["Home" by Michael Buble]
I didn't cry at this point in time. That urge hit me as we entered the building and I was assaulted by the scent of what I can charitably describe as that of the subway. You know what I mean.... Quite unpleasant. Repeat, "This is a corporate apartment. Surely this isn't right...."
What I learned later is that when the soviet times ended, people ended up owning their own apartments, but no one owned the common areas. So no one cared. This tradition appears to continue. I really don't understand it. I mean, when your guests come, do you want them to smell subway in your building? Seriously? Do you want them to see the grimy stairs, the afghan that serves as a rug at the bottom of the entry well, the graffiti in the elevator that is only large enough for may be two people (assuming you are not freaked out enough by it to decline to enter, that is)?
So we schlepped my bags into the rickety elevator and onto my floor. And any way you go, you will have to transport yourself and your stuff either up or down one flight of stairs to get from the elevator to the entrance of your fine dwelling. The door to my unit turned out to be, well, padded with vinyl. Brown vinyl on the outside, off-white (or dirty white?) on the interior. With two sets of locks, a strange knob in the middle of the door. It was unclear whether I was being committed with the padded aspect and the very, um, secure feel of it all. But nevertheless, there I was. In my new "home" at last.....
There did eventually come a time when, much to my chagrin, I had to move out of the Swissotel and start living on my own without all the careful tending and nurturing of their wonderful Executive Lounge staff. The firm had arranged for a furnished, serviced apartment for the remainder of my stay here. They provided links to three places on the Internet from which I could choose. Two of them had dingy kitchens with a tiny eat-in mini-table whereas the third had something that looked like a real kitchen and a table that might seat four. The third one also was a tad shorter in terms of commute to the office. None were available for viewing as people were inhabiting them at the time, so I selected the third place, sight unseen.
The day that I truly moved to Moscow started off not very well. I was flying on Aeroflot, not Lufthansa, so that will give you a taste of my feelings and discomfort. And Aeroflot is out of Terminal 2, which I think I had only experienced once in my entire time living in Germany. It's where, well, the "lesser" airlines travel. You know, like Delta. :-)
Anyway, I discovered that it is relatively quick to get through passport control etc. and I was ensconced in the rather odd lounge that was accessible with my Priority Plus card - a lounge that appeared to be primarily for Korean Air (but honestly I would have expected something more posh from them) and anyone else who had the misfortunate of flying out of Terminal 2. (Which is to say, there wasn't even cheap sparkling wine available and pre-packaged types of food - though admittedly this was before I had experienced the truly ghetto lounge experience of the Amber Lounge at Sheremetyevo Airport (SVO for those trying to avoid that airport.)) Oddly, though, while you clear passport control, you don't clear security until you're at a set of gates. But as I walked to the lounge, the lines seemed pretty short, so no big deal.
Around 10 minutes prior to boarding, I made my way back to the security line for my gate area. The line, while not long, took FOREVER. First, they were letting people go ahead of us who were late for a British Airways flight. Then, in the midst of that, they closed one of the security lanes because it was apparently break time. Nice.... More people into our line. I was actually cutting it quite short on time when I finally made it through and headed to the gate. The monitor in the lounge had said that I'd be flight out of gate 21 and there weren't overhead monitors directly overhead when departing security, so I was peering into the gate 21 area, but not seeing many people. As I turned to walk out, I was stopped by a security team which said they needed to block off my gate area for security purposes and that I would not be allowed to leave. "Um, but my flight isn't leaving out of this gate it seems and I need to find it." Sorry.
I was NOT pleased. Nor was I at a place where I could figure out which gate my flight was actually leaving from and how far away it might be, but it clearly wouldn't be from gate 21. As we were sitting there and departure time was getting closer, I had to admit I was getting a bit frantic. I called my assistant, Sanja, to see if she could check and see if there was information online about the departure gate. Nope. And it occurred to me that, since the flight had been booked by our Russian firm, that I had NO IDEA who I should call to rebook if I missed the flight and how this would all work out, particularly since this was a holiday in Russia. As I was starting to freak out (a bit more) about not being able to leave on my final departure date (ironic, no?), I saw out on the tarmac an aircraft with the Aeroflot colors and people boarding it. Ruh roh! And behold there was more freaking out.
Then security came around and asked us to all please move behind the wall on the other side "for our own safety." I'm thinking, "What, you actually found a bomb and it might go off?!" But of course you can't voice such concerns in an airport these days. But we dutifully went around the corner and into theoretical safety. About 10 minutes later they FINALLY let us go. I rushed out and it turns out that the gate for Aeroflot was next door, separated only by an impermeable glass wall. Doh! So I ran in, thinking it was already gone. "Frau Priser?" Yep. Miraculously, there was another bus, which left with two of us on it who had been stuck in the secured area. Suffice it to say, though, this was not what I had in mind for a nice, leisurely, controlled move to Russia. Then again, "nice, leisurely and controlled" are not words that I suppose one frequently associates with Russia - okay, perhaps "controlled" in a different manner, but you know what I mean....
