Getting to Dzerzhinskiy

“Have a safe and boring trip! (You're had to many 'exciting' airport adventures lately!)”

     This was the message Katelyn sent me before I made my way to PDX.  I laughed as I thought of recent airport drama, but this one was bound to be easier.

     I said my difficult goodbyes to friends, family, and my dog and then loaded up the car with all of my belongings that had to weigh less than 117 pounds total.  My mother’s friend Trisha drove, my aunt Tiana rode shotgun with my nearly empty carry-on (due to Transaero’s rule of it needing to weigh under 17 pounds), and my mother sat in the back seat with me.  She held my hand the entire way, telling me how much she was going to miss me and how much she loves me.

     I kept my tears at bay.

     The group had agreed to come in.  I was terrified that my bags would be overweight by a pound or two and I was not willing to pay $100 for an extra sweater and they were prepared to carry anything that exceeded the weight limit.

     The JetBlue agent called for anyone who was headed for JFK to come to the front of the line.  I skipped the small group of people ahead of me to get to the counter, at this point feeling unworried as I had more than two hours before my plane was set to leave.

     I held back a celebration when my first bag was weighed at 49 pounds.

     “Yes!” I exclaimed when the second bag also came in at 49 pounds.  I turned to Trisha who had clapped when the number came up and we shared a fairly epic high-five.

     “Third time’s a charm?” my mother asked from my other side with a laugh.

     I ignored her because telling her I had weighed and reweighed my bags more than three times didn’t seem like an effective comeback.

     “And we need proof of onward travel,” the woman at the counter said.

     My expression surely changed and, when my eyes moved from the “49.0” on the scale to her face, I could tell she was expecting that I didn’t have any onward travel.

     “I don’t have any,” I admitted, “I’ll just overland into Ukraine,” I said, listing the first country bordering Russia that I knew I didn’t need a visa for.

     “Overland?” the agent asked.

     “Like a bus or something.”

     She smiled at me and held her index fingers and thumbs in a rectangular shape, apparently indicating a ticket.  “That’s great.  I just need to see proof of a bus ticket then.”

     Despite my reasoning (why would I have my bus ticket already? I was going to extend my visa, etc.) she was adamant that it was JetBlue’s policy to protect themselves.  Also, I would likely be denied entry into Russia without onward travel.

     “That isn’t what I was told,” I argued.

     The woman rolled her eyes at me, like she was the expert on visas and how dare I challenge her authority.  “By who?”

     “The Russian Visa Center,” I said with narrowed eyes.

     But she was steadfast and asked me and my group to stand aside until I had forward travel.  Oh.  And JetBlue doesn’t fly out of Moscow.

     Panic ensued.  We had three smartphones going trying to book travel, any travel, out of Russia for as cheap as possible.  Travel that I was certain not to be able to take.

“Mine keeps going through the same three pages!” I said in panic.

     “What does it want for this expiration date?! I’ve entered everything I can!” Trisha said of Expedia via her smartphone.

     I waited on hold with Expedia hoping that I could ask them what they wanted for the expiration date of which we had entered every possible entry we could think of (0320, 320, 03/20, 3/20, Mar. 2020, March 2020, Mar 2020, 032020, 03/2020, and on and on).

     An hour in I was gulping in huge mouthfuls of air hoping that it would keep the tears away.

     “It’s fine,” I was consoled, “we have time.”  But we didn’t.

     Tiana approached me calmly as I sat on hold with Expedia bouncing my weight from one foot to the other nervously.  “I’m just playing around on here,” she said extending her Iphone out in front of me, “but would this be right?” she asked of the itinerary.

     “Yeah,” I said.  But why would she be able to do what we had been unable to do for the previous hour.

     Someone answered the Expedia Customer Service line just long enough to be completely unhelpful regarding my simple question and to start trying to book me before Tiana said, “Alright, we’re good,” her tone just as steady and unassuming as before.

     “We’re good?” I think all three of us said as we rushed around her phone to view the onward travel.

