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In Which I Finally Get An Answer

November 13, 2008 by Mike

Odessa

When I set out on this little jaunt, I had no idea how long it would take (872 days so far) or how far it would be (38,000 miles, give or take, so far.)

And I had no idea where I would finish: either the Roosian-Georgian border -- make that the Roosian-Abkhasian border, for reasons which became more widely understood during the conflict there this summer. Or, if I took a boat from Sochi, in Roosia, to Trabzon in northeast Turkey, I could ride round the Turkish coast too -- to Antioch -- "if Turkey is in Europe."

Sochi or Antioch? Antioch or Sochi?

Being in Istanbul helped me to decide: crossing the bridge over the Bosphorus and seeing the sign 'Welcome To Asia'. Besides, it'll be chilly by the time I get to Trabzon. So.. Sochi it is.

Wrong.

The decision has been taken out of my hands by the Roosian Consulate here in Odessa. Specifically, the head of the visa section [I have his name scribbled down somewhere. I'll add it in here when I find it.]

"He's an angry person," I was told by Natasha, a travel agent I had hired to help me with the paperwork.

He's a git.

I had no illusions that this would be easy. Roosia isn't easy, and I have experienced all this before...

When I started in Murmansk, I entered Roosia with a visa organised from London.

I spent most of a whole day in Helsinki queuing for a visa to be allowed to queue everywhere I went in St Petersberg. A phaff, but not an impossibility.

In Riga, preparing to enter Roosia again at Kaliningrad, I used a travel agent instead. I didn't quite trust him, so I this picture in case he ran off with my passport.. but in the end the process was so easy and so quick, the visa in my hands first thing the next morning, that I didn't even mention it on this blo-- I mean diary.

But that was all in 2006, and if a week is a long time in politics, the last two years haven't been kind to Roosian-British relations. The little matter of the murder in London of Alexander Litvinenko didn't help -- it certainly didn't do him any good. Britain didn't appreciate Roosia's actions in Georgia, South Ossetia and Abkhazia. And Britain didn't vote for the Roosian entry in Eurovision..

So it took two days and three different travel agencies making phone calls, faxing and planning days' worth of queuing before I got a definitive answer from the Mr XXXX at the Consulate.

"I haven't heard this one before," Natasha told me. She looked bemused, frustrated, embarrassed. "When I mentioned that you were British, he told me the visa wouldn't be available for at least seven working days.

"At least seven working days..," she repeated.

"Meaning 'more like 14 working days?" I suggested.

"Meaning.." and at this point I do declare she blushed.. "Meaning, I cannot guess what he means at the best of times. But this... is not the best of times. I'm so sorry.

"He also demands to know where you will be staying every night, with documentation." (Previously, a one page faxed 'letter of introduction' has been enough.)

"And," she referred to her scribbled notes again, and adjusted her glasses, "he wants details of what you plan to do for every day of your stay."

(I don't know what I'm going to do in the next hour, normally..)

She couldn't believe what she was having to say.

"And the visa will cost US$300."

She winced.

I shrugged.

"He's an angry person," she repeated.

And, you know what?, I wasn't angry.

I suppose I had a right to be miffed. This bureaucratic nonsense, whether imposed from above or the product of one little man with too much power and an anti-British chip on his shoulder, was derailing my journey. After 872 days and, yes, 38,000 miles.

In fact, I had already made up my mind. I wasn't about to thread myself and the Bonneville through the eye of a Roosian needle. Impossible -- especially with the panniers. Nope, it's not worth it. I have too much respect for myself, and not enough for any bureaucracy.. perhaps especially for Roosian bureaucracy. St Petersberg may be my favourite place on the whole trip (it's a contender.. but how can I possibly choose between that and a Greek peninsula, or a Portuguese windmill, or Venice, or Tarifa.. or.. or..) and Kaliningrad was an absolute highlight because of its very existence, not to mention its monumental ugliness. Murmansk, the start of it all, I can never forget.

But I have been unable to *like* Roosia. Too many checkpoints and petty minded officials and police and greyness and militia and potholes and uniforms and, above all, too much poverty, everywhere, real poverty, not just accepted but positively encouraged by the state. Pensioners who have nothing but memories of a life of war and hardship creeping past the inelegant displays of super wealth by the newly, stupidly, illegally rich. It's an ugly caricature of inequalities you can see in any other country. It's all too much.

Besides, in Odessa, everyone speaks Roosian. I'm heading to the Crimea, which is even more Roosian than here. Don't let the fact that it's Ukraine fool you. So it's not like I'm missing out on my fair share of borscht, bureaucrats and Baltica beer.

And it's getting cold. These things matter when you're riding a bike.

Mr XXXXX, you faceless cog in an unpleasant state machine, I might just dedicate the book to you.

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