Trouble in Russia!

As the last blog entry stated, all was going well on my dad and his friend's (Mr. Ewing) trip to St. Petersburg, until the ride on the metro back from the war memorial to our gostinitsa. While we were transferring from the one metro line to the other, in downtown St. Petersburg, Mr. Ewing was targeted by pickpockets. He managed to protect his wallet, but unfortunately they grabbed his passport and then ran off of the metro car, just as the train started moving. While having your passport stolen is not a pleasant experience at any time, or in any country, this particular situation was complicated even further by the fact that my dad and Mr. Ewing were set to fly out of Russia to Frankfurt early in the morning, the next day. Also, to visit Russia one needs to be in posession of a Russian travel visa, vaild for the duration of the trip; and traveling without one is illegal and punishable by a prison term, even if you have a vaild passport, and both of their visas were set to expire the very next day. The situation was even more stressful as the Canadian Government decided to close the Canadian consulate in St. Petersburg and transfer all duties to the Canadian Embassy in Moscow...which is a convenient 8 hours away on a train. While we were in a bit of a shocked state, a nice younger Russian guy approached my dad and Mr. Ewing on the metro train and told them that the same thing had happened to him before. He suggested that we contact the local militsia (Russian version of the police) and that they might be able to find it. I asked one of the metro workers where the nearest militsia office was located, and after getting the directions, the four of us proceeded to the building where they were located.

To get to the upper floors of the building (the militsia post was located on the 3rd), you needed to go past a set of turnstyles manned by workers. We weren't 100% sure of where they were and so in the break of asking them we decided to try phoning the Canadian embassy in Moscow to see what they suggested to do in the situation. The number one thing they said was required, was a police report from the militsia, but unfortunately for us both Leah and my cellphone died while in the middle of conversing with the secretary there. After this occured, I explained the situation to the one of the workers at the turnstyles and she led us upstairs to the 3rd floor where the militsia were located. She buzzed the door and after we were let in, we were greeted by a large militsia officer holding an AK-47, and told to sit down in a side room until someone came for us. A short wait later, a really nice middle-aged woman came and after we explained the situation to her she told us what they would do. She said that the vast majority of times, pickpockets are only after money, and simply grab everything they can from a person and throw the rest of it on the ground. Seeing as how they only got Mr. Ewing's passport, she was quite sure that they would realize it didn't have any monetary value and simply throw it somewhere, in which case someone else would find it and turn it in. After waiting for about 45 minutes it seemed unlikely that the passport was going to show up, so another militsia officer came and gave us a police report, recording what had happened and what was stolen. We explained to him that my dad and Mr. Ewing were supposed to be leaving the country the very next morning, but he assured us that, with the police report and a photocopy of his passport and visa, Mr. Ewing should be able to board the plane. We thanked him and left, amazed at how helpful and patient both he and the woman were, having heard horror stories about the militsia. That evening we were supposed to eat dinner with my Chinese friend Xiefei, but instead, after having a stressful afternoon we decided to just eat some pizza at our place. That night we gave them our phone numbers in the chance that security wouldn't let Mr. Ewing on the plane, and said our goodbyes.

At about 5:30am Leah's phone rang and it was Mr. Ewing explaining that the airport security would not let him on the plane. Because my dad's visa was going to expire and he still had his passport he had no choice but to leave Russia on his scheduled flight leaving Mr. Ewing behind in the airport. We told him to take a taxi back to his hotel, and Leah and I quickly got dressed, ordered a taxi and met him at his hotel to figure out what we were going to do. We quickly discovered that the Canadian Embassy wasn't overly helpful as they only work during buisness hours (8-5), we couldn't find an emergency phone number for them, and their main comment was "you should have left for Moscow yesterday." They eventually told us that Mr. Ewing needed to have a copy of his biological page and microfiche sent to the Moscow Embassy, and he needed to arrive in Moscow Monday morning, with a copy of the police report and a photocopy of his passport and visa. We then had to phone Canada to request it, but Canada told us that the Embassy needed to request the information, and after running through a bureaucratic circle for about 15 minutes it was finally sorted out. He was also told on the phone that he needed to change his flight from St. Petersburg, to being able to depart from Moscow, which in general you are not able to do. After being told from the Lufthansa people that it was not possible, we eventually contaced his travel agent from Drumheller and she worked her magic and got them to change his departure city to Moscow. Leah and I, not wanting to let him go alone to Moscow as he doesn't speak any Russian, had to also contact our school to see if our passports were ready, as we had gone to Finland the previous weekend, and it usually takes about a week to re-register your visa in the country. We phoned our coordinator and luckily we were able to go into the school and get our passports back allowing us to go on the train to Moscow and stay a night in a hotel if need be. Mr. Ewing was also able to contact his travel insurance company to ensure that he was at least mostly covered during his delay. Later that day Leah and I took him to the Moscow railwayway station and bought 3 platskart (3rd class) tickets to Moscow, departing Monday morning at 1:00am, and arrving around 9:30am.

