ruski's at last!

ok, here i sit in moscow. i will recount the events of the 10 day journey on the trans-siberian rail through a series of entries. im thinking it will take 2 or 3. i will begin with the ulan bator to irkutsk (russia) portion:

so we had become members of mongolia's elite trading association. association is surely an exaggeration of the "official" nature of our membership-- in fact, complete shit. however, the woman sitting with us in our train car from mongolia in to russia was in the ranks of "traders" (an underground name for goods smuggler within mongolia's black market) and mysteriously, and certainly not by choice-- we were a part of it as we tucked some of HER goods in to our bags to aid in her border crossing.

as the train began to slow down as we approached the border in to russia, the mongo trader jumped to her feet and began to fix her hair and makeup. this was no joke. the train came to a screeching halt. i looked at omri and bryan.

i imagine my face closely resembled that look when i would come home from elementary school having to tell my mom of my visit to the principles office earlier that day. not good.

"the russians are here" comments bryan. they had stepped on to the train car.

all the horror stories i had read about russian federales that demand money for a border crossing were racing through my head. corruption. ruski stone faced criminals. ohh dear.

"how do you do?" said the ruski guard. he looked like jean claude van damme at his scariest. seriously though, this guy looked like he could kill with his stone face stare. i sat there thinking of winnie the pooh to try and give me some rosy thoughts. yeah... i know.

none of us really replied or showed any sort of emotion-- hell, i dont think any of us had even took a breath since we saw this scary man. we took the forms that he handed us and dumfoundedly looked at each other wondering how in the hell we were going to fill them out (they were in cyrillic). our translator-- haphazard at that-- was the mongo trader. jesus, just the thought of all the crap she had stuffed in every nook and cranny of our cabin made me want to puke. i was sure she was going to get caught (and then i would incidentally get to keep the leather jacket that she had asked me to stuff in my bag to get it over the border.. haha).

...about 29 minutes later, the damn form was filled out.

(pointing at me) "out of the cabin" said jean claude. i think i poo'ed a little bit in my pants at that point. just a little though. i was at a loss of what to say to the guy. "yes sir"-- hell no. salute him? absolutely not.

all i wanted to do was the play the "lets see who can smile first" game. you know the one where you make funny faces at each other to see who will burst out in laughter first. i mean i was damn sure the guy didnt have the capacity to smile, but i wanted to give it a shot.

the mongo trader was clearly nerveous. the guards were moving throughout our cabin with the sort of fervor and persistence of the NYPD's K9 unit on a drug bust. seriously though, it was hilarious to see the way these ruskis searched our cabin. they were scaling the damn walls of our 12' x 7' room. i didnt even think that was possible. i could barely stand up in the thing but boris the climber was hovering around like spiderman.

i almost laughed out loud when, after that whole overly "official" acrobatic act search of the cabin, it appeared as though they came up with NOTHING.

or did they?

as we stood out in the hallway trying to see if the ruskis had come up with anything, the whole "hallway" scene was getting rather rambunctious. it was getting real hot in the train. the collective nerveousness of about 20 sweating mongo traders was really producing an oh-so familiar train stench that produced a blanket of smell and heat that you practically wear. hell, i thought the discomfort of our dear friends the russian guards was goddamn plenty.. but no. bring on the body odor!

(glaring at us) "back in the cabin" whispered the guard.

we sprinted back in to our little home. omri pulled some carl lewis shit as he lept up to his top bunk spot. bryan echoed his moves with a spinning finish like those russian figure skaters. the mongo trader plopped her ass on the lower bunk spot across from me. she gave me a wink and a smile..

EWWWW! haha. she was just trying to convey that we were ok.

and just then, the train moved. off we were! ruski's at last! high fives and a hand pound for the mongo trader. bring on the vodka.

not so fast. the train stopped. we had moved about 20 feet. the guards were back. dear god, not another encounter with jean claude. a much more pleasant female guard approached our cabin.

"step out of cabin" (and a whole myriad of bantering in russian took place between the female guard and the mongo trader. no berlitz audio crash course in russian could prepare me for this fiery encounter. i tried not to smile at the funny faces the two of them were making).

we were now back in the hallway. thoughts of russian prisons eclipsed my mind as they pulled ouf a few of the mongo trader's goods. they searched more. they found more. it was like all of the sudden the mongo trader had given up and told them all her secrets. what the hell was going on? the ruski guard was hitting home runs with her finds. surely she was going for 'border employee of the month' with this sort of magnum PI work.

i was a mix between shitting bricks and laughing at this point.

they found a few of her leather jackets and some other odds and ends. the mongo trader gave me a look of disgust as she put up a fist towards the ruski guard. i smiled back as if to say "you're screwed" in a pleasant way-- haha just kidding. more of a comforting smile. but i did indeed think she was done.

au contraire amigo. how in the hell she worked her way out of that little situation is beyond me. they ended up taking some of her stuff but she managed to conceal a lot more. the fact that she did surrender some of her contraband is probably part of the game. who knows?

jean claude returned our passports shortly after and that made me happier than a 5 year old on christmas morning.

the ruskis got off and the train chugged on through past the border. a big smile erupted from our mongo trading compadre and things were looking pretty good.

welp, we were now in russia! on to irkutsk.