октября 25, 2008
Strive Against Gapping
10/25 11:52, Pushkin time
I've had a guy from Pennsylvania (where American vampires come from) here doing a training course all this week -- and I get to play translator. So I've been dashing over to the plant for an hour before anyone else comes in and then trying to get in another hour after work hours have ended so I at least sort of keep up with the things I need to do. It's not really working, though things would be worse if I wasn't doing it, I guess. He's here until the 30th.
On the other hand, this month we have finally hit a more or less sustained rhythm of smooth working facilities, no crazy directives-from-on-high, and an adequate supply of parts; we've been at one truck a day for almost the entire time, and will likely maintain that for this last week of October. So finally our guys and we will start to see the nice, fat piece-rate money I've been promising since... oh... about last December. Next month and the one after are already pretty much in the bag, too. And we've got parts coming now that should cover us for January and a good chunk of February.
Of course, the dark side is that the depression in the US has rippled out a bit into the rest of the world. As it stands now, we've got customers for our stuff at least going forward a bit of a ways, but beyond those guys the situation is a bit less clear. Most likely we're in for a couple of tight months at least on our normal business side. Fortunately, we've got a ton of side projects that we are starting to ramp up to keep at least moving in a slightly forward direction. And as И says, in the spring once things have settled, we'll be in superb shape to be right out in front. Also it likely means (and we've already seen this starting to happen) that the prices for construction type stuff will come down. Which means we will be able to finish the house most likely for less than what we were previously expecting. Already the number of migrant workers in construction has dropped off sharply, and the ones that remain are starting to bid down against each other on price.
And in fact, the outfits that had extended themselves on credit are the ones taking it the hardest. They announced that the big tower GazProm was having built right in the middle of the historical city center won't be happening -- in fact, they say that likely by December, GazProm and several of the like companies snatched by the connected bandits and killers (who, as the last decade has shown to anyone who was looking, demonstrate that the skills required to shoot a competitor in the head and the ones required to run a successful company do not really overlap) in the 90s are going to be in the red. Several may actually fall, and have their assets be finally made available to maybe some less-sleazy scumbags. So there really are several silver linings to this whole thing.
In other things, the big news is that L has started talking. At long last. For quite some time, it's been clear that he understood what people were saying to him (in either language, for that matter) for example, without indicating with gestures or anything, if you asked him to bring you a specific thing, he would get it for you. But he used only his own noises for words until this last week, when he came out with a whole pile of words. With us at home, they're all english; but I'm planning to try him out with some of our friends (he's uncomfortable around new people still) and see if he's got any of their words, too.
I've had a guy from Pennsylvania (where American vampires come from) here doing a training course all this week -- and I get to play translator. So I've been dashing over to the plant for an hour before anyone else comes in and then trying to get in another hour after work hours have ended so I at least sort of keep up with the things I need to do. It's not really working, though things would be worse if I wasn't doing it, I guess. He's here until the 30th.
On the other hand, this month we have finally hit a more or less sustained rhythm of smooth working facilities, no crazy directives-from-on-high, and an adequate supply of parts; we've been at one truck a day for almost the entire time, and will likely maintain that for this last week of October. So finally our guys and we will start to see the nice, fat piece-rate money I've been promising since... oh... about last December. Next month and the one after are already pretty much in the bag, too. And we've got parts coming now that should cover us for January and a good chunk of February.
Of course, the dark side is that the depression in the US has rippled out a bit into the rest of the world. As it stands now, we've got customers for our stuff at least going forward a bit of a ways, but beyond those guys the situation is a bit less clear. Most likely we're in for a couple of tight months at least on our normal business side. Fortunately, we've got a ton of side projects that we are starting to ramp up to keep at least moving in a slightly forward direction. And as И says, in the spring once things have settled, we'll be in superb shape to be right out in front. Also it likely means (and we've already seen this starting to happen) that the prices for construction type stuff will come down. Which means we will be able to finish the house most likely for less than what we were previously expecting. Already the number of migrant workers in construction has dropped off sharply, and the ones that remain are starting to bid down against each other on price.
