июня 04, 2005
Last
6/4 21:05, Portland time
Home at last. We'll talk again in a bit.
Home at last. We'll talk again in a bit.
Whoda Thunk?
6/4 17:32, Seoul time
This wireless card rocks. Just for the hell of it, I plugged it in in the Singapore Airlines lounge here in Incheon, and guess what? Access. Sweet, sweet, mind-dampening Access.
I really didn't have anything else to say.
...
Well, I guess I could mention the group of Vladik kids (recent high school graduates, by the looks of them) I talked with in the Vladik departure lounge. I overheard the Russian word for 'dictionary' being spoken, looked over, and saw one of the girls had a Russian-English dictionary. That of course, gave me an opening for the, "where are you going that you need a Russian-English dictionary?" line [oldest one in the book]. Turns out a whole slew of them are headed to New York and environs for the next four months. Why New York, you ask? So do I, and I was sure to tell them that once they've spent long enough there to realize what a waste of their time it is (I estimated for them a week or so), they should book tickets to the Pac NW and give me a ring. I also got a chance to tell some funny 'how I managed to get by my first days in Russia' stories which may or may not have helped their nerves as far as going to foreign lands are concerned. For the most part, they were embarrassed to admit, they had all studied English for the requisite five years, but really didn't remember any of what they had learned. Sound familiar?
I'll check for sweet, sweet Access again in Vancouver. For now, time to get some more of that curried duck before my flight is called.
This wireless card rocks. Just for the hell of it, I plugged it in in the Singapore Airlines lounge here in Incheon, and guess what? Access. Sweet, sweet, mind-dampening Access.
I really didn't have anything else to say.
...
Well, I guess I could mention the group of Vladik kids (recent high school graduates, by the looks of them) I talked with in the Vladik departure lounge. I overheard the Russian word for 'dictionary' being spoken, looked over, and saw one of the girls had a Russian-English dictionary. That of course, gave me an opening for the, "where are you going that you need a Russian-English dictionary?" line [oldest one in the book]. Turns out a whole slew of them are headed to New York and environs for the next four months. Why New York, you ask? So do I, and I was sure to tell them that once they've spent long enough there to realize what a waste of their time it is (I estimated for them a week or so), they should book tickets to the Pac NW and give me a ring. I also got a chance to tell some funny 'how I managed to get by my first days in Russia' stories which may or may not have helped their nerves as far as going to foreign lands are concerned. For the most part, they were embarrassed to admit, they had all studied English for the requisite five years, but really didn't remember any of what they had learned. Sound familiar?
I'll check for sweet, sweet Access again in Vancouver. For now, time to get some more of that curried duck before my flight is called.
июня 03, 2005
So long...
6/4 14:23, Vladivostok time
The weather was nice today, so I had the day to wander the city. Having already seen my fill of the nearby stuff, I decided to ride the city bus to the other end of the line and check out what I found over there. Of course, I bailed before hitting the actual end, since it’s just about as barren of stuff as is the Маяк end. Still, wandering that part of the town, which is wholly functional and has basically nothing in the way of parks and monuments, was another new experience. I managed to, via this jaunt, draw down my cash reserves to less than ten rubles and a handful of kopeks in change. I’m not sure whether that’s a good sign or not...
I did pick up a nice Russian Federation map for my desk, the bigger one I had before having taken up residence on Z’s wall so he can keep track of where I am.
On the way out of town, with a new driver I hadn’t met before, I was able to initiate and keep up small talk, along with a request to stop real quick to get a picture of the sailor that stands on the Vladik city limits (see below, I’ve driven past this every day since I arrived here). He, like many of the residents of Vladik in the middle-age group, grew up somewhere else (Moscow, in his case), served in the Soviet merchant fleet out of Vladik, and ended up staying on after their service was up. One thing I asked about was tigers in the area. Of course, they are protected in this area too, and killing one nets you an enormous fine. They are a real concern in the suburb areas, though. They won’t attack people, but when the weather turns cold and their normal food get harder to come by, they will come down into civilization and eat pets (mostly dogs). As if a dog’s life in Russia wasn’t hard enough.
Everyone (including the passport control girl I chatted with while her counterpart furiously assaulted a keyboard, my registration card and passport in hand) asks me how I like Vladivostok. I still have to stick with my previous assessment. The city is a hole, but the location is superb, and that makes up for a lot. I really need to see the place in the cold to get a feel for how it actually is.
