Having survived our first day in Moscow, Gisela and I joined Tamara and our group of adventurers in the lobby and experienced a typical Russian breakfast in the hotel dining room. Not bacon, eggs and toast; not cereal and fruit; not even a bagel with cream cheese. We were proudly served Russian black bread (deliciously reminiscent of my grandfather’s from my childhood), sliced cheese, some sort of thinly-sliced salted meat, a plate of tomatoes and fresh herbs, and a choice of coffee or tea. It was certainly . . . well, as my mother used to say when she didn’t care for something but didn’t want to hurt another person’s feelings . . . different.

As the others took off toward the exit to begin their first tour, Gisela went back to our room to wait for me while I headed to the coffee shop to meet with Georgi Karpov. She and I had agreed that we would stick together throughout the two-week trip, and had also arranged to take advantage of this morning away from Tamara’s eagle eye to visit the American Embassy. The husband of one of our former classmates was stationed there, and had suggested that we drop by to register our presence in the country, “just in case” — hardly a comforting thought — so that was our plan for the remainder of the morning.

Shortly before 9:00, I settled at a table facing the door, ordered a cup of tea, and waited for an unknown man who would appear unsure of whom he was supposed to be meeting. He arrived precisely on time, but had no difficulty identifying me. I was the only woman sitting by herself, and I was fairly certain that Viktor had given him some sort of description.

Georgi headed right to my table, introduced himself, shook my hand (rather weakly, I noted), and sat opposite me, ordering a cup of tea. He was totally unremarkable: medium height, medium build, graying hair, unmemorable face. He was “Mr. Cellophane” — the invisible man. He spoke excellent English, and we talked a bit about my job and about Viktor, how he and I had become acquainted at my law office in Washington, and what a shame it was that he was on holiday and not in Moscow to greet me. I told him about the shavers and our client’s hopes for future sales in Russia. And then we ran out of conversation.

A little hesitantly, Georgi inquired whether there was anything else he could do for me during my stay in Moscow, and pointedly offered: “Do you need to buy some rubles? I can help you.”

Whoa! Warning bells began chiming in my head. Walter had wisely cautioned me about all sorts of things to look out for, and this was near the top of the list. In 1988 it was, even under Gorbachev’s more relaxed reign, still illegal for Russian citizens simply to possess hard currency, much less to trade rubles for dollars, pounds, francs, etc. Either I was talking to the most stupid individual in Moscow, or the most dishonest; or — worst-case scenario — it was an outright provocation, designed to establish whether I might be a naive, and thus vulnerable, American. I looked him straight in the eyes . . . and lied my ass off.

“Thank you so much, but I’ve already purchased rubles at the bank here in the hotel.”

I had done no such thing. But there was a bank in the hotel, and I was going to buy rubles that morning, so it was almost the truth. The important thing was, he bought it. He appeared disappointed, but he also seemed to have run out of excuses to hang around. Standing and shaking my hand again — still rather limply — he said his farewells and retreated with the two shavers, but without any of my dollars. I paid for the tea with the few rubles I had acquired at the airport the previous day — he made no pretense at reaching for the check — and headed for my room to reconnect with Gisela.

And the fun had only just begun. Exiting the hotel — remembering to stop first at the cashier’s window to load up on more rubles — we found what appeared to be a taxi stand outside. There was also a bus stop nearby, with a little old man standing there, obviously waiting for a bus. On the far side of the expansive, semicircular driveway was a parked vehicle with a suspicious-looking, younger man leaning against the driver’s-side door. But there were no taxis at the moment, so we settled in to wait. After a few minutes, the guy across the way stood up straight and began sauntering toward us. He was respectably dressed in casual slacks and sport shirt, but projected a distinctly cocky attitude. Walking up to us, he asked — in English — “You need taxi? Where you going?”

His car was not a taxi, but I thought it best not to be rude right out of the starting gate, so I said, in Russian, “American Embassy. How much?”

“Fifty.”

“Rubles?”

“ Nyet. Dollars.”