     Trisha took the phone to the new agent that had traded with the old and I hung up with the Expedia agent after a quick, “We actually got something booked, thanks!”
     "Well I'm getting an Iphone...?" my mother said half jokingly and half begrudgingly.
     "It's important to diversify," Tiana said through a giggle.

     I didn’t feel any more relaxed with the boarding pass in my hand, as boarding started in twenty minutes.  We set off for security only to find it backed up and not moving.  My heart sank farther.

     “You are more than welcome to stay in this line,” someone on security began over the intercom, “but know that we only have one line open.  If you walk down to the other security check they have three lines open.”

     “Go!” Trisha yelled.  And the four of us made for the other end of the airport at an alarming pace.  Retrospectively, perhaps more dramatically than was necessary.  But at the time it seemed more than appropriate.

     We said hurried goodbyes and I was through security within ten minutes and arrived to my gate five minutes before our scheduled boarding time (nearly half an hour before we actually began boarding).

     Begin transit mode.

     I was going to take notes on what was going on.  Or maybe I would journal.  Or do some creative writing.  I would certainly at least read my book.  But I didn’t do any of these things.  As usual, I was completely useless on this first flight, through my eight hour layover in JFK (half of which I spent lounging on the ground waiting to check in with Transaero, classy-like), and my next flight.

     I met another teacher on the flight who would be working with Language Link.  She too had flown JetBlue and had not been asked to purchase onward travel.  The JetBlue agent’s face came to mind, frozen in the moment she had held her hands up in a rectangular position, with an eerie sort of clarity in which one might recall a childhood trauma.

     The woman on the other side was a Russian woman traveling with her son.  Switching seats with her and then switching once more with another mother and son had ended up moving me from an aisle seat the most middle I could get.  But this woman was grateful for it and spoke to me in heavily accented English with a broad smile.

     Upon landing she was the first to begin clapping and half of the plane joined her.  She turned to me with a grin and told me, “I am thanking God!” before thanking me for the wonderful company.

     I left the plane feeling ready to be in Russia.

     For the first time in my life, my bags were among the first dozen at baggage claim and I quickly strode through the archway marked “nothing to claim”.  One of the security guards said something in Russian, but I hardly noticed and stupidly continued on through.  A second security guard stepped in front of me and repeated the same word that I could only imagine was some word meaning stop.  I came to an abrupt halt, looking at the security guard in front of me with wide eyes, then at the two sitting to my left, and back again.  “I don’t speak Russian,” I managed to say in Russian.

     The two to my left exchanged an incredulous look and the other repeated to them that I didn’t speak Russian.  “Put your bag here,” said the one who had stopped me, indicating my absurdly large bag.

     I did as I was told and asked, “All?” indicating my other bags.

     “No,” said the same guard.  “Just one.”

I rolled my other bags to the opposite side of the scanner and waited for my apparently sketch-looking luggage and the go-ahead to enter Russia for the first time.

     My first sight before I had entirely left security was a glamorous blonde woman watching expectantly and holding a piece of printer paper with my name boldly printed across it.

I grinned mostly out of relief and she smiled back.  This was my first impression of my principal.

     As we left the airport together I saw a man in a track suit leaning disinterestedly against the wall holding a somewhat crumpled sign that said “Language Link” in one hand and his smart phone, which was receiving a good deal more attention, in the other.   I was happy with my choice as I followed my principal out into the open air as she asked happily about my flight.

     After much effort, we got my bags into the small car that my school uses and the three of us, including our driver, took off down the highway.

     In traffic leaving the airport I had more than enough time to take in my surroundings.  My driver and principal spoke amongst themselves in Russian, though my principal sent questions my way at polite intervals.  Russian songs played on the radio, interrupted every now and again by Russian commercials.  All the billboard around us were written in Russian advertising products I had never seen before.  But it certainly wasn’t the first time I had heard or seen Russian.  I wondered to myself when it would really feel like I was in Russia.

