Early morning departure, missed train, terrifying taxi, smooth flight, raging blizzard, great hotel and an amazing discovery.

05:30, Saturday 5^th April 2014

The alarm on my phone had been set for 06:00, but I was already awake. It had been a night of fitful sleep. Now it was almost time to begin another day’s adventure. At the end of the day ahead there was a target, another dream to turn into a reality, a meeting between three individuals normally separated by thousands of miles. In Volgograd, Daria was waiting to meet her friend Iraida for the third time, and to meet me, the crazy old Englishman, for the first time. As I lay there counting down the minutes to six o’ clock and our departure from the Godzilla Hostel, I couldn’t help thinking about what might go wrong. Would we able to fly to Volgograd without that infernal immigration certificate, and if we could, would we be allowed to stay in the hotel which I had booked many months ago? Whether Iraida was thinking the same in the bunk above me , or whether she was still sleeping I didn’t know.

I couldn’t wait any longer, and having switched off the alarm, lest it awaken the other two occupants of the room, I used the torch app on the phone to illuminate my bunk. After a swift wash, and dressing in the half-light, I packed up my stuff and was ready. Iraida did likewise and shortly after 06.15 we handed in our bedding, received our deposit, said goodbye to our wonderful young receptionist and collected our luggage from the secure room downstairs.

Pushing open the front door we found that it was very cold outside. There were patches of ice to avoid as we made our way to the Svetni Boulevard Metro Station, and then retraced our path from the day before, heading for Pavletsky Station and the Airport Express. Having arrived at the Station there is quite a long walk and stairs to negotiate. Whether it was the effort of undertaking this stage of the journey  or not I’m not sure, but I then faced another medical adhesive failure and had to retreat to the tyalet to address the problem. Meanwhile Iraida bought the tickets for the Express. By the time I had sorted myself out and found her again, it was touch and go whether we would catch the train we needed. As we ‘rushed’ up to the platform the gates were already closed and the Express was disappearing into the distance. “Oh dear”, I muttered silently.

That wasn’t what I heard been muttered silently.

Perhaps not. As we stood, wondering whether this the moment when the dream faded, one of the numerous taxi-drivers, who lay siege to passengers in railway stations and airports offering their services, approached us. Actually it turned out he wasn’t the driver, rather his agent. He offered to take us to the airport, it would arrive at the same time or before the express, he assured us. How much? It sounded expensive in roubles, but it seemed the only way we would be able to catch the flight. Agreed. The guy and his driver then swept up the luggage and helped us out of the station. The car was parked not far away, and we piled everything in, including ourselves. 

Then followed a 40 minute drive to the airport, accomplished in a manner in which only Russian taxi-drivers could undertake. The roads are wide, possibly three lands on each side. But there are no lane-markings. Without lane markings there seems to be no requirement to stay in any given lane. The movement between lanes and other traffic on the road is swift and savage. Overtaking on the outside, the inside, and through ever-decreasing spaces between buses, lorries and cars our driver sped us towards Domdyedovo Airport.  As we arrived, he proudly indicated the railway terminal, where the Express was nowhere to be seen. 

Extracting our luggage from the back of the Skoda Fabia estate car, we made our way in through the main entrance of the airport terminal, where an initial check of baggage was made. We then checked in at the self-check in kiosks, which were actually manned by a couple of S7 employees, who checked our passports, entered the details for us and handed us our boarding passes, without any problem. Stage one accomplished. Then we checked in our luggage. My suitcase was almost 2 kg over the limit of 20kg, but the lady checking it in didn’t seem bothered. Stage two accomplished. Then it was through the security check: coats off, belts off, shoes off, laptops, tablets, phone and liquids etc in the provided crates and through the screening scanner they went. Iraida went through first. It took me about five minutes to undo a knot in my shoe lace, and then it was my turn.  I passed through the scan successfully and awaited my stuff coming though. I was called over. Oh dear, what’s amiss, I wondered.

That’s not what I heard you wonder.

Ok.  I had to open my small case for something to be checked. The culprit was a head-torch that I carry with me – it looked like it could have been something else. Once the object was verified  I fastened everything up and put my shoes back on. Why is it that the double bows I tie in some shoe laces are guaranteed to come loose after an hour of wear, and end up in knots?

Is that a rhetorical question?

Iraida and I then made our way to the departure lounge. There were all the normal departure lounge features, like shops selling over-priced objects which are supposed to be cheaper than anywhere else but aren’t, and cafés selling food and drinks at inflated process. We decided to buy a bottle of Lipton’s Iced Tea, mainly because I had worked up an immense thirst. I think Iraida had one sip and I gulped the rest down voraciously. 

We stood and waited near the gate, and eventually the flight was called. We presented our boarding passes and made our way down on to the lime green aircraft, an A319 of S7 airline, a member of the One-world Alliance, like BA. We found our seats and Iraida took the one nearest the window. There were quite a few empty seats. The normal pre-flight rituals were followed and the A319 taxied onto the runway , took off and flew south. 

