As I took my seat on the Korean flight 987, a sudden flash of horror crossed my mind. Would this be the last I see of my beloved Vladivostok? What a way to go! Definitely not the fairytale end to the "Russian Expedition".
My Mother keeps insisting that I was deported and looking back on it now that wasn't far from the truth. I had left so much behind, so much I still wanted to do, to achieve, friends, colleagues, family and my wife. One day there, the next gone! It was a horrendous way to go out. No presents for the family, half finished jobs at work and a suitcase full of dirty laundry. The "evacuation" took less than 12 hours and left me feeling completely guttered, heart broken, detached and giddy with no control over my life. Why does immigration have to be so complicated, especially when it's your family being ripped apart? So much uncertainty, so many unanswered and unanswerable questions. At the bottom of all this chaos there was my wife, Nastya, bravely waving goodbye, wondering if we would overcome the next juggernaut- A new working visa.
Somewhere in the skies over the Sea of Japan I passed out, helpless, exhausted and completely baffled.
How had the last year effected me? The answers continue to hit me everyday. Even as I sit here today, five days back in Brisbane, a certain profound objectivity surrounds all I see and do. Balance! Life now can be compared. It can be pulled apart and looked at through completely different eyes. Balance in you as a person. The messages is clear, I have changed but to what extent is still unclear and continually evolving everyday. Reflection, waters this strange but enlightening time in my life.
Australia, what does it mean to you? During my time in Vladivostok, the Russians were very curious as to what it meant to be Australian. Why did we still have the Queen on our money? Why weren't we a republic? Were all other Australians, sports mad adventures like myself? Stereotypically, the Russians look at Australia as a strange land, full of deadly animals, clean water and high living standards, but that is as far as it goes.
Personally, I hadn't heard a peep of any news from back home except for one of the Russian bank advertisements, gloating on the fact that they had more members then the entire population of Oz. Oh yeah, also, a couple of weeks before leaving, Australia was named as the fattest nation on earth, but that was all the news I had heard.
Had much changed? Had I changed? Questions still very much up in the air. Over the last year I had run into only one other Aussie, so I was chomping at the bit to reanalyze my own kind. It didn't take long as I hauled my luggage to gate 21, Seoul , Flight 123 heading for Brisbane. There they were, Australians in all there 'ocker' glory. The first thing I noticed was how friendly everyone was, or so they appeared to be. My Russification had taught me to beware the superficial western smirk, for contempt may lie beneath. However this negativity was soon abandoned as one bloke asked me, "How ya going mate? "Where have ya been?"
It was refreshing to say the least, a certain childish naivety the Brits and Americans don't possess but pleasant nevertheless. People were actually smiling at one another for no particular reason, odd, but strangely familiar.
These were my compatriots, happy-go-lucky, exuberantly friendly and dressed atrociously! What happened to the glamour, the stilettos and the impeccable ladies hair dos? Well, it had been replaced with joggers, tracky dacks and bad travel hair. I hate to sound sexist, but I'm just calling it as I saw it that day. The blokes were generally better groomed that the women. Styled metro sexual hair with shaved shinny legs, they left the women for dead with their birds nest, bed head hair and baggy prison style track pants. A clear case where comfort should never override style. I was left flabbergasted and a little disappointed at the average Aussies civilian wardrobe.
Monday, July 14, 2008
Thursday, July 3, 2008
What the? Brisbane.!!!
Over 60 years ago Winston Churchill said "Russia is a riddle wrapped in a mystery inside an enigma," and sitting here back in Brisbane, Australia I couldn't agree more.
What a whirlwind last 24 hours. One minute I'm planning the next day's classes the next I'm on a plane, getting the hell out of Dodge.
It all started two days ago when I had to extend my registration. I had a flight booked to come back to Australia for the 12th, however my registration expired on the 1st. This presented a problem as for some reason I was finding it difficult to find a company to prolong the registration. With nowhere else to turn I asked my well connected father in-law for a hand and thought all would be fine and dandy. However, in Russia fine and dandy equates to #*#* yourself scared!
Tolya returned with an unusually glum look on his face. The puppet master couldn't pull any strings and so there was a problem! I would have to go to the head honcho of registrations and plead my case. The problem itself is still, as I sit here in Brisbane, rather confusing to account and one day I will write a detailed description of the full dilemma.