And in fact, the outfits that had extended themselves on credit are the ones taking it the hardest. They announced that the big tower GazProm was having built right in the middle of the historical city center won't be happening -- in fact, they say that likely by December, GazProm and several of the like companies snatched by the connected bandits and killers (who, as the last decade has shown to anyone who was looking, demonstrate that the skills required to shoot a competitor in the head and the ones required to run a successful company do not really overlap) in the 90s are going to be in the red. Several may actually fall, and have their assets be finally made available to maybe some less-sleazy scumbags. So there really are several silver linings to this whole thing.
In other things, the big news is that L has started talking. At long last. For quite some time, it's been clear that he understood what people were saying to him (in either language, for that matter) for example, without indicating with gestures or anything, if you asked him to bring you a specific thing, he would get it for you. But he used only his own noises for words until this last week, when he came out with a whole pile of words. With us at home, they're all english; but I'm planning to try him out with some of our friends (he's uncomfortable around new people still) and see if he's got any of their words, too.
октября 18, 2008
Rolling along
10/18 19:51, Pushkin time
Seeing as how I used to post sometimes even more than once a day, I suppose the sense of accomplishment I'm getting in writing a second post less than a week spaced from the last is a bit irrational.
Anyway.
Z has now been attending for almost a full week the musical academy ("named for Anna Akhmatov") in Pushkin. We've been meaning to get him signed up there for after-school lessons for pretty close to a year now -- but it's Russia, and I work during the day, and those type of cold introductions-discovery-and-negotiations A feels unconfident in her ability to handle (I, having had the experience when we first got here of being able to muddle through even as a totally ignorant boob, have more faith in her than she has in herself on this matter, but that's not the point). So it had to go until I finally got sick of waiting, took off from work for a couple hours in the middle of the day, and took Z over to the school to meet with its director and People-of-Admissions.
Somewhat uunsurprisingly (though at the time, catching the both of us completely off guard), after the director and we had exchanged a couple words, he asked what instrument Z wanted to study.
Umm.
Uhh.
(and Z was no help there, either).
I finally tossed out piano as a potentially good one to start with. Fortunately, there was space in piano classes, so that's where he is for now. They offer pretty much every instrument possible; G has already declared his intention to do guitar there as soon as he turns six. For now, Z does choir/basic musical skills two days a week after school and piano one day a week after school. And thus far he's having a good time. The only thing left to set up for his is getting him into a swim group. Hopefully I'll be able to do that sometime before the school year ends.
And in other things, we picked up the first set of radiators for the house today. Our septic is dug and ready to be pooped in. We dropped our well pump in to try priming the well only to find out that not using a brand new well for a year has the unfortunate side-effect of causing it to sediment back in somewhat (ours was dug to 26 meters, and the pump only went down to like 17). So we'll have a guy out to blast the gunk out with air and then we'll make sure to follow after that better. The garbage dump that was behind our place has been all cleaned out -- I arranged for a neighbor with a horse-and-cart to take the stuff away for way cheaper than what dump truck drivers were asking. And so that's all moving along at some kind of speed.
And now, the kids want to watch a movie that's on our computer; A is giving me dirty looks for keeping them waiting. So I suppose that brings me to the end for now.
Seeing as how I used to post sometimes even more than once a day, I suppose the sense of accomplishment I'm getting in writing a second post less than a week spaced from the last is a bit irrational.
Anyway.
Z has now been attending for almost a full week the musical academy ("named for Anna Akhmatov") in Pushkin. We've been meaning to get him signed up there for after-school lessons for pretty close to a year now -- but it's Russia, and I work during the day, and those type of cold introductions-discovery-and-negotiations A feels unconfident in her ability to handle (I, having had the experience when we first got here of being able to muddle through even as a totally ignorant boob, have more faith in her than she has in herself on this matter, but that's not the point). So it had to go until I finally got sick of waiting, took off from work for a couple hours in the middle of the day, and took Z over to the school to meet with its director and People-of-Admissions.
Somewhat uunsurprisingly (though at the time, catching the both of us completely off guard), after the director and we had exchanged a couple words, he asked what instrument Z wanted to study.
Umm.
Uhh.
(and Z was no help there, either).
