Infected????

Groping one's way down a dark, damp tunnel, may not be every one's cup of tea, but for me it felt as if I'd just stepped into the "Delorian" and was heading "Back To The Past". The first few meters were pitch black, however slowly as my eyes adjusted the underground city began to take form. The hallways were well constructed just like any other, except for the ZARAZHENO (INFECTED) sign at the entrance and the ubiquitous Soviet, in case of nuclear strike, action plan posters, plastered wall to wall down each corridor. Eerie to say the least, and what's with the ZARAZHENO sign? Had there been some sort of radiation spill down here? I was assured everything was cool, apart from the fact that I could be thrown into a Russian prison if caught down here. I wasn't sure what sounded better radiation poisoning or Vlad's Turma.

Anyway trepidation aside we continued to stumble our way around splashing light on anything of interest. Old typewriters, crumbling televising sets, rusted irons and various other electronic bits and pieces were scattered throughout the many rooms. Fascinating stuff! Everything left the way it was when the Cold War was at it's peak. The only problem was that the along with the rest of the stuff down there, the floor to was a relic and every now and then you'd here a crack as one of the diggers feet plunged through the floor boards and into the mud. So when one of the guys worked out how to turn the lighting on it was quite a relief. With the lights on one could gain a real appreciation of how this place was constructed. Quite an impressive engineering feat.

Apart from the standard rooms stored with all sorts of nick-knacks, there was a movie theatre, sound studio, various officers, boss's headquarters and residence, water station, library, diesel station....etc...

The temptation to stay down there the night and potter around a few rooms, maybe browse through the library, was a hard to resist. Somehow though, I don't think Nastya would have agreed with me and so after a few hours we surfaced and to our surprise day had turned to night.

"Infected and Happy New Year" - Typical black Russian humour.

"Boss's Headquarters"- "Yeah, is that Donatella? Can we order the next range in a slightly darker tinge of green?"

Subterranean!

I have heard a few mysterious rumors from the locals about them, and I have read just a few snippets of information on them, but in general very little information is available on the myriad of catacombs beneath Vladivostok. This vast maze of tunnels, closed off from the rest of the world, is a back up city underneath another city. Its purpose - a complete refuge for all of Vladivostok's residents, in case of a nuclear strike. Driving around town, I would often think that under the very road I was on, there might be a couple of bomb shelters connected by the odd cramped tunnel. However nothing could have prepared me for what I was about to see! Digger day started normally enough. Cold at -15, but the blue skies left me excited and optimistic at the thought that finally I was to explore the unknown. A student of mine, Valera, sent through a text, " Nic, are you ready? We'll meet at the Lazor Monument at 16:20. Please bring torch, water-proof boots, camera and passport. My reply, "Valera, why my passport?" His follow up, "Just in case." What did "just in case" mean? I knew that these tunnels were off limits to the public, but was there a real risk of trouble. The last thing I needed was to get caught up in some international espionage scandal. I can see the headline now "Aussie teacher/spy caught snooping in secret Russian tunnels." Well, international scandal or not, I was committed. I was going underground! And I was also late to pick up my fellow colleague Serge and rendezvous at the monument with Valera and the rest of the diggers. Vladivostok's Diggers are a group of young adventures, who risk being strung up by the authorities, in the pursuit to explore, photograph and document Vlad's subterranean twin. I just happened to teach one of their newest recruits in Valera and luckily was offered this unique opportunity. As a matter of fact, I felt very fortunate and strangely like a modern day Indiana Unsworth-Jones.
And so there we were, group of 3 Diggers, Serge and I trudging up a little side-street right in the heart of Vladivostok. "The entrance is just over here," Valera panted as he pointed to some thick undergrowth just off the side-street. I was a little skeptical, and couldn't see any resemblance of a door and we were right out in the open where all of us could be seen. So much for that romantic ideal of a secret, hidden away from the rest of the world. "Quick get under here", one of the Diggers whispered. "We can't be seen anywhere near this spot!"
Under the thick scrub we scampered and low and behold there it was. One enormous steel door! It was nothing like I had imagined. Its sheer size and thickness was imposing. Valera had mentioned that one of the Diggers had a key and so I envisaged maybe a large padlock or something resembling a lock. No such chance, this was literally a wall of steel with a strange partial hole in its centre. Nothing like a keyhole. Getting in all of a sudden locked highly unlikely. Hang on what's this, from out of one of the Digger's bags emerged a meter long metal crow bar like stick complete with a turning handle. Aaha so there was a key! Although, it wasn't as simple as putting the stick in the hole and turning it around. The Digger operating the enormous "key" turned and turned the key as if cracking a safe and after a few minutes simply stopped and announced that's it! The door of course didn't just pop open as it would in the movies; it took three of us, using all our strength, to pry the heavy beast open. Out came the heavy duty flash lights and into the pitch black of the tunnel we entered.

