Home Sweet Home

December 29

11:00 pm, Moscow local time

The longest physical journey of my life is over. After 23 solid hours of travel, I sit in a spacious bedroom in a not-so-spacious apartment, writing. Having found myself at a desk, I even have an excellent light and a good, comfortable angle for scribbling. The writing lamp has a sticker on it for TASS, the Soviet news agency. I am continually thinking of everything at once here, of the changes that have occurred and have yet to occur.

To begin, we landed in the Moscow airport with a view of massive fields covered in snow. It felt more like my idea of Siberia's scenery than my idea of Moscow's. The landing was fine (I always hate landing), and we left the plane under cover of darkness to dart into the airport towards customs. That was when I realized the Hell we have entered. There were probably 100 people in various lines at passport control. After a good half hour there, it was another 20 minutes before we could get our luggage. We went through the fast line for Declarations, and got through immediately. Upon gathering up the group and stopping to wait for our contact to meet us, we took the time to survey our surroundings.

The very air was greasy. It was a filthy airport. The stench was powerful, to say the least. Most illumination to the windowless building came from the signs of the various shops found around us. There was lighting, but it was spotty and dim and made no substantive difference. Everyone was chattering in various languages: loud English, slurred Russian and rapid Spanish. It was dark, dirty, smelly, loud, crowded and all in all simply frightening. Everything was dented or peeling or broken or in some similar state of disrepair. I wonder if the airport has succumbed to physical decline after the fall of the Soviets, or if it has always been so and now no one bothers to fix things. I still wonder that, able to see it either way.

We left the airport only to cram our 18 selves (16 Teafs plus our contact and someone else named Dimitri) onto a school bus for the Marina School. This bus may transport Moscow's most well off, but it was equally filthy. It was difficult to see out the windows due to grime, and the outside of the bus was as if it had been cased purposefully with mud. But the bus was warm, the driver flew through downtown, and we got to sleep for about half an hour before reaching the school.

We met our families in a tiny classroom, exchanged names, and made our way to Anna & Sergei's flat after giving Dave $395 to pay for everything on the trip. It hurt to turn over that much, but it was done and it meant that no one could steal those $395 from me.

Anna & Sergei's flat is bigger than I'd been prepared for. In fact, it's almost precisely the size of Grandma & Grandad's house. It is small, but they seem comfortable enough. I am very happy with the arrangements, and I believe I will enjoy the stay. Our simple dinner of ham, cheese, bread, cake and hot tea was fantastic. "So simple, yet so beautiful..." Karl had said with half a mouth of ham. And he was right.

The bus ride, however, was fast and furious and loud. At least I was in the back. In the car of the man that drove us, I had the passenger's seat and a better-than-desired view of the action. The streets were a swarm of cars flitting back and forth. We straddled the lines on the road and took whatever asphalt was available in the mad ride over here. I found it, to say the least, unsettling. I would have gone fetal, were there room.

But now I'm "home," here in the flat, overlooking Moscow, and all is well. While cars race along the street 9 floors below me, and the sidewalks lie cluttered with haphazardly parked cars, I close this off and go to bed. 6:15 am will come early in the morning.

MGW, 11:25 pm, 12/29/94, Moscow Local Time


Back to the Previous Entry.

Back to the Index.

On to the Next Entry.

Michael G. Williams