I finally tossed out piano as a potentially good one to start with. Fortunately, there was space in piano classes, so that's where he is for now. They offer pretty much every instrument possible; G has already declared his intention to do guitar there as soon as he turns six. For now, Z does choir/basic musical skills two days a week after school and piano one day a week after school. And thus far he's having a good time. The only thing left to set up for his is getting him into a swim group. Hopefully I'll be able to do that sometime before the school year ends.
And in other things, we picked up the first set of radiators for the house today. Our septic is dug and ready to be pooped in. We dropped our well pump in to try priming the well only to find out that not using a brand new well for a year has the unfortunate side-effect of causing it to sediment back in somewhat (ours was dug to 26 meters, and the pump only went down to like 17). So we'll have a guy out to blast the gunk out with air and then we'll make sure to follow after that better. The garbage dump that was behind our place has been all cleaned out -- I arranged for a neighbor with a horse-and-cart to take the stuff away for way cheaper than what dump truck drivers were asking. And so that's all moving along at some kind of speed.
And now, the kids want to watch a movie that's on our computer; A is giving me dirty looks for keeping them waiting. So I suppose that brings me to the end for now.
октября 15, 2008
Stopping by
10/15 19:55, Pushkin time
Wow. Let's just say that it's been too long, and leave it at that.
It was not such an amazing summer, anyway. Stuff happened, other stuff didn't happen, I mainly kept busy. Really, only two majorly interesting things to note:
1) Hit A Pedestrian With My Car
Driving the boys to school one morning a few weeks ago, I was going with my green light towards the intersection right ahead of the Egyptian Gate. Just ahead of the crosswalk, a girl stepped right out in front of me, maybe fifteen feet in front of my car. I slammed my brakes and swerved to one side -- the sound of my skids caught her attention, she looked right at me, and jumped in the same direction I was swerving. I corrected, but there just wasn't quite enough time; so the next thing I know, she slams off the driver's quarter of the hood and I see her feet go flying to the side. I skidded to a stop and jumped out to do... something. I was frankly expecting to find an oozing body in the street.
It is, for the record, indescribeably more horrible than running over a cat or dog.
When I got to the girl, she was kind of shifting and muttering. Her legs were cocked kind of funny, but she fairly quickly came to some sort of sense and started to get up. I helped her up and helped her limp-hop to the curb, all the while monologuing a sort of, "ohmygodyou'rehurtohmygodyourheadholycrapthankgodyou'renotdead" and so forth. We got to the curb and I immediately told her we needed to go to the hospital; that there was no way she was alright. She declined repeatedly (though she did ask me to retrieve her shoe from where it had been blown off into the middle of the intersection. I sort of checked her over, all the time repeating my insistence that we take her to a hospital. But ultimately, she just said she wanted me to take her home (she had no visible damages, other than a scraped elbow, but she was hit by a freaking car...). I told her she needed to be looked after; she assured me that her husband was a doctor and he would take care of her at home, so I ended up loading her in the car (the boys, to their credit, sat quietly while I dealt with things) and took her to her place and then made sure she got to her door, and forced her to take my phone number so that if anything at all felt funny later on I could rush back and get her to help.
Then I got back to the car, got the kids to school and continued (more or less) with my day.
I got a call in the middle of that day from a guy claiming to be the husband of the girl I hit; that she had some sort of head injury that they were going to be taking her to the neurologist the next day to check out, that she was pregnant, and that, by the way, according to Statute such-and-such of the Rules of Road Transport, I was obligated to call her an ambulance and then wait for the police to come and fill out a report. I argued with the guy a little bit, to the extent that I offered her several times to call an ambulance or take her to the hospital myself, and then did exactly what she asked and took her to her home; that I was going the normal speed on the road (one of her shoes came off, and he was trying to claim that I 'must have been going' at least twice the legal speed for that to have happened); that she was not in the crosswalk, and that I had a green light when she stepped out in front of me. Plus, you could hardly say that I fled the scened of an accident, given the fact that he was able to contact me because I had given the girl my cell number. Ultimately, he offered to go straight to the cops and report me for hit-and-run, and I got him to agree instead to meet that evening to discuss things.