Stoyanka mayhem!

OK, now that I've calmed down, I can retell this little miss hap, that could have been far worse than it turned out. The plan this morning was a simple trip to the doctors. I've had this dry cough for the last 2 months and someone suggested a brilliant idea, "maybe you should go to the doctors?"
So 8am this morning I stepped out of the pod'ezd and into a completely different landscape. What were once roads and footpaths were now one big ice-skating rink. Cool, I thought, until taking my very first step and in doing so nearly re tearing my groin. This was impossible. People were either moving at a snails pace or ceremoniously upended on their rumps.
"So the walk to the stoyanka to pick up the car would take a bit longer. Big deal!"
Upon reaching the stoyanka, my only thought was getting in the car and getting warm. "Alarm, please work!" I prayed. In the last few months my car alarm has been acting as fickle as a gay boy from New Farm. "Please work first go!" I pushed the button and heard music to my ears, the irritating beep beep of the alarm disabling. "Great, all would be OK", I thought as I reached for the handle. Hang on, why is the alarm off but the door doesn't open ?
I pushed the disable button again, beep beep, off went the alarm but the locking nob in the car stayed down! It didn't budge! It was frozen stiff. "Oh ch#!$t!" Being a small stoyanka I had parked in numerous other commuters eager to get to work. This could turn ugly.
Running around to the other side I tried the alarm again and for a split second the locking knob on the passenger side flicked up and back down. There was my chance. With the reflexes of a BBC 400 meter champion, I hit the alarm and opened the car door in one Usain Boltishly quick maneuver. "Yeah, still got it!"
Felling rather proud of myself, I clambered into the car and started the engine. Now for the next task, cleaning the windscreen of ice while waiting for the car to heat up. A usual chore for the Russified Aussie. So, leaving the car running, music blaring and my precious manbag, (containing passport, phone, wallet and all other necessary documents just to be allowed to walk down the street in Russia) in the car, I got out and closed the door..........................
IT LOCKED AGAIN!
This was bad, correction this is Russia. I hate to sound so pessimistic but if it's bound to go pear shape, well in Russia it'll go watermelon shape. Keys in the ignition, phone and wallet on the front seat, shansong pumping out of the speakers, DOORS LOCKED AND ME STANDING OUTSIDE IN -20 DEGREE WEATHER! What could be worse? Well, I'll tell you, 10 very disgruntled bear-like Russian men staring daggers at you. I had to move the car! AND quick! Should I break the window, no that'll be a last resort. I know, ask the toothless security guard Ura, he'll know what to do. Ura proceeds then in Russian, to explain the art of breaking into a car with the use of a few matches, piece of chewing gum, string and well that's about as in depth as my Russian obscure vocab goes. No, maybe I'll have to break the window after all.
Time was running out. The chance of my car being crumpled up into a little square box that you see at the wreckers, by the 10 parked in bears, who were keen to get to work or eat their next child, was very likely. Therefore I rushed home in the vain hope that Nastya would know what to do.
Well she did. I never knew about the spare key and alarm! Only a Russian would keep something like this form her husband. Maybe it's like the wife's version of a zanachka! Anyway, I don't know why it was hidden away and I don't even want to try an work out WHY? The Russian psyche is too complex to even try and scratch the surface. Just accept that in it's weird and wonderful way it actually works.
And the car door eventually opened. Urhaa!!!

