did the computer say that I had entered Abkhazia with a wife and was leaving without one? Did they think I was a lonely westerner looking for a Russian wife? All this came to me in a nanosecond and I pointed at my ring finger, “Nye, no wife, no wife.”
Her colleague drew away and my Jann Arden sang briefly, then stamped my passport and put it down on her side of the glass. I wasn’t clear yet!
I don’t speak Russian. She didn’t speak English. However I know exactly what she said next. Her gestures towards my passport and me were very clear. I was just standing there smiling and thinking “I don’t want to go to the little room in the back” when she said with a flourish, “You take me to Canada?!”
What could I do? I took one step back from the window and one step towards (ironically) freedom in Russia and said with a big gesture and a bigger smile, “Come On! Let’s Go!” We now had the attention of everyone in the booth.
She smiled, opened my passport and wrote something inside. She passed it to me.
I opened the passport. Her name is Edita, and her cell phone number was written inside.
I knew just two words in Russian for the occasion. In a loud voice and a bigger smile, I said to her, “Spaceba Padrushka” (“Thanks Girlfriend”) and went to find my taxi. Everyone in the customs both began laughing at our brief passion play.
The taxi driver made me put my seatbelt on for the final 12 miles from the Psou River to Sochi’s airport.
Later I learned that in Russia, if you don’t wear your seatbelt, the police will pull you over looking to find lunch money.
In Abkhazia, if you do wear your seatbelt, you are clearly a tourist, and the police will pull you over looking to find lunch money.
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