И went with me (stupid me, it was my idea to meet at 11:30PM in the shopping market parking lot), which was good since the guy had two friends with him, too. I let И do the bulk of the critical talking, since I'm really not that experienced in these kinds of negotiations. Ultimately, it came down to more or less what the guy had said; we asked him to name a price, and he gave 40,000 rubles. I knew enough to keep my mouth closed, and И muttered that that was hardly a fair number. The guy offered to call his lawyer (in fact, did call the guy and try to get me to talk to him on the phone). We ended up getting him to agree to give us until the next morning before going to the cops.
That next morning, we checked into all manners of Russian law. As it turns out, I did everything right -- including taking her to her house afterwards, as she had indicated that her husband was a doctor, which fulfilled my responsibility to 'take the injured in my own transport to a location where they can receive medical attention'. However, the law pretty much straight out says that in any case, I was obligated to come back to the scene of the accident, call the cops, wait for them to show up, and so forth. So I broke the law, pretty much unambiguously. As further interest, while the penalty for 'failing to fulfill my duties as a motor vehicle operator after an accident', until last year, was a fine or suspension of license, it was increased at the beginning of summer to suspension of license or 15 days jail time (administrative arrest, it's called). So the option of letting it go to court and then having И's friends in the police/courts regimes simply write me up for the fine instead of the serious penalty was off the table. We also looked up the exact legal definition of 'blackmail' (breaking the rules of the road is an 'administrative' offense; blackmail is a 'criminal' one) with the idea that we could turn the tables on this guy and intimidate him into backing off. But no luck there, either.
So, figuring I was going to end up getting tagged for the bulk of the requested 40K, since I didn't have any sort of leg to stand on, I had И call the guy up. Doing so, he got to show his genius. He gave the guy the line that, 'look, this guy is a foreigner. what does he care if his license gets suspended in Russia? He's leaving next month anyway. He wants to make some sort of offer to you out of the goodness of his heart and recognition that he's caused you trouble, but if you want to be a dick about it, go ahead and start the police report. He'll be gone before they even start looking for him." Then he named a sum of 20,000 rubles. The guy asked a few minutes to think it over.
Five minutes later he called back and agreed. I arranged to meet him that afternoon; as soon as i hung up, И cursed and said that we should have offered ten; the guy agreed too quickly.
So ultimately I ended up paying a guy about 800 bucks and getting in return a notarized letter from the girl I hit indicating that we had settled the issue between us to our mutual consent and that she had no claims against me.
So that's what it costs to have an idiot walk out in front of you in traffic. According to the Russian Rules of the Road, the driver is always at fault -- no matter what the pedestrian did, or what the other circumstances. A driver is considered the operator of a piece of "dangerous equipment", exactly the same legally as a guy holding a pistol or working with dynamite. Supposedly, if you could find multiple witnesses to confirm that a pedestrian looked at you coming, recognized that you were coming, and stepped in front of you anyway (I suppose, suicided themselves), you might be able to get away with having the responsibility not lay completely on you. But otherwise, you're screwed. So one big lesson both Andi and I got is, Watch Out For Pedestrians.
Oh, and by the way... If I hadn't been paying good attention, or had been speeding, there is no way I would have avoided hitting her straight on at speed. In the event that a pedestrian is killed by the operator of a vehicle, it is straight-to-jail. Given the speed at which the Russian bureaucracy works, И might have been able to pull enough strings fast enough to keep me from spending any time locked up, but no guarantees. So that's another little happy though for me as I drive.
2) Got Reported To The Authorities
Yesterday morning, I got a call from a person telling me that he had a "zayavleniye" (this can mean, 'application', 'request', and several other things; it holds the sense of an officially-documented something about something) regarding me, and that he would like to get together with me to go over it. Umm.. okay, whatever. So I told him we could get together at the house (since he identified me as the "Mr. Maroncelli from Pokrovskaya", it was a safe bet he knew where the house was) that evening at quarter to seven. He agreed, and I started to ask people what the hell that could have been about. Since the word is such a potentially general one, without any context -- and I had none at all, of course -- no one could say anything but, 'you'll find out tonight, I guess'.