It was interesting spotting areas still covered in snow – there were quite a few. Soon we were above the clouds and enjoying an inflight snack-box. This consisted of a small carton of orange juice, an empty ‘cup’ for tea or coffee, and a chocolate covered kind of cake, which was very pleasant. I chose chai s’limonom – tea with lemon. I’m getting quite proficient in ordering hot and cold drinks in Russian.

By the time we’d finished our snack, and the boxes were tidied away, the aircraft began its slow descent to Volgograd. As we enter the clouds, I noticed little crystals on the outside pf the window, and as we gazed out looking for first sight of land below us it was clear that these were snow clouds that we were passing through. The approach brought us in over the city, I saw quite clearly he massive barrage/dam to the north, but because we were on the ‘wrong’ side we could not pick out any other outstanding landmarks.  As we came in to land the snow intensified, and appeared to be like a blizzard. I guess the effect was magnified by the speed of the aircraft.

Having landed safely we taxied towards the airport terminals. There seemed to be a new terminal, and a much older smaller set of buildings. We disembarked and walked he short distance to the older terminal. There we awaited our baggage. There were no customs or security checks, and so once the bags were collected we moved outside, to see if we could find a bus to take us into the city.

We couldn’t see any buses, so Iraida asked where we might find one. A finger was pointed in the direction of a number of aging Ford Transit crew buses about 100 metes away. We made our way through barriers and huge puddles to a yellow Ford, which seemd to be taking passengers on board. Yes this was one of the aiport shuttle buses. We climbed into the back. I was sitting with my back to the driver and the front of the bus. All seats were taken and my suitcase proves to be a major obstacle. Fares were handed to the driver, and changed handed back over. Because I was not facing forward, and the rear windows were caked in mud and slush I could see absolutely nothing on the ride into the city, which took about 40 minutes. We were dropped off on a main road not far from the railway station. Iraida rang Daria who provided a telephone number for a taxi. Iraida rang the taxi company and was given a rendezvous location a little nearer to the station, a five minute walk which involved the descent of a fairly hairy set of steps down from the viaduct we were on, down to the station. We looked around and eventually spotted the make and colour of the car which was awaiting us. Then we made our way through the city, until we got to a location I seemed to recognise.

Recognise? Tell me, please, if this was the first time you have been to Volgograd, how could you possibly recognise where you were. Ot is this some kind of  -“I have dreamed about this place, it’s déja vu?”

No I recognised it. I knew that the hotel we were going to was close to Daria’s home – we had looked at maps and Google Earth. I knew that there was a railway line on one side of Ulitsa Simbirskaya, and the blocks of apartments on the other. I excitedly said to Iraida, “This is Simbirskaya, and we should turn left to the hotel.” She wasn’t sure, but sure enough the taxi turned left and after about 300 metres pulled in to the car park of the Hampton by Hilton Profsoyuznaya. Thank you Google Earth and Google maps.

We pulled our bags… well we pulled my bags through the automatic doors of this very new hotel and walked across the sparkling lobby to the reception desk. Behind it stood a young lady with blonde hair and a face which bore an uncanny likeness to Maria Sharapova, the tennis player. She greeted us with a smile. That’s a good start, I thought. I introduced myself, handed over my passport and fumbled in my bag for my booking letter.” Don’t worry”, she said, “ I have already found your details.” Another good sign, I thought.  Then she examined my passport.

“Do you have your certificate of immigration, please?"

I looked at Iraida, who once again launched into my heart-rending story.

I looked at Maria (well it could have been her). She looked at me, and then back at Iraida. She was sorry, but it was not possible.

“Don’t give up. You have friends” 

Iraida began to speak again, and I had no idea what she said, but I think she was really playing on the sympathy line. Maria, looked at her, looked at me and said,

“Here are your keys. You are in room 216.”

I could have hugged her. What an ace, Maria. I wish I had taken more notice of the name one her identity badge, because she had just saved our lives, and I would have liked to have thanked her. With  smiles as wide as the Volga (well, almost) we made our way up to Room 216, a beautiful room with two queen sized beds (for anybody who was wondering).  We unpackd a few things, and Iraida went for a shower. Just as she went into the bathroom, I was emptying stuff out of my pockets: metro tickets, express train tickets, receipts for meals, and what was this, oh yes, the very large receipt for the SIM card I had bought in St.Petersburg, folded so that it fitted my pocket …. And what was this piece of paper, stuck inside the receipt for the SIM card I had bought in St.Petersburg???

IRAIIIIDDDDAAAAA!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

IRAIIIDAAA!!!   J’ai le trouvé. Le certificate d’immigration! Il est ici!

Quoi???? She replied. I almost burst into the bathroom to show her the immigration certificate which I thought I had never received, and which had been in my pocket all of the time. All of the time that we had spent worrying, rushing about and being so frustrated and not a little frightened. It had been there all of the time, tucked inside that receipt.

“I am going to take it to reception to show Maria, immediately”

I did, and she was delighted.

“I am so pleased”, she said. 

She took a copy of the document, which I then proceeded to fasten into my passport with a post-it label.

We were in Volgograd. We were in a lovely hotel. We were legal!!

Our next adventure was the meeting with Daria. And that’s for the next post.