Now, sitting in the departure hall at Vladik airport, the sounds of non-slavic languages assaulting my ears in preparation for my long, long trip home – though as the check-in counter girl observed, all happening on the 4th of June – I’m simultaneously quite comfortable here, and 100% ready to go home. Long trips and long stays in one place are somehow qualitatively different from short ones. I wonder what the cut-off is between them...
The weather was nice today, so I had the day to wander the city. Having already seen my fill of the nearby stuff, I decided to ride the city bus to the other end of the line and check out what I found over there. Of course, I bailed before hitting the actual end, since it’s just about as barren of stuff as is the Маяк end. Still, wandering that part of the town, which is wholly functional and has basically nothing in the way of parks and monuments, was another new experience. I managed to, via this jaunt, draw down my cash reserves to less than ten rubles and a handful of kopeks in change. I’m not sure whether that’s a good sign or not...
I did pick up a nice Russian Federation map for my desk, the bigger one I had before having taken up residence on Z’s wall so he can keep track of where I am.
On the way out of town, with a new driver I hadn’t met before, I was able to initiate and keep up small talk, along with a request to stop real quick to get a picture of the sailor that stands on the Vladik city limits (see below, I’ve driven past this every day since I arrived here). He, like many of the residents of Vladik in the middle-age group, grew up somewhere else (Moscow, in his case), served in the Soviet merchant fleet out of Vladik, and ended up staying on after their service was up. One thing I asked about was tigers in the area. Of course, they are protected in this area too, and killing one nets you an enormous fine. They are a real concern in the suburb areas, though. They won’t attack people, but when the weather turns cold and their normal food get harder to come by, they will come down into civilization and eat pets (mostly dogs). As if a dog’s life in Russia wasn’t hard enough.
Everyone (including the passport control girl I chatted with while her counterpart furiously assaulted a keyboard, my registration card and passport in hand) asks me how I like Vladivostok. I still have to stick with my previous assessment. The city is a hole, but the location is superb, and that makes up for a lot. I really need to see the place in the cold to get a feel for how it actually is.
Now, sitting in the departure hall at Vladik airport, the sounds of non-slavic languages assaulting my ears in preparation for my long, long trip home – though as the check-in counter girl observed, all happening on the 4th of June – I’m simultaneously quite comfortable here, and 100% ready to go home. Long trips and long stays in one place are somehow qualitatively different from short ones. I wonder what the cut-off is between them...
Moving Out
6/3 20:00, Vladivostok time
Packing went quicker than I expected. I can only hope now that I did a good enough job with all the bottles I picked up, as well at the matryoshka for G, survive the trip. I cleaned out a lot of space using up the training materials; in fact, I was even able to painlessly fit in my ripped pair of black cords. I’ll see what A thinks about making a pari of shorts out of them. She is pretty handy that way.
So, what did I do, my last evening in Vladik? Finally made my way down to the Маяк at the end of the peninsula that all of the buses I take back to Gavan list as the end of their line. Turns out that (I looked this up beforehand) that a Mayak is a lighthouse – in this case, the lighthouse at the far tip of the peninsula. So, I spent a good chunk of this last evening staring to the south into the Pacific Ocean. That was pretty nice.
Then, I made my way back to the city center to pay last night’s bill at the restaurant. The same waitress girl was there, the gear was running, and we got everything taken care of straight out. She thanked me again and invited me back next time I’m in town. Almost certainly, I will take her up on that.
Depending on the weather, tomorrow I will either spend the morning wandering the city or hanging out at the dealership. Either one works fine for me. I’m going home in [checks watch] 20 hours.
No real talk with И Ч on the way back to the city today, other than coordinating tomorrow. It’s been a long week for both of us, and it’s not really over yet for either of us. Instead, he cranked the radio, and we cruised to the sound of relatively current Russian music. Even though you don’t notice a whole lot while you’re in a place, the stuff playing on your car (or cab, or bus) trips becomes a big part of how you remember a place. Unfortunately, I have yet to figure out a good way to find around here a particular piece of music to buy. The disc I got last trip was really pure luck – I heard one of the music kiosks playing a song I recognized, and bought the disc right out of their player. There should be a more efficient way of doing it, but it’ll have to wait for another trip. I’ll mention one of the songs that’s been getting some play this past week. It has a fairly good sound to it, but more interestingly, the bridge out lyrics go, “Я родился в Советском Союзе. Сделан я в СССР” [I was born in the Soviet Union. I was made in the USSR]. Much of the rest of it talks about the big cities, using their old soviet names, and being from the land of famous scientists and whatnot. As more than one person has pointed out, the feel of the land of your childhood is the feel of home for the rest of your life.