As it turns out, I didn't. The guy never showed, never called, and we left after waiting for a reasonable time. He did ultimately call at like 10:30 at night, but by that point I had already figured, screw him; he can wait until morning.
So this morning, he called me again. First to apologize for missing out on meeting at the house (caught in traffic or something). Then to say that since he blew me off at the place convenient for him, he was happy to come to wherever was convenient for me. So I gave him the address of the factory. Maybe ten minutes later, our security guard called me to tell me a guy had shown up looking for me, and should he let him in. Since I was still a bit pissed at the guy for the previous night, I told the guard to let him wait and that I would be right out.
I opened the door to the security building, and saw in the entryway only two people -- the guard, and someone in a police uniform. Oh shit. And before I can react, the guard looks to me and says, 'here's the guy who was looking for you', gesturing at the cop.
Oh shit again.
So I introduce myself to the guy and we settle into the guard's office to go over the zayavleniye (in this case, I suppose I would say, 'complaint' or 'report'). He shows me a typed document consisting of about eight paragraphs. The first couple go over the border dispute we had with the people whose sheds we are tearing down; though it also at first glance seemed to be making some sort of claims about me personally. Then there was a section about our Roma neighbors (identified in the zayavleniye as 'burglars, murderers, and car thieves'), then back to something else about me making strong mention of my US citizenship, and then a bit that I didn't catch at all consisting primarily of the acronyms that Russians so love to use. Nothing really remarkably bad as far as I could tell, and the cop told me that it was basically bullshit, but that he was obligated to sit down with me and get an official response written up and filed. I called И over to give the paper a glance and to more or less consult before I got into making any kind of statement at all. He looked it over, started snickering, and then after briefly asking the cop a couple questions, told me it was definitely bullshit and that I should just do the response thing.
In more detail, the zayavleniye consisted of the following regarding me:
Addressed to the Governor of Leningradskaya Oblast, it identified the writer as a Russian citizen, long-time resident of Pokrovskaya. Recently, the plot of land neighboring his had been pruchased by an individual (me, by name) who was not only a citizen of the USA, but also, "in Russia for unclear reasons; having command of English, Italian, and Russian languages; of military bearing and specialized physical conditioning" [I know, that's the part where И started snickering; I've made all sorts of hay off that line today; A simply loves it.]
Said citizen proceeded to immediately wall off the impoverished Russian and his co-inhabitants from their access to fire safety equipment, fuel delivery, and toilet facilities; as well as tearing down sheds that they had been using for decades.
Then it proceeded to direct the Governor to, pursuant to her obligation to protect the citizens of the Russian Federation, determine exactly to what purpose the USA citizen had come to Russia, as well as taking whatever additional protective measures were appropriate. This was particularly critical, as the character of the individual in question and circumstances of his being in Russia were clearly indicative of an initiative on the part of the USA government -- noted as not being an ally of the Russian Federation, as evidenced by recent events -- in particular some form of Special Forces to take actions on in Russia on their behalf. Even more critical is the fact that the writer, as a scientist formerly associated with rocketry and other matters on a level of national security, is a likely target of this initiative, and if nothing is done, will be left on his own living right next door to said USA Special Forces Operative.
People have almost peed themselves laughing as I recapped that to them today. I asked the cop right away if I could have a copy of the letter for a souvenir. He was sort of confused by the request (as I said, 'you can't buy those kind of things, and no one has ever said that I had "specialized physical conditioning" before). Unfortunately, he wasn't empowered to do that, though he did give me the contact info for his chief, who most likely would have no problem giving me copy of the whole file if I wanted it.
Hell yes, I want it.
So anyway, I sat down with the cop and explained, no, I'm not a spy. No, I don't speak Italian. No, I'm a truck engineer, not a rocket engineer. Here's my US address. And so forth. And then read over his summary, signed it, and went off back to work to tell my tale. I'm not sure when I'll find the time, but there is no way I'm not going to get a copy of my police file.