Here comes WINTER!

Well, I'm not complaining. Here I am sitting at home, classes cancelled, catching up on a bit of Russian study. The reason, snow! Not bucket loads of it, but enough to seize the city of Vlad and force EF to cancel all evening classes. You see, Vlad's traffic is impossible on a good day, let alone one which sees rain, sleet and snow falling. The cities buildings are dotted around it's never ending rolling hills and as the temperature is due to drop to a chilly -20 degrees this evening, the roads will be inevitable carnage for any motorist game enough to challenge mother nature.
Strange, because this morning was a barmy 5 degrees. The forecast however for the next few days is in the - 20s. And yes, yet another Global Warming record; today was the first December day to record rain in Vladivostok.
Some interesting news on my behalf. Nastya and I will be heading to the big smoke, Moscow!
I have one more week left at EF. Then it's off to Oz in order to renew my visa and spend time sweating my butt off with the family for Christmas, before heading to the capital to take up a teaching position with Mayokovskaya EF. The adventures continue! Who knows what wild and wacky Russian impressions will eventuate when we embark on this next expedition.
But before Moscow I've got some serious reporting to do. The next few weeks will see me tackling some of Vlad's more peculiar sites. It's going to be Sightseeing, Bizarro World style.
The agenda will include:
1. A visit to Vlad's Mafia graveyard.
2. A trip through some of Vlad's radiation infested secret underground tunnels.
3. A couple of dips in the frozen Pacific Ocean.

Quite the adventures itinerary! Just hope I'll survive to tell the tale.

Yep still here in Vladivostok!

OMG, 6 months without a posting! Well you all probably think that life here in Vlad has become somewhat mundane and therefore Nic and Nastya have dropped into a routine where nothing of interest happens. On the contrary, life over the last 6 months has been one of complete turmoil. Life has been flat out like a lizard drinking, in and out of the country, high tea with my now close friends the officials of UFMS (Federal Migration Service Organisation) and a social calender that would make Paris Hilton or Ksenya Sobchak green with envy!

The stories are endless and it is a shame I haven't kept the journal up to date. One good thing however, is that some of the past experiences have been so epic that they've left a permanent scar in my memories. Particularly the trouble over my dreaded visa!!!

I know visa regulations all over the world are messed up and as baffling as Georgia's Mikheil Sakaashvili's tie eating fetish, but now I can truly appreciate the beauty that is Russia's never ending bureaucracy.

After getting back from Australia in early August, with a brand spanking new 3 month Work visa in my hot little hands, I was told from Moscow that the extension process was a formality and the visa issue was now easy as pie. This is the point where all foreigners should stand and take note!!! Words like "don't worry", "everything will be OK" and "it's as easy as pie" translate to s$#t is about to hit the fan! Now it's easy, when someone says "Nic, don't worry" I worry. But it has taken a year and a half to let this cultural displacement sink in. So, as my 3 month working visa came to a close I find out that it is not just a formality to extend it and that Moscow's word on the matter is not binding. "The Primorsky Krai has it's own edict on the extension procedure!" The result being once again, in the space of two months, I would have to leave the country and apply for yet another visa.

And so in on the 22ND of September off to Seoul I went with a new invitation letter and the hope that the Russian Consulate would grant me a new visa. Well it was a success, and like all things in Russia they somehow manage to work themselves out. The reasons are often blurred and dubious but the end result is a green light and all is fine for the next three months at least.

Contact!

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.

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.