bribes [31 Aug 2008|11:12pm] Day 10: Paid my first Russian bribe today. On my way home, just before dinnertime, I stopped at the entrance to the metro station, calculating in my head if I had the right amount of change to purchase a couple more metro tokens in preparation for the coming week. While digging in my pockets for coins, I looked up to see standing before me a tall policewoman, no older than 30, with broad features, dressed in a grey jumpsuit adorned with the usual police-style accoutrements. She regarded me with a bored gaze. “Documents, please.” I dug out my passport from my bag and handed it to her, confident that everything was in order. “An American, eh?” She looked up at me with renewed interest. I thought, perhaps, this might be a good sign. The policewoman casually flipped through my passport, determined that my visa was up to date. And then she had me. “Where is your registration?” “They should all be there,” I replied, showing her the photocopied documents provided to us by our university. They had told us that our papers were sufficient to pass any document checks. Looks like they were wrong. While deciding what to do with me, the policewoman netted another commuter with central Asian features and herded us into the cramped police cubicle set into the wall of the metro station. Inside were two more police officers, a man and a woman, and a small open cell inhabited by a young Uzbek who, strangely, seemed unruffled by his surroundings. At first, judging by his demeanor, I thought he was an acquaintance of the officers, just here to pass some idle time. As it turned out, he was probably just used to being shaken down by law enforcement by virtue of his appearance. After all, racial profiling isn’t only acceptable here, it’s practically required by law enforcement. In the span of a half hour, the police dragged half a dozen others into the tiny office, all male, all with Asian features. The policewoman tossed my passport onto the office’s tiny desk as her two seated colleagues looked on with interest. Apparently, I was the first American they had managed to snag. The other policewoman eagerly snapped up my passport, flicked on the ultraviolet lamp sitting on the desk, and proceeded to ooh and aah as each page revealed a hidden array of glowing symbols for deterring counterfeiters. I exchanged glances with one of the other detainees, allowing myself a shrug and half-smile. The officers soon bored of toying with the passport and proceeded to let me know that my documents were, in fact, not in order. Apparently, state law dictates that any foreigner must register with local authorities within three days of entering the country, something that ACCELS and the St. Petersburg University had neglected to tell us. I stood mutely, trying to conceive of a plan, while the officers busied themselves with lecturing the other men who had been detained. There was no real danger, at least. The officers were relaxed, almost friendly, perhaps knowing that they were in for a substantial bribe. I asked if I could call my program coordinator, suggesting that perhaps she could assist in explaining the situation. They nodded assent, even indicating that I talk outside the office where my cellphone signal would be stronger. I called our program lead first, but was assaulted by a torrent of Russian. Apparently, she was out of reach. Lena, our second-in-command, was next on the list. Luckily, she answered, and I quickly explained the situation. It wasn’t very complicated: me, police, stopped. She asked to talk to the police; I reentered the office and handed the phone to the head policewoman. They spoke for a few minutes; the policewoman reiterated the situation and stressed again the fact that I should have registered a week prior, that I could have easily done so within three days through the post office. Though born and raised in St. Petersburg, even Lena’s arguments weren’t sufficient to win the day. The policewoman handed the phone back to me. “Ok, listen,” said Lena. “You’re just going to have to pay the fine. We’ve agreed that you’ll pay 1000 rubles (about $40) and they’ll let you go. Tomorrow at school we can pay you back.” And that was that. The policewoman spoke again to Lena for another minute, hung up, and handed the phone back to me. “So… what now?” I asked. She shrugged. “Now you pay a fine.” “Ok… how much?” “Your group leader should have told you the amount.” So much for bargaining. “A thousand?” She nodded her assent without looking up. I dug through my bag for the spare bill I had secreted away in case of emergency. Who knew that it would end up as bribe money? I placed it on the desk, the policewomen glanced at it, snapped it up, and said I was free to go. On the way out, I passed one of the others who had been stopped: an elderly bearded man in a knit skullcap, clearly not Slavic by any stretch. I wished him luck and offered a grim smile, feeling a twinge of guilt at my newfound freedom. And that was that. Thirty minutes and $40, the price of lingering just a little too long at a subway entrance. Or, perhaps more accurately, the price of my Asian features in a xenophobic kleptocracy. Suddenly, I never felt so much pride for the litigation-crazed States, where ACLU lawyers would have descended like harpies on such a situation. Then again, it seems the policewoman was right—I looked up Russian law after returning safely home, and on several websites, there it was, written in plain sight: foreigners are allowed three days to register with local authorities upon entering the country. An interesting situation, then, when our state-run hosting university takes up to a month to complete the necessary paperwork. After hearing my story, my host mom joked that perhaps ACCELS should give me 1000 rubles for every day that I am commuting by metro without the proper documents—just in case. Until that happens, I’ll just have to make an extra effort of scanning for police before loitering anywhere in public. 2 comments|post comment

stranger [28 Aug 2008|10:54pm] I have a little game that I like to play when riding the escalators in the underground metro of St. Petersburg. Understand that these are no ordinary escalators—they say that the subway here is the deepest in the world, and I have no trouble believing it. It’s a good two-minute ride each way. Over the course of my first week here, I’ve already taken the subway a dozen times, at different times in the day, and yet somehow the escalators, and the stations themselves, are always packed with people. Riding the escalators, then, provides ample opportunity for observing the meticulously impassive faces of local Russians as they move about their city. The game, then: I look at each face passing by me and try to imagine whether, if somehow I saw them on an escalator in the States, I would be able to mark them as out of place. Certainly there’s little science to the experiment, yet there’s rarely a person who I could see blending in as an ordinary American. There’s just always something not quite the same. There are obvious differences, of course—clothing and hairstyle are often dead giveaways. Shoes, were they visible on the escalator, would make the game even easier. But even if it were possible to ignore these, there’s a feeling that something else would mark them as Russian, or at the very least, as not-American. In Turkmenistan, the locals claimed that Americans were immediately recognizable by their movements. We walk a little too quickly, perhaps with too much purpose. I think, now, there was something more to it than just that. In Russian, there’s a word that has no English equivalent: чужой (chu-ZHOY). It means, in different contexts, strange, foreign, unfamiliar, someone else’s. That is, it means, roughly, “not mine.” You can use it to say that a book isn’t yours, or to say