Oh yeah, and as for the rocket scientist who wrote up the zayavleniye? Apparently, he's an old kook who peels off a half dozen or so of those every few months. The cop said it wastes an amazingly huge amount of his time chasing down all the people this guy names and interviewing them and so forth. The entire department basically despises the guy, but it's their job. And like he said, if we're going to be next to the guy, he'll come up with something to write on us. The last one before the one about me, he wrote about the inhabitants of the apartment across the way from him -- there was some sort of unusual smell coming from their apartment, and he was convinced they were either making dynamite or maybe narcotics there. And the Governor needed to send someone to check it out.
So, no harm done, and an amusing diversion for today.
[Hmmm... I wonder if they're organized enough to cross-index with my accidentally sneaking into the Kremlin several years back...
Naaahh..]
Wow. Let's just say that it's been too long, and leave it at that.
It was not such an amazing summer, anyway. Stuff happened, other stuff didn't happen, I mainly kept busy. Really, only two majorly interesting things to note:
1) Hit A Pedestrian With My Car
Driving the boys to school one morning a few weeks ago, I was going with my green light towards the intersection right ahead of the Egyptian Gate. Just ahead of the crosswalk, a girl stepped right out in front of me, maybe fifteen feet in front of my car. I slammed my brakes and swerved to one side -- the sound of my skids caught her attention, she looked right at me, and jumped in the same direction I was swerving. I corrected, but there just wasn't quite enough time; so the next thing I know, she slams off the driver's quarter of the hood and I see her feet go flying to the side. I skidded to a stop and jumped out to do... something. I was frankly expecting to find an oozing body in the street.
It is, for the record, indescribeably more horrible than running over a cat or dog.
When I got to the girl, she was kind of shifting and muttering. Her legs were cocked kind of funny, but she fairly quickly came to some sort of sense and started to get up. I helped her up and helped her limp-hop to the curb, all the while monologuing a sort of, "ohmygodyou'rehurtohmygodyourheadholycrapthankgodyou'renotdead" and so forth. We got to the curb and I immediately told her we needed to go to the hospital; that there was no way she was alright. She declined repeatedly (though she did ask me to retrieve her shoe from where it had been blown off into the middle of the intersection. I sort of checked her over, all the time repeating my insistence that we take her to a hospital. But ultimately, she just said she wanted me to take her home (she had no visible damages, other than a scraped elbow, but she was hit by a freaking car...). I told her she needed to be looked after; she assured me that her husband was a doctor and he would take care of her at home, so I ended up loading her in the car (the boys, to their credit, sat quietly while I dealt with things) and took her to her place and then made sure she got to her door, and forced her to take my phone number so that if anything at all felt funny later on I could rush back and get her to help.
Then I got back to the car, got the kids to school and continued (more or less) with my day.
I got a call in the middle of that day from a guy claiming to be the husband of the girl I hit; that she had some sort of head injury that they were going to be taking her to the neurologist the next day to check out, that she was pregnant, and that, by the way, according to Statute such-and-such of the Rules of Road Transport, I was obligated to call her an ambulance and then wait for the police to come and fill out a report. I argued with the guy a little bit, to the extent that I offered her several times to call an ambulance or take her to the hospital myself, and then did exactly what she asked and took her to her home; that I was going the normal speed on the road (one of her shoes came off, and he was trying to claim that I 'must have been going' at least twice the legal speed for that to have happened); that she was not in the crosswalk, and that I had a green light when she stepped out in front of me. Plus, you could hardly say that I fled the scened of an accident, given the fact that he was able to contact me because I had given the girl my cell number. Ultimately, he offered to go straight to the cops and report me for hit-and-run, and I got him to agree instead to meet that evening to discuss things.
И went with me (stupid me, it was my idea to meet at 11:30PM in the shopping market parking lot), which was good since the guy had two friends with him, too. I let И do the bulk of the critical talking, since I'm really not that experienced in these kinds of negotiations. Ultimately, it came down to more or less what the guy had said; we asked him to name a price, and he gave 40,000 rubles. I knew enough to keep my mouth closed, and И muttered that that was hardly a fair number. The guy offered to call his lawyer (in fact, did call the guy and try to get me to talk to him on the phone). We ended up getting him to agree to give us until the next morning before going to the cops.