     “I’m sorry,” my principal turned to face me, speaking in a hushed voice, “our driver cannot without a cigarette.”

     I watched as he took both hands off of the wheel and took several unhurried tries to light his cigarette.  The end lit up bright orange as he smoked and I stared at it with a strong fascination as though I had never seen a cigarette before.  It appeared that it had just as much of his attention as well and he filled the cabin with feathery strands of smoke that lazily made their out the only slightly cracked window.  With each drag he exhaled the smoke in one breath and the next was a breathy cough that, if it persisted, he would wash down with another drag.  For some reason, by the end of that cigarette, the butt of which he lowered his window in order to toss, I realized I was not home anymore.

     A blur followed.  We entered Dzerzhinskiy (also spelled sans the final “i”) between their nuclear reactor that sat sleepily idol and lifeless looking blocks of apartments.  Apartments seemed to be the only thing that the city had besides these three reactors and all of them looked alike.  Each time the car would slow in the slightest to take a turn I was sure that this apartment, even though it looked just like that apartment, was to be mine.

     And of course, eventually, one of them was.

     My principal helped me drag my bags up to my apartment, while our driver had another cigarette, and at some point I began unpacking.  Her husband came to set up the wifi, but the router didn’t work.  She went to buy a pillow.  I made tea.  I know all of these things happened, but I can’t tell you in what order.  It had been too long since I had slept.  My principal told me that I should call the head teacher once I was less tired and he would show me to the school.  I’m sure I nodded or indicated understanding of some sort, and I was left in a depressingly dirty and empty apartment, with only the wallpaper to make me laugh (and only at how absurd it was).

     My phone rang for a split-second before going silent once more and the screen informed me that the head teacher had tried to call me.  Not being able to decide if it was an accident or not, I called him back and, somehow, agreed that after my shower I would power through the day and go see the school and the city.

     Did you know you’re expected to hold the shower head the whole time?  There is no place to hang it up.  I’m not a fan.

     The head teacher took me the “scenic route”, but I didn’t actually expect it to be scenic.  But after less than five minutes we turned a corner to see golden onion domes in the distance.

     And before I knew it we passed Dzerzhinskiy's eternal flame.  Here the head teacher had some sort of interesting facts to share, but my mind only had enough power to watch for the flame, dim in comparison to the bright sun.

     I had already seen pictures of the monastery, though I didn't expect the real thing to look as brilliant as angles and Photoshop could make a photo look.  How wrong I was.  The path we walked clung to the edges of a lake and as the path dipped down slightly the surrounding trees thinned out enough for us to glimpse the monastery across the lake.

     Entering the complex I knew I couldn't go inside the building with my hair uncovered, but I was surprised at the women who could go inside.  A woman, probably in her mid-forties, passed me in a bright yellow dress that never even dreamed of reaching for her knees and a matching translucent scarf that was wrapped haphazardly about her hair that cascaded down her back well passed the hem of her scarf.  After this sight, the cows they used to keep the grass down didn't seem so surprising.
     People of all ages walked around the pond within the complex feeding the swans, ducks, pigeons, and other assorted birds and laughing among themselves.

     We passed a park full of sculptures.  The clean lines carved into the white stone gave the faces of the statues a spooky look to them and added a contrast to the wooden cross on the back of the sculpture of Jesus.

     "Now, I'm taking you through the alley of lovers, or lover's alley," he announced.  I wished he wouldn't have commented.  I stood an awkward distance from him until i was assured that "Lover's Alley" or whatever the best translation of it was not an apt name.  After passing a soccer field and a school on one side and watching a bulldozer spew pollution into the air on the other, I decided it was appropriately un-romantic.  I still didn't speak for a while.

     The final thing we passed was explained to me, I'm fairly sure.  But the afternoon had worn on and I was fading quickly.  I only remembered to snap a picture because I thought about the unlikelihood that my parents would have let me crawl all over rockets as a child.