Oh, crap! What was it with these people and their dollars? So I forgot about politeness and said, “No, that’s too much. And dollars are illegal. And, by the way, your car is not a taxi.”

He continued to insist that he was a taxi driver and that it was legal for him to charge dollars, so I decided it was time to end the conversation. I recalled a wonderfully obscene Russian expression that I had learned for just such an occasion, that translates to “[Do something unspeakable] to your mother,” and I let ‘er rip, in Russian. Obviously more than a little surprised at the expletive coming from the mouth of a respectable-looking American woman, he finally shrugged and slunk his way back to his non-taxi.

Meanwhile, the little old man by the bus stop had silently been taking in the entire exchange. He now took a few steps to my side, slapped me repeatedly on the shoulder, and said, “Molodyets. Nyet dollari. Molodyets!” (“Good for you. No dollars. Good for you!”) As with the handsome young man at passport control in the airport the day before, I seemed to have made this gentleman’s day as well. Obviously, it didn’t take much to amuse these good Russian people, and I was happy to oblige.

Just then, a legitimate taxi arrived and took us — for far less than the ruble equivalent of fifty dollars — to the Embassy, where the line of locals hoping to obtain visas to visit the U.S. was a good half block long. But as U.S. citizens, we went to a different entrance. After passing inspection by the Marine guards, we met with our friend’s husband, left copies of the front pages of our passports and our itinerary, and managed to grab another taxi back to the hotel in time for lunch and the afternoon tour. Tamara was clearly relieved to see us, and I could only imagine what flack she must have caught for letting us out of her sight for the entire morning. And frankly, that thought made my day. She was already not my favorite person, and we offered no explanation or insight into where we had been or what we had been doing for the past four hours, which of course she was dying to know in order to report back to her bosses.

After a few more fascinating but thankfully less eventful days in Moscow, which included the usual tours of the Kremlin and Red Square, an evening at the ballet in the Kremlin Theatre, and dinners in neighborhood restaurants with wonderful food and folk musicians, it was onto an Aeroflot plane (a bone-chilling experience in itself) and off to the Soviet Socialist Republic — today the sovereign nation — of Georgia and its historic capital, Tbilisi. (The “T” is silent. I don’t know why.)

This was a whole different world. The climate was milder, the older architecture vaguely Middle Eastern, and the people quite handsome and freer in their attitudes and lifestyles. A lot freer. Our hotel was in the center of town on a street called the Shata Rustaveli, very conveniently located within walking distance of shops, restaurants, and a Metro station. Our tours included a visit to a centuries-old monastery; a performance by a troupe of fearsome male Georgian dancers whose kneecaps surely were destined to be shattered by age 30; and a terrifying bus trip into the wildly beautiful Caucasus Mountains, to the ancient capital of Mtsxeta. (That is not a misspelling; don’t even try pronouncing it.) The ride was terrifying because of the condition of the steep, narrow, winding mountain road, and the glee with which the driver alternately hugged the edge of the cliff and took aim directly at every pothole, in a bus obviously lacking any sort of shock absorber, not to mention seat belts. But we concentrated on the magnificent scenery, and — not for the first or last time — survived the seemingly unsurvivable.

We also had some free time in Tbilisi, during which Gisela and I, along with some other of our new American friends, took in a few local sights on our own, including a Metro ride to a vast outdoor market. The foods were fresh and wonderful, though the sight of newly-slaughtered piglets hanging unrefrigerated in the hot August midday was a bit disconcerting. And I drew quite a crowd of local ladies when I took a small pack of Kleenex from my purse and extracted one to blow my nose. I didn’t know how to explain in Russian what they were, so I said something like “papers for the nose, then you throw them away,” accompanied by some very exaggerated gestures. They were awestruck, and I finally gave the pack to the nearest woman, who thanked me as though she’d just hit the lottery.