That next morning, we checked into all manners of Russian law. As it turns out, I did everything right -- including taking her to her house afterwards, as she had indicated that her husband was a doctor, which fulfilled my responsibility to 'take the injured in my own transport to a location where they can receive medical attention'. However, the law pretty much straight out says that in any case, I was obligated to come back to the scene of the accident, call the cops, wait for them to show up, and so forth. So I broke the law, pretty much unambiguously. As further interest, while the penalty for 'failing to fulfill my duties as a motor vehicle operator after an accident', until last year, was a fine or suspension of license, it was increased at the beginning of summer to suspension of license or 15 days jail time (administrative arrest, it's called). So the option of letting it go to court and then having И's friends in the police/courts regimes simply write me up for the fine instead of the serious penalty was off the table. We also looked up the exact legal definition of 'blackmail' (breaking the rules of the road is an 'administrative' offense; blackmail is a 'criminal' one) with the idea that we could turn the tables on this guy and intimidate him into backing off. But no luck there, either.
So, figuring I was going to end up getting tagged for the bulk of the requested 40K, since I didn't have any sort of leg to stand on, I had И call the guy up. Doing so, he got to show his genius. He gave the guy the line that, 'look, this guy is a foreigner. what does he care if his license gets suspended in Russia? He's leaving next month anyway. He wants to make some sort of offer to you out of the goodness of his heart and recognition that he's caused you trouble, but if you want to be a dick about it, go ahead and start the police report. He'll be gone before they even start looking for him." Then he named a sum of 20,000 rubles. The guy asked a few minutes to think it over.
Five minutes later he called back and agreed. I arranged to meet him that afternoon; as soon as i hung up, И cursed and said that we should have offered ten; the guy agreed too quickly.
So ultimately I ended up paying a guy about 800 bucks and getting in return a notarized letter from the girl I hit indicating that we had settled the issue between us to our mutual consent and that she had no claims against me.
So that's what it costs to have an idiot walk out in front of you in traffic. According to the Russian Rules of the Road, the driver is always at fault -- no matter what the pedestrian did, or what the other circumstances. A driver is considered the operator of a piece of "dangerous equipment", exactly the same legally as a guy holding a pistol or working with dynamite. Supposedly, if you could find multiple witnesses to confirm that a pedestrian looked at you coming, recognized that you were coming, and stepped in front of you anyway (I suppose, suicided themselves), you might be able to get away with having the responsibility not lay completely on you. But otherwise, you're screwed. So one big lesson both Andi and I got is, Watch Out For Pedestrians.
Oh, and by the way... If I hadn't been paying good attention, or had been speeding, there is no way I would have avoided hitting her straight on at speed. In the event that a pedestrian is killed by the operator of a vehicle, it is straight-to-jail. Given the speed at which the Russian bureaucracy works, И might have been able to pull enough strings fast enough to keep me from spending any time locked up, but no guarantees. So that's another little happy though for me as I drive.
2) Got Reported To The Authorities
Yesterday morning, I got a call from a person telling me that he had a "zayavleniye" (this can mean, 'application', 'request', and several other things; it holds the sense of an officially-documented something about something) regarding me, and that he would like to get together with me to go over it. Umm.. okay, whatever. So I told him we could get together at the house (since he identified me as the "Mr. Maroncelli from Pokrovskaya", it was a safe bet he knew where the house was) that evening at quarter to seven. He agreed, and I started to ask people what the hell that could have been about. Since the word is such a potentially general one, without any context -- and I had none at all, of course -- no one could say anything but, 'you'll find out tonight, I guess'.
As it turns out, I didn't. The guy never showed, never called, and we left after waiting for a reasonable time. He did ultimately call at like 10:30 at night, but by that point I had already figured, screw him; he can wait until morning.
So this morning, he called me again. First to apologize for missing out on meeting at the house (caught in traffic or something). Then to say that since he blew me off at the place convenient for him, he was happy to come to wherever was convenient for me. So I gave him the address of the factory. Maybe ten minutes later, our security guard called me to tell me a guy had shown up looking for me, and should he let him in. Since I was still a bit pissed at the guy for the previous night, I told the guard to let him wait and that I would be right out.