We arrived at the train station around 11:30pm Sunday night and waited there for our train to arrive. We were initially worried that they may not let Mr. Ewing on the train as he did not have his actual passport on him, but the lady didn't seem to mind at all that he used a photocopy and a police report. Once we arrived in Moscow we quickly grabbed a taxi and took it straight to the embassy, which happens to be situated on the same street as the Cambodian embassy. You know you are a valuable and respected country when your embassy is graciously given a spot next to the Cambodian Embassy. We were very glad that we finally reached our destination and I think both Leah and I felt relieved to be in the hands of Canadians, or so we thought. Little did we know that our experience in the embassy would be one of the most stressful parts of the whole ideal.

Once inside the embassy, instead of being met with understanding and a resolve to sort out the problem at hand, we were met almost immedietly with hostility. Poor Mr. Ewing was told on the phone that he simply needed to bring himself, the police report and a photocopy of his passport and visa, however the women he had been talking to on the phone happened to be sick that day, and her replacement instead bombarded him with questions like "why don't you have your pictures taken? Why don't you have these forms filled out, why didn't you get here sooner?" and perhaps the most helpful phrase "You're going to have to face the consequences!" She was yelling at him as if he WANTED to have his passport stolen. Despite trying to explain to her that no one mentioned any forms, or pictures, he finally started to dutifully fill them out. At 1:00pm we were told we should leave the embassy as it was going to close for lunch, and that at this time we should get his pictures taken for the new emergency passport that was going to be issued to him. We were told the photo store was "down the street to the left." So, we began walking and walking..and walking and eventually found a sign on a side street all in Russian, leading us into a courtyard, down a flight of falling apart cement stairs into a basement that looked like it belonged in a horror film where there was a photo place. This consisted of a man, his computer, a digital camera, and the photoshop computer program. We got the photos and returned to the embassy where finally a really nice Canadian lady, one of the foreign affairs people, looked over his application and forms and was the only person who was reassuring and told him that things could have turned out a lot worse. We ended up waiting until the embassy was going to close because they had to have a letter signed by the Russian Foreign Minister, which would then allow him to be granted an exit visa from the consular affairs section of the Domodedova airport. Unfortunately another delay occured and, because they could not guarantee that the letter would be completed by the time the embassy closed he was told he had to reschedule his flight for Tuesday as opposed to Monday evening. At the last moment it turned out that the letter was completed on time, and all we had to do was go back to our hotel (luckily Leah and I had already booked a hotel as we had planned on staying in Moscow the night to rest, and luckily it had room in it so Mr. Ewing had a place to stay) and then catch our flights the next day. At the last moment just before the embassy closed we asked if they could order us a taxi to our hotel since of course we didn't know any taxi companies in Moscow, and we were told "No, I'm leaving in two minutes and the embassy is closing, you'll have to do that yourselves."..What a nice bunch of helpful people the Canadian Embassy has working for it! We ended up phoning a taxi company ourselves and then going to the hotel.

The next afternoon Leah and I checked out of the hotel and made sure that Mr. Ewing had all of his instructions and information. He was supposed to arrive at the airport early and ask the Lufthansa people to take him to the consular services section, where he would have to be issued an exit visa. We also made sure he had our phone numbers in the off chance that something went wrong again, but we were pretty sure it would all work out this time around! Leah and had a good 7 hours before our flight from Moscow to St. Petersburg, so we took a taxi from the hotel to Red Square and saw....LENIN! The last time we were in Moscow his mausoleum was closed as he was being re-pickled, but this time Leah and I were able to see him. It was a very interesting experience as it's very very heavily guarded, you have to check all of your bags, phones, cameras, and video recorders, then walk through a set of metal detectors. You then walk around to the front of the mausoleum where there is a guard at the entrance, you walk inside to be greeted by another guard, turn left and walk down a set of stairs where there is another guard. Turn right down a set of stairs where there is another guard, and finally you come into an open room where Lenin lays on a raised platform in a glass box, inside a very opulent coffin. When inside the mausoleum you are not allowed to wear hats, talk, have your hands in your pockets or have gloves on. After you exit the mausoleum you can walk behind it where you see the graves of other Soviet leaders including Brezhnev, Andropov, Chernenko and Stalin. Following Lenin we then walked across Red Square to the GUM and hung around there until we took a taxi to the airport. After we had gone through security and were waiting to board our plane, Leah recieved a phonecall from Mr. Ewing's brother who told us that he had made it through security! We were very relieved and glad we able to help him through the whole ordeal.

We were however extremely disspointed in the Canadian Embassy who really didn't seem to care one way or the other what happened to him. Not once did they ask if he could speak Russian or if he needed help, without Leah and I it would have been near impossible to buy the train tickets to Moscow, and also nearly impossible to find that photo store. Despite being in an already stressful situation, when we finally made it to the embassy we were met with hostility when all we wanted to hear was "don't worry, we'll do what we can to help you." Bah!