That evening, we were treated to a delicious dinner in a Georgian restaurant where Tamara read the limited menu to us and took our orders. She then invited Gisela and me (obviously teacher’s pets, despite the fact that the affection was not mutual) to join her in a back room with the mafioso-looking owner of the establishment, where she placed the order for all our dinners and haggled over the cost, which was then tallied by the owner on a centuries-old abacus. In 1988, Georgia was still stuck way, way, wa-y-y-y back in the past. Sort of a Caucasian Brigadoon. Frankly, that was a large part of its charm.

After dinner, we returned to the hotel, and Gisela and I took a stroll down the street, stopping at a small sweetshop for some ice cream to top off our decadently caloric dinner. On the way back, we passed an alleyway where we saw a neon sign about halfway down, written in both Georgian (totally unintelligible) and Russian. I was trying to read the sign without actually entering the alley, when a man came up behind us and gestured toward it, clearly suggesting that we might want to accompany him there. Oh, goody — a date for the evening. Do you suppose he has a friend?

But seriously, the internal alarm bells were clanging again. Having read about the human trafficking problems in that part of the world, both Gisela and I started backing away, saying in unison, “Nyet! Nyet! Thanks anyway,” and hightailed it up the street to our hotel, where we joined the groups of people enjoying the summer evening in the plaza out front. For some reason, we hadn’t quite been able to see ourselves as some Caucasian warlord’s arm candy. Go figure.

Then things really got lively. A car that had been passing rather quickly on the street suddenly hit the curb, blew a tire, and came careening toward the fountain in the plaza, where we and a whole lot of other people were standing. It hit the fountain’s concrete surround and came to a stop, mercifully without running anyone down. A young woman in the front passenger seat jumped out with a package in one hand, ran back to the street, and hopped into a second vehicle that was stopped there and appeared to have been following the first car.

In the meantime, the driver of the damaged car was still behind the wheel, trying unsuccessfully to disengage his vehicle from the fountain, when several uniformed police officers appeared out of nowhere like a bunch of Keystone Kops and surrounded his car. But these guys were no silent movie comedians; they were on a serious mission. One of the officers had a German shepherd on a leash, who began sniffing the vehicle and apparently gave the signal to the officer that something was amiss. While they were searching the car, obviously for drugs, the young woman had returned to the scene of the crime — without the package — and was trying to blend into the crowd, nonchalantly pretending that she had just arrived. But a good citizen — or snitch, depending on your point of view — pointed her out to the police, and she too was taken into custody. When I looked toward the street again, the second car was gone, leaving the young woman and her companion to face the consequences.

The whole thing probably took no more than ten minutes. The damaged car was hauled off, the police disappeared back into their dark corners, and the spectators returned to enjoying the night air. It may as well have been a scene from a play, as it was obviously not considered newsworthy as far as the locals were concerned. Life went on as usual.

Of course, we also had with us for the entire two-week journey an American tour guide: a young woman named Lisa, who was blonde and blue-eyed, quite pretty, and not too bright, and seemed content to remain in the background and allow Tamara to run things. The day after the drug bust, she tried to convince me to accompany her, at the invitation of a Georgian man she had just met in the hotel lobby, to a Thursday night service at the local synagogue. Now, please tell me what is wrong with this picture: A strange man, in a strange and dangerous land, who somehow knew she was Jewish, inviting her to a service in a synagogue on a Thursday night?!! I explained the facts of life to her, emphasizing the parts about the trafficking of fair-haired foreign women in Georgia, and how no synagogue anywhere in the world holds services on other than Friday nights and Saturdays, and told her that if she even thought about going, I would tie her to her bed until it was time to leave the city. I must have been really convincing, because she believed me. That girl seriously needed to rethink her career choice.

Anyway, that was Tbilisi, my kind of town: never a dull moment. But all good things must end, and soon we were on our way, courtesy of Aeroflot again, to our next stop. (Or, as I’d heard it called, Aeroflop. Very reassuring.)

*. *. *.

Once again, I’ve gone on longer than intended. I’ll finish our tour of the Soviet Union next week, first in Sochi, a semi-tropical paradise on the shores of the Black Sea, followed by much more European Leningrad on the Baltic in the waning days of the White Nights.

TTFN,
Brendochka
1/12/23