I opened the door to the security building, and saw in the entryway only two people -- the guard, and someone in a police uniform. Oh shit. And before I can react, the guard looks to me and says, 'here's the guy who was looking for you', gesturing at the cop.
Oh shit again.
So I introduce myself to the guy and we settle into the guard's office to go over the zayavleniye (in this case, I suppose I would say, 'complaint' or 'report'). He shows me a typed document consisting of about eight paragraphs. The first couple go over the border dispute we had with the people whose sheds we are tearing down; though it also at first glance seemed to be making some sort of claims about me personally. Then there was a section about our Roma neighbors (identified in the zayavleniye as 'burglars, murderers, and car thieves'), then back to something else about me making strong mention of my US citizenship, and then a bit that I didn't catch at all consisting primarily of the acronyms that Russians so love to use. Nothing really remarkably bad as far as I could tell, and the cop told me that it was basically bullshit, but that he was obligated to sit down with me and get an official response written up and filed. I called И over to give the paper a glance and to more or less consult before I got into making any kind of statement at all. He looked it over, started snickering, and then after briefly asking the cop a couple questions, told me it was definitely bullshit and that I should just do the response thing.
In more detail, the zayavleniye consisted of the following regarding me:
Addressed to the Governor of Leningradskaya Oblast, it identified the writer as a Russian citizen, long-time resident of Pokrovskaya. Recently, the plot of land neighboring his had been pruchased by an individual (me, by name) who was not only a citizen of the USA, but also, "in Russia for unclear reasons; having command of English, Italian, and Russian languages; of military bearing and specialized physical conditioning" [I know, that's the part where И started snickering; I've made all sorts of hay off that line today; A simply loves it.]
Said citizen proceeded to immediately wall off the impoverished Russian and his co-inhabitants from their access to fire safety equipment, fuel delivery, and toilet facilities; as well as tearing down sheds that they had been using for decades.
Then it proceeded to direct the Governor to, pursuant to her obligation to protect the citizens of the Russian Federation, determine exactly to what purpose the USA citizen had come to Russia, as well as taking whatever additional protective measures were appropriate. This was particularly critical, as the character of the individual in question and circumstances of his being in Russia were clearly indicative of an initiative on the part of the USA government -- noted as not being an ally of the Russian Federation, as evidenced by recent events -- in particular some form of Special Forces to take actions on in Russia on their behalf. Even more critical is the fact that the writer, as a scientist formerly associated with rocketry and other matters on a level of national security, is a likely target of this initiative, and if nothing is done, will be left on his own living right next door to said USA Special Forces Operative.
People have almost peed themselves laughing as I recapped that to them today. I asked the cop right away if I could have a copy of the letter for a souvenir. He was sort of confused by the request (as I said, 'you can't buy those kind of things, and no one has ever said that I had "specialized physical conditioning" before). Unfortunately, he wasn't empowered to do that, though he did give me the contact info for his chief, who most likely would have no problem giving me copy of the whole file if I wanted it.
Hell yes, I want it.
So anyway, I sat down with the cop and explained, no, I'm not a spy. No, I don't speak Italian. No, I'm a truck engineer, not a rocket engineer. Here's my US address. And so forth. And then read over his summary, signed it, and went off back to work to tell my tale. I'm not sure when I'll find the time, but there is no way I'm not going to get a copy of my police file.
Oh yeah, and as for the rocket scientist who wrote up the zayavleniye? Apparently, he's an old kook who peels off a half dozen or so of those every few months. The cop said it wastes an amazingly huge amount of his time chasing down all the people this guy names and interviewing them and so forth. The entire department basically despises the guy, but it's their job. And like he said, if we're going to be next to the guy, he'll come up with something to write on us. The last one before the one about me, he wrote about the inhabitants of the apartment across the way from him -- there was some sort of unusual smell coming from their apartment, and he was convinced they were either making dynamite or maybe narcotics there. And the Governor needed to send someone to check it out.
So, no harm done, and an amusing diversion for today.
[Hmmm... I wonder if they're organized enough to cross-index with my accidentally sneaking into the Kremlin several years back...
Naaahh..]