Packing went quicker than I expected. I can only hope now that I did a good enough job with all the bottles I picked up, as well at the matryoshka for G, survive the trip. I cleaned out a lot of space using up the training materials; in fact, I was even able to painlessly fit in my ripped pair of black cords. I’ll see what A thinks about making a pari of shorts out of them. She is pretty handy that way.
So, what did I do, my last evening in Vladik? Finally made my way down to the Маяк at the end of the peninsula that all of the buses I take back to Gavan list as the end of their line. Turns out that (I looked this up beforehand) that a Mayak is a lighthouse – in this case, the lighthouse at the far tip of the peninsula. So, I spent a good chunk of this last evening staring to the south into the Pacific Ocean. That was pretty nice.
Then, I made my way back to the city center to pay last night’s bill at the restaurant. The same waitress girl was there, the gear was running, and we got everything taken care of straight out. She thanked me again and invited me back next time I’m in town. Almost certainly, I will take her up on that.
Depending on the weather, tomorrow I will either spend the morning wandering the city or hanging out at the dealership. Either one works fine for me. I’m going home in [checks watch] 20 hours.
No real talk with И Ч on the way back to the city today, other than coordinating tomorrow. It’s been a long week for both of us, and it’s not really over yet for either of us. Instead, he cranked the radio, and we cruised to the sound of relatively current Russian music. Even though you don’t notice a whole lot while you’re in a place, the stuff playing on your car (or cab, or bus) trips becomes a big part of how you remember a place. Unfortunately, I have yet to figure out a good way to find around here a particular piece of music to buy. The disc I got last trip was really pure luck – I heard one of the music kiosks playing a song I recognized, and bought the disc right out of their player. There should be a more efficient way of doing it, but it’ll have to wait for another trip. I’ll mention one of the songs that’s been getting some play this past week. It has a fairly good sound to it, but more interestingly, the bridge out lyrics go, “Я родился в Советском Союзе. Сделан я в СССР” [I was born in the Soviet Union. I was made in the USSR]. Much of the rest of it talks about the big cities, using their old soviet names, and being from the land of famous scientists and whatnot. As more than one person has pointed out, the feel of the land of your childhood is the feel of home for the rest of your life.
июня 02, 2005
Done
6/3 12:30, Vladivostok time
The training, as of five minutes ago, is done. I now have no other function in Russia besides getting myself and my stuff to the airport and on a plane. What a feeling!
Of course, it would be quite unreasonable to have expected it all to go off without a hitch. At the end of the course, demonstrating the functioning of ABS and traction control, the damn things wouldn't work. We had a truck with the back end suspended off the (gravel) ground via a combination of forklift, floor jacks, and 2x4s -- recall what I wrote about safety around here -- and were revving the engine to spin the rear wheels (again, recall, safety in Russia...) but nothing interesting happened. Fortunately, the mechanics I was training by that time understood well enough what was supposed to happen that they began offering possible diagnoses. That's gratifying. One thing I've discovered, chatting with these guys around the shop, is that nearly all of them were schooled as engineers. I have a feeling that word has a slightly different meaning around here, but nonetheless, even the greasiest of the lot was able to jump in and complete my halting English-to-Russian explanation of Bernoulli's or Ohm's law for himself. The scientific education level in the Soviet Union must have been impressive.