After a solid berating from the head honcho, it was understood that an imminent departure was in need. That, or a 400 00o Ruble fine and a 5 year ban from the country! What followed was absolute bedlam. A ticket was booked, amazingly for 5.30pm the next day, but before getting on the plane I had to make a trip back to the head honcho and discuss and finalise some "paperwork". The use of the word "paperwork" in Russia covers a range of topics, situations, bookwork sensitive issues, etc.... Can't go into it all right now.
The catch was that the Honcho only worked between 2-4pm and I had to be at the airport at 3.30pm. Vlad's airport, by the way, is an hour out of town. So, in effect I had half an hour to see this woman , organise my mess and 'hare-tail it' to the airport. It was going to be close but I was quietly confident as I had backup in the form of Nastya, the director from EF another Nastya and Tolya. Nastya the director and I had attempted, on the off chance, to intercept the Honcho out of her work hours at 9 that morning, to no avail. And so re arriving outside the building 2 hours before opening we felt sure we would be first in line. That was until, we saw a little Kazakh man, holding a piece of cardboard from a chocolate box. "Is there a queue?"we asked. His answer was brutal as he passed over the empty chocolate box. To our horror the innocuous box had on it a list of people waiting to talk to the Honcho and we were 12th in line. My world came crashing in upon me. This was it, I would never make it top the airport! Visions of Russian prisons flashed through my mind. Enter Super Tolya!!
Swinging into action my father-in-law, like a man possessed, began interrogating everyone in his vicinity. It didn't take long, but before we knew it, he had made "friends" with the cleaner and was unbelievably, inside the building talking to the authorities. The rest is history and I'm still very confused over what actually happened, but as we left the the registration building the big high five to the cleaner spoke volumes!
After a mad dash to the airport I had made it. A little frazzled and a few more gray hairs, but I made it on board without any incident.
What a whirlwind last 24 hours. One minute I'm planning the next day's classes the next I'm on a plane, getting the hell out of Dodge.
It all started two days ago when I had to extend my registration. I had a flight booked to come back to Australia for the 12th, however my registration expired on the 1st. This presented a problem as for some reason I was finding it difficult to find a company to prolong the registration. With nowhere else to turn I asked my well connected father in-law for a hand and thought all would be fine and dandy. However, in Russia fine and dandy equates to #*#* yourself scared!
Tolya returned with an unusually glum look on his face. The puppet master couldn't pull any strings and so there was a problem! I would have to go to the head honcho of registrations and plead my case. The problem itself is still, as I sit here in Brisbane, rather confusing to account and one day I will write a detailed description of the full dilemma.
After a solid berating from the head honcho, it was understood that an imminent departure was in need. That, or a 400 00o Ruble fine and a 5 year ban from the country! What followed was absolute bedlam. A ticket was booked, amazingly for 5.30pm the next day, but before getting on the plane I had to make a trip back to the head honcho and discuss and finalise some "paperwork". The use of the word "paperwork" in Russia covers a range of topics, situations, bookwork sensitive issues, etc.... Can't go into it all right now.
The catch was that the Honcho only worked between 2-4pm and I had to be at the airport at 3.30pm. Vlad's airport, by the way, is an hour out of town. So, in effect I had half an hour to see this woman , organise my mess and 'hare-tail it' to the airport. It was going to be close but I was quietly confident as I had backup in the form of Nastya, the director from EF another Nastya and Tolya. Nastya the director and I had attempted, on the off chance, to intercept the Honcho out of her work hours at 9 that morning, to no avail. And so re arriving outside the building 2 hours before opening we felt sure we would be first in line. That was until, we saw a little Kazakh man, holding a piece of cardboard from a chocolate box. "Is there a queue?"we asked. His answer was brutal as he passed over the empty chocolate box. To our horror the innocuous box had on it a list of people waiting to talk to the Honcho and we were 12th in line. My world came crashing in upon me. This was it, I would never make it top the airport! Visions of Russian prisons flashed through my mind. Enter Super Tolya!!
Swinging into action my father-in-law, like a man possessed, began interrogating everyone in his vicinity. It didn't take long, but before we knew it, he had made "friends" with the cleaner and was unbelievably, inside the building talking to the authorities. The rest is history and I'm still very confused over what actually happened, but as we left the the registration building the big high five to the cleaner spoke volumes!
After a mad dash to the airport I had made it. A little frazzled and a few more gray hairs, but I made it on board without any incident.
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