This is just a single entry on our last day in Russia:
On Monday Oct 12 — still in St. Petersburg — Chris was signed up to give his talk (Identity is the Platform) at Vitaly’s University. I believe this article is advertising his speaking gig [it's all in Russian!]. The talk went well, but there’s a funny story leading up to the event.
Monday was very rainy, windy, and cold. We spent most of the morning putting last minute touches on the talk (in the hotel room), but by mid-afternoon, I was getting antsy. I wanted to explore the town whether or not it was raining (lightly snowing, actually). We headed out and immediately got drenched from the wet snow, so we took refuge in a small cafe that had some vegetarian (cabbage) pies and green tea! Then we decided to ride the Red Line Metro since we’d heard the stations were pretty. This felt kind of random (and it was)! We paid 20 rubles each to get a ticket, and then just rode along for 10-15 minutes in one direction, got out, checked out the platform, and hopped on a train going in the opposite direction! At one point we switched to a different color metro because it went straight to the university.
Unfortunately, we soon realized that we had a faulty plan since we slowed down at the correct station (doors never opened), and then sped along to the next stop. It turns out that that one station has been closed for over a year. Doh! So 15 minutes beyond where we were supposed to be and in the wet, cold snow, our friend Vitaly decided that he’d hire a car and come pick us up. This was our one and only time in a non-taxi hired car. But it was cheap and seemed perfectly safe. Plus we were with our Russian friend.
Upon arrival at the University, we had our big uh-oh moment. We left our passports and the photocopies of our passports at the hotel! The one day we left them mistakenly behind, we needed them to enter the University! There was incredibly tight security, for who knows why, but it should be noted that we already sent in photocopies of our passports. That didn’t help much, so Chris had to put copies of the passports on a USB drive (which we luckily had scanned in before we left), gave that to Vitaly, who disappeared for 30 minutes but returned with printouts, and then we attempted to enter. There was, what seemed to be, a yelling match in Russian between Vitaly and the security guards — presumably over our printouts. They never once looked at us, but eventually Vitaly turned to us and said in English that we could enter. This whole episode was incredibly ironic in light of the talk Chris was about to give on identity.
The talk went well and we had a great final evening in St. Petersburg with the Russians.
The next day we flew on SAS to Stockholm, which meant that we got to experience the St. Petersburg airport. What a joke! Somehow this teeny tiny airport serves the 5 million people in St. Petersburg — perhaps they don’t travel much.
The first hilarious experience occurred when we had to go through the security line before we reached the check-in desk. Of course, the first thing they ask to see at security is your passport and boarding pass. But we didn’t check in online, so we didn’t have boarding passes. We told the check point person our flight number and said we’d check in inside, and this seemed to be enough to enter. OK (?).
Then half our bags went through the x-ray machine, the other half on a platform that went alongside the x-ray machine. Haha. Finally, there was not table or extended ramp or anything on the other side of the x-ray machine, so everything fell off the table onto the floor. Gah! I scrambled to pick up all our items and shuffle to the corner to put things together. Never felt so vulnerable in Russia until this moment, all the while the machine-gun-clad officers were breathing down our necks.
But at the same time, we would love to return and visit Russia again someday!