And speaking of earlier times, this morning, И Ч regaled me with the stories of the beginnings of the Japanese car import market back in the early eighties. He worked on a merchnat ship at that time, and all the sailors, though they went ashore and shopped in Japan fairly frequently, understood that there was no way they would be able to get a Japanese car back through the port customs in Vladik. Then one trip, some passengers on their ship bought two Nissans for around a hundred dollars apiece, figuring that if the port authorities wouldn't let them in, it was no big loss just to dump them in the bay. Surprise, they breezed right through the checkpoints, without even having to pay fines or duties. So the sailors asked the port guy why civilians could import cars when they couldn't, and were told, "who said you couldn't?" From that point on, every trip saw every sailor onboard returning with a new car -- first to give to his family (И Ч says his dad flew into town after he returned with his first new car, a Nissan Bluebird, and told him, "I'm sorry, but I really want this car, could you give it to me as a gift?") and friends, and then to sell. And that's the story.
By the way, I have ended up encountering a couple of guys who have been to North Korea via ships, back when the Soviets were importing a lot of concrete from them. Apparently, unlike Russia of Soviet times, a visitor can't even get a clear picture of what life is like, since basically entire sections of the town are closed to Koreans, and foreigners are not allowed to leave those sections. I asked one guy if Korea has its own equivalent of the KGB, and he just gave me a big "ho ho ho" and shook his head yes.
Finally, word has come to me from the States that С П is to be offered by the beginning of next week a position nominally (that damn politics again) a position with D M's company, but doing much of the same stuff he was doing before for The Company. Hopefully, he hasn't gotten too hooked on Polish girls yet to be willing to come back.
The training, as of five minutes ago, is done. I now have no other function in Russia besides getting myself and my stuff to the airport and on a plane. What a feeling!
Of course, it would be quite unreasonable to have expected it all to go off without a hitch. At the end of the course, demonstrating the functioning of ABS and traction control, the damn things wouldn't work. We had a truck with the back end suspended off the (gravel) ground via a combination of forklift, floor jacks, and 2x4s -- recall what I wrote about safety around here -- and were revving the engine to spin the rear wheels (again, recall, safety in Russia...) but nothing interesting happened. Fortunately, the mechanics I was training by that time understood well enough what was supposed to happen that they began offering possible diagnoses. That's gratifying. One thing I've discovered, chatting with these guys around the shop, is that nearly all of them were schooled as engineers. I have a feeling that word has a slightly different meaning around here, but nonetheless, even the greasiest of the lot was able to jump in and complete my halting English-to-Russian explanation of Bernoulli's or Ohm's law for himself. The scientific education level in the Soviet Union must have been impressive.
And speaking of earlier times, this morning, И Ч regaled me with the stories of the beginnings of the Japanese car import market back in the early eighties. He worked on a merchnat ship at that time, and all the sailors, though they went ashore and shopped in Japan fairly frequently, understood that there was no way they would be able to get a Japanese car back through the port customs in Vladik. Then one trip, some passengers on their ship bought two Nissans for around a hundred dollars apiece, figuring that if the port authorities wouldn't let them in, it was no big loss just to dump them in the bay. Surprise, they breezed right through the checkpoints, without even having to pay fines or duties. So the sailors asked the port guy why civilians could import cars when they couldn't, and were told, "who said you couldn't?" From that point on, every trip saw every sailor onboard returning with a new car -- first to give to his family (И Ч says his dad flew into town after he returned with his first new car, a Nissan Bluebird, and told him, "I'm sorry, but I really want this car, could you give it to me as a gift?") and friends, and then to sell. And that's the story.
By the way, I have ended up encountering a couple of guys who have been to North Korea via ships, back when the Soviets were importing a lot of concrete from them. Apparently, unlike Russia of Soviet times, a visitor can't even get a clear picture of what life is like, since basically entire sections of the town are closed to Koreans, and foreigners are not allowed to leave those sections. I asked one guy if Korea has its own equivalent of the KGB, and he just gave me a big "ho ho ho" and shook his head yes.
Finally, word has come to me from the States that С П is to be offered by the beginning of next week a position nominally (that damn politics again) a position with D M's company, but doing much of the same stuff he was doing before for The Company. Hopefully, he hasn't gotten too hooked on Polish girls yet to be willing to come back.
Thunderstorms This Morning
6/2 21:07, Vladivostok time
One more day left. I just realized on the way back into town from work today that I’ve been in Vladik for a full two weeks as of this afternoon. That makes this my longest stay in any one place, other than home, since...
...
...
at least seven years, I would think...
...
hmmm...