The rest of the trip was quite uneventful. All of my six bags arrived, I was able to fit them on one luggage cart and (shocking to me) the piled-high cart did not cause the customs guys to pull me over as I had assumed was a no-brainer with that much stuff. So I cruised through, the driver was waiting, all my bags fit into his small-seeming car and we were off.
The driver had the address and seemed to know where we were going. Since I hadn't seen the place other than in pictures, I had no idea of what it looked like on the outside, only that it was about two blocks from Red Square. We pulled up into some kind of courtyard and the driver spoke with some kind of security person who finally let us into a sort of courtyard which, well - how do I put this nicely - seemed very ghetto as we searched for the entrance/door to my apartment. See photo at left.
I kept thinking, "This is a corporate apartment. Surely this isn't right...." But the driver insisted it was. The person from the corporate apartment company was supposed to meet us at the building, but there was no one in sight, which made me keep believing that something was horribly wrong and we were not in the right place. I begged the driver to please stay with me, rather than leaving me and my six suitcases in the middle of this ghetto. He did, thank goodness. And the woman from the corporate apartment company showed up. And opened the door pictured to the right. And yes, that IS real simulated woodgrain vinyl.
I was NOT pleased. Nor was I at a place where I could figure out which gate my flight was actually leaving from and how far away it might be, but it clearly wouldn't be from gate 21. As we were sitting there and departure time was getting closer, I had to admit I was getting a bit frantic. I called my assistant, Sanja, to see if she could check and see if there was information online about the departure gate. Nope. And it occurred to me that, since the flight had been booked by our Russian firm, that I had NO IDEA who I should call to rebook if I missed the flight and how this would all work out, particularly since this was a holiday in Russia. As I was starting to freak out (a bit more) about not being able to leave on my final departure date (ironic, no?), I saw out on the tarmac an aircraft with the Aeroflot colors and people boarding it. Ruh roh! And behold there was more freaking out.
Then security came around and asked us to all please move behind the wall on the other side "for our own safety." I'm thinking, "What, you actually found a bomb and it might go off?!" But of course you can't voice such concerns in an airport these days. But we dutifully went around the corner and into theoretical safety. About 10 minutes later they FINALLY let us go. I rushed out and it turns out that the gate for Aeroflot was next door, separated only by an impermeable glass wall. Doh! So I ran in, thinking it was already gone. "Frau Priser?" Yep. Miraculously, there was another bus, which left with two of us on it who had been stuck in the secured area. Suffice it to say, though, this was not what I had in mind for a nice, leisurely, controlled move to Russia. Then again, "nice, leisurely and controlled" are not words that I suppose one frequently associates with Russia - okay, perhaps "controlled" in a different manner, but you know what I mean....
The rest of the trip was quite uneventful. All of my six bags arrived, I was able to fit them on one luggage cart and (shocking to me) the piled-high cart did not cause the customs guys to pull me over as I had assumed was a no-brainer with that much stuff. So I cruised through, the driver was waiting, all my bags fit into his small-seeming car and we were off.
 |
| Home? Seriously? |
I kept thinking, "This is a corporate apartment. Surely this isn't right...." But the driver insisted it was. The person from the corporate apartment company was supposed to meet us at the building, but there was no one in sight, which made me keep believing that something was horribly wrong and we were not in the right place. I begged the driver to please stay with me, rather than leaving me and my six suitcases in the middle of this ghetto. He did, thank goodness. And the woman from the corporate apartment company showed up. And opened the door pictured to the right. And yes, that IS real simulated woodgrain vinyl.
I didn't cry at this point in time. That urge hit me as we entered the building and I was assaulted by the scent of what I can charitably describe as that of the subway. You know what I mean.... Quite unpleasant. Repeat, "This is a corporate apartment. Surely this isn't right...."
What I learned later is that when the soviet times ended, people ended up owning their own apartments, but no one owned the common areas. So no one cared. This tradition appears to continue. I really don't understand it. I mean, when your guests come, do you want them to smell subway in your building? Seriously? Do you want them to see the grimy stairs, the afghan that serves as a rug at the bottom of the entry well, the graffiti in the elevator that is only large enough for may be two people (assuming you are not freaked out enough by it to decline to enter, that is)?
So we schlepped my bags into the rickety elevator and onto my floor. And any way you go, you will have to transport yourself and your stuff either up or down one flight of stairs to get from the elevator to the entrance of your fine dwelling. The door to my unit turned out to be, well, padded with vinyl. Brown vinyl on the outside, off-white (or dirty white?) on the interior. With two sets of locks, a strange knob in the middle of the door. It was unclear whether I was being committed with the padded aspect and the very, um, secure feel of it all. But nevertheless, there I was. In my new "home" at last.....
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