When you've been traveling for the better part of 24 hours
on a plane any destination seems a good one. Even Russia.
Jeff, myself, Emily (our 16 year old) and Jeffy arrived tired
and cranky at the St Petersburg airport ready to go back home . We were shuffled through customs and Jeffy and I
were separated from the others. I'm not sure how but we got through our line very quickly and collected our luggage only to
find ourselves sitting on it for quite a long time before the others appeared.
In retrospect, I should have figured something was up when
we were fast tracked through the line and were not asked to fill out any paperwork. An occurrence that would come back to
haunt me very soon.
Once everyone was reunited we found our ride and headed back to
the same hotel from our first trip. Upon checking in, I got the first hint something was wrong. The man at the desk asked
why neither Jeffys or my passport had the correct form stapled to them and why they were not stamped correctly.
Did I look like I would I know the answer to that?
At first the man behind the counter said I couldn't even check into
the hotel but after much discussing (in Russian) with his manager they stamped the passports themselves and said "OK no problem"
I'm not sure why people say that when they really don't mean it.
It gives one a sense of false security.
Unfortunately it didn't last very long because when we saw our coordinator
the next morning and gave her our passports , she flipped out.
"Why don't you have a immigration slip? Did you drop it? Did you
lose it? And where is the immigration stamp? Why don't you have an immigration stamp?"
"The lady going through immigration just didn't give me one. The
man at the desk stamped my passport though, see right there.. He said OK no problem"
Living in a free country for your entire life does not prepare one
well for going someplace that is not.
Natalya was almost in tears. "You don't understand... they can come
and take you out of the country without a slip stapled in your passport showing you went through immigration correctly."
Well Humph.. I went through correctly.. I walked up, handed the
"nice" lady my passport, she handed it back to me and I left.. It seemed pretty straight forward to me.
Natayla said this is something the immigration people do from time
to time. It apparently keeps them entertained talking later in the back room about how many poor unsuspecting foreigners were
going to get harassed by the police because their passports were not processed correctly. Let's just say that I did not find
it amusing.
We had to postpone everything we had planned that day to deal with
this issue which kept becoming worse and worse as the day progressed.
First we went to the airport and Natalya used a "customer service"
(term used loosely) phone at one of the counters and asked the man she spoke with if the lady who let me through the
night before could please stamp my passport correctly. He laughed and said "Why would we want to do that". (Seriously,
that's what he said). Then he added "If she does not have the right stamp in her passport she has 24 hours to leave the country
or be in violation of the law." I bet he couldn't wait to get off the phone and go tell his fellow workers that another successful
prank had been pulled off.
I felt like I was going to throw up and Natalya hung up the phone
and started crying. Weren't we a pretty sight standing in the middle of the airport, hugging each other and bawling.
Our next step was the American Embassy. I had to try to explain
to the person behind the counter that No, I did not sneak through immigration, No, I did not lose my paperwork and No, I have
no idea why I did not have the right form stapled inside my passport. Honestly people, I am just as clueless and stupid as
I sound. Jetlag and humorous immigration officials will do that an otherwise intelligent person.
After much talking in hushed voices, scowling looks and wandering
back and forth by the people behind the counters, I was eventually given the correct form, filled out by the person at the
embassy. I was warned that since it did not have the immigration stamp that can only be given at the airport on the back side
someone could get technical about it and have the police come and take me out of the country. But no worries.. no one would
probably even notice.
Sure no worries.
When my passport was going to be inspected by how many people in
the next few days as we tried to complete this adoption?
My head was swimming, but at this point there was nothing to do
but keep moving forward and hope for the best.
Oh yeah, and prepare for the worst.