Anyway, I’ve only two days – really, at this point, in the neighborhood of 42 hours – left in Vladik. Even after so long here, it doesn’t fail to interest. Dinner tonight, I scoped out a restaurant in the city center that had a visa sign on the door. I was a bit too successful drawing down my cash balance, and with just a hair less than 300 rubles left, I figured I should get at least one meal on the direct Company account and save the balance for tomorrow dinner and Saturday lunch. Anyway, I found a nice place and had what I figured might be my last Russian meal for a good chunk of time. Solyanka and mutton with grilled mushrooms. My only regret – that they didn’t have kvas (the drink made from black bread) or mors (the drink made from cranberries and ‘other stuff’) to make the experience complete. Anyway, I figured what the hell and tried out some of the stuff I learned watching С П banter with the waitresses. It must have worked, too. When she came to give me the check, and I stuck my card in the envelope, she replied that their machine was broken and they couldn’t take card payments. I explained that I didn’t nearly have enough cash, and that furthermore (anticipating her suggestion) as my card is a company one, I was not trusted with access to draw off it raw cash out of ATMs. Surprisingly, she allowed me to leave her with a signed business card of mine stating the amount I owe, and a promise to return tomorrow, at which time their machine should be fixed. No argument, no complaints, no problems, and even a pleasant, “have a nice evening, see you tomorrow,” from her on the way out the door. Wow.
The thought briefly flitted through my mind that I could screw them for the meal, with no real repercussions. Only flitted briefly, and not as a serious option, though. First, that’s just not the kind of person I am, and second, even if I were, I can’t imagine responding to such a blind extension of trust with bad faith. I’d rather the extension of such goodwill be positively, rather than negatively reinforced. Particularly around here.
My bit of social engineering for the trip.
Also, on the way home, И Ч and I compared school systems. Our drives together offer a chance to swap conversation practice – I speak in Russian, he answers in English. I think I handle my Russian better, but his English vocabulary is way, way bigger. Anyway, he got to mentioning that they study a foreign language for five years here, but that for some reason he took French. Of course, I can relate, and we strained for a couple klicks to swap francais. What a world.
I also learned something new today about how the brain works. It is very, very hard to listen to one language and take notes in another language at the same time. I am working on getting some equipment arranged for the Vladik dealership, and was getting specs from И Ч, and I couldn’t even get past the first letter of the first word I was trying to write. The word was ‘already’, which in Russian is ‘уже’, the first sound of which is an ‘oo’, so I began the note, ‘already have a compressor’ with the letter ‘U’. I did this, fully aware of what I was doing, but unable to help myself. Fortunately for me, the Russian patience I have mentioned elsewhere was present in abundance as I had to make И Ч stop every couple words so I could get coherent words down.
Finally, at the end of the working day, a flatbed truck arrived from Khabarovsk (about a half-day’s drive away, minimum) with a smashed truck on the back. The truck had obviously spent way more than the designed time upside down and in motion. The roof of the cab was actually resting on the driver’s seat. The particularly interesting part – and I’ve seen accidents before, so the truck itself wasn’t too much – was the guy who was driving it was bringing it in. It is absolutely unbelievable (I may try to get a picture of the truck tomorrow) that anyone could have survived, particularly given the fact that wearing a seatbelt around here just isn’t done. Still, here was the driver, intact and complaining that it was going to take maybe ten days to get him back on the road. I asked, and he showed me the extent of his injuries: a scratch on the back of his hand, and a scrape on the back of his neck. Someone mentioned something about being more flexible when you’re drunk, and everyone laughed. And that was it.
One more day left. I just realized on the way back into town from work today that I’ve been in Vladik for a full two weeks as of this afternoon. That makes this my longest stay in any one place, other than home, since...
...
...
at least seven years, I would think...
...
hmmm...
Anyway, I’ve only two days – really, at this point, in the neighborhood of 42 hours – left in Vladik. Even after so long here, it doesn’t fail to interest. Dinner tonight, I scoped out a restaurant in the city center that had a visa sign on the door. I was a bit too successful drawing down my cash balance, and with just a hair less than 300 rubles left, I figured I should get at least one meal on the direct Company account and save the balance for tomorrow dinner and Saturday lunch. Anyway, I found a nice place and had what I figured might be my last Russian meal for a good chunk of time. Solyanka and mutton with grilled mushrooms. My only regret – that they didn’t have kvas (the drink made from black bread) or mors (the drink made from cranberries and ‘other stuff’) to make the experience complete. Anyway, I figured what the hell and tried out some of the stuff I learned watching С П banter with the waitresses. It must have worked, too. When she came to give me the check, and I stuck my card in the envelope, she replied that their machine was broken and they couldn’t take card payments. I explained that I didn’t nearly have enough cash, and that furthermore (anticipating her suggestion) as my card is a company one, I was not trusted with access to draw off it raw cash out of ATMs. Surprisingly, she allowed me to leave her with a signed business card of mine stating the amount I owe, and a promise to return tomorrow, at which time their machine should be fixed. No argument, no complaints, no problems, and even a pleasant, “have a nice evening, see you tomorrow,” from her on the way out the door. Wow.
The thought briefly flitted through my mind that I could screw them for the meal, with no real repercussions. Only flitted briefly, and not as a serious option, though. First, that’s just not the kind of person I am, and second, even if I were, I can’t imagine responding to such a blind extension of trust with bad faith. I’d rather the extension of such goodwill be positively, rather than negatively reinforced. Particularly around here.
My bit of social engineering for the trip.
Also, on the way home, И Ч and I compared school systems. Our drives together offer a chance to swap conversation practice – I speak in Russian, he answers in English. I think I handle my Russian better, but his English vocabulary is way, way bigger. Anyway, he got to mentioning that they study a foreign language for five years here, but that for some reason he took French. Of course, I can relate, and we strained for a couple klicks to swap francais. What a world.
I also learned something new today about how the brain works. It is very, very hard to listen to one language and take notes in another language at the same time. I am working on getting some equipment arranged for the Vladik dealership, and was getting specs from И Ч, and I couldn’t even get past the first letter of the first word I was trying to write. The word was ‘already’, which in Russian is ‘уже’, the first sound of which is an ‘oo’, so I began the note, ‘already have a compressor’ with the letter ‘U’. I did this, fully aware of what I was doing, but unable to help myself. Fortunately for me, the Russian patience I have mentioned elsewhere was present in abundance as I had to make И Ч stop every couple words so I could get coherent words down.
Finally, at the end of the working day, a flatbed truck arrived from Khabarovsk (about a half-day’s drive away, minimum) with a smashed truck on the back. The truck had obviously spent way more than the designed time upside down and in motion. The roof of the cab was actually resting on the driver’s seat. The particularly interesting part – and I’ve seen accidents before, so the truck itself wasn’t too much – was the guy who was driving it was bringing it in. It is absolutely unbelievable (I may try to get a picture of the truck tomorrow) that anyone could have survived, particularly given the fact that wearing a seatbelt around here just isn’t done. Still, here was the driver, intact and complaining that it was going to take maybe ten days to get him back on the road. I asked, and he showed me the extent of his injuries: a scratch on the back of his hand, and a scrape on the back of his neck. Someone mentioned something about being more flexible when you’re drunk, and everyone laughed. And that was it.
июня 01, 2005
Uh-Oh
6/2 08:51, Vladivostok time
Bad news this morning on the drive in. Lavrov (I confirmed, he is who I thought he was) is meeting with both Chinese and Indian ministers through Friday. I'm not expecting much sightseeing success for the rest of the week...
-sigh-
Bad news this morning on the drive in. Lavrov (I confirmed, he is who I thought he was) is meeting with both Chinese and Indian ministers through Friday. I'm not expecting much sightseeing success for the rest of the week...
-sigh-
Inconvenience
6/1 20:51, Vladivostok time
I’m staying at the hotel tonight, mainly because the city has been temporarily shut down. Why, you ask? Apparently, the Chinese Minister of the Army (or some such) is having a meeting with the Russian Minister of the Army (or some such) in Vladik today. As would anywhere, there being no free countries anymore, the streets around the meeting site have been closed off, as was the road they traveled while they were on it. What adds the Russian flavor to this experience is two things: not only the route travelled is closed; why, if that were the case, then everyone would know exactly where the Important People would be! And we can’t have that! So what do the Russians do? They close every road in the immediate (and not-so-immediate) vicinity of the route, as well as a few other main ones leading away from the meeting site. Vladik being located on a peninsula, this means that the south end (where my hotel is) is cut off via motor vehicle from the north side (where everything else is). I ended up having to get dropped off away from my hotel, with big apologies from И Ч, and walking the rest of the way back. Buses aren’t running; nothing is, so far as I can tell.
So, that’s ‘Russian flavor’ number one. The second? The crowds of ‘couldn’t care less’ on foot making a total mockery of the ‘security’ provisions. Russian cities are very heavily pedestrian, and not only have the DPS made no efforts whatsoever to restrict foot traffic, but the general public I’ve seen mainly acting quite overtly abusive towards the DPS guys, and the DPS guys defensively(!!) adopting a self-deprecating, “hey, we think this is idiotic too,” attitude. No beatings, no handcuffings, none of what you’d expect towards Important-Person-quarantine-breakers back home. It sure isn’t New York or Seattle.
Before leaving for the day (and since И Ч was catching hell from И П about some defective parts they’d received and installed and then had come right back to them) I got the chance to talk to А, one of the Guys-of-Indeterminate-Function [somewhere between parts sales manager, service manager, and sales liaison, in his case] at the Vladik dealer for an hour or so. Talk started with business but moved, as such talk tends to when common vocabulary is adequate, to political theory. Put briefly, as I’ve no interest in taking the time to put it down in detail, А’s take is that regardless the names given them, all the political systems come down to the people in power protecting their positions, and that the difference between Communism (USSR variety) and Capitalism (US variety) is not nearly so great as the difference between either of them and what he called ‘soft’ government (Switzerland was his example). My contention to him that such soft forms only worked in small areas where a common culture and common grounds were commonly shared, and that Russia was far too large and sprawling to be able to establish such a system while still intact was accepted as a point worth pondering. Then again, he countered, having been to the US, the difference between New Jersey and Oregon is pretty huge, too; at least Russians all over their country speak the same language. Touche.
I’m staying at the hotel tonight, mainly because the city has been temporarily shut down. Why, you ask? Apparently, the Chinese Minister of the Army (or some such) is having a meeting with the Russian Minister of the Army (or some such) in Vladik today. As would anywhere, there being no free countries anymore, the streets around the meeting site have been closed off, as was the road they traveled while they were on it. What adds the Russian flavor to this experience is two things: not only the route travelled is closed; why, if that were the case, then everyone would know exactly where the Important People would be! And we can’t have that! So what do the Russians do? They close every road in the immediate (and not-so-immediate) vicinity of the route, as well as a few other main ones leading away from the meeting site. Vladik being located on a peninsula, this means that the south end (where my hotel is) is cut off via motor vehicle from the north side (where everything else is). I ended up having to get dropped off away from my hotel, with big apologies from И Ч, and walking the rest of the way back. Buses aren’t running; nothing is, so far as I can tell.
So, that’s ‘Russian flavor’ number one. The second? The crowds of ‘couldn’t care less’ on foot making a total mockery of the ‘security’ provisions. Russian cities are very heavily pedestrian, and not only have the DPS made no efforts whatsoever to restrict foot traffic, but the general public I’ve seen mainly acting quite overtly abusive towards the DPS guys, and the DPS guys defensively(!!) adopting a self-deprecating, “hey, we think this is idiotic too,” attitude. No beatings, no handcuffings, none of what you’d expect towards Important-Person-quarantine-breakers back home. It sure isn’t New York or Seattle.
Before leaving for the day (and since И Ч was catching hell from И П about some defective parts they’d received and installed and then had come right back to them) I got the chance to talk to А, one of the Guys-of-Indeterminate-Function [somewhere between parts sales manager, service manager, and sales liaison, in his case] at the Vladik dealer for an hour or so. Talk started with business but moved, as such talk tends to when common vocabulary is adequate, to political theory. Put briefly, as I’ve no interest in taking the time to put it down in detail, А’s take is that regardless the names given them, all the political systems come down to the people in power protecting their positions, and that the difference between Communism (USSR variety) and Capitalism (US variety) is not nearly so great as the difference between either of them and what he called ‘soft’ government (Switzerland was his example). My contention to him that such soft forms only worked in small areas where a common culture and common grounds were commonly shared, and that Russia was far too large and sprawling to be able to establish such a system while still intact was accepted as a point worth pondering. Then again, he countered, having been to the US, the difference between New Jersey and Oregon is pretty huge, too; at least Russians all over their country speak the same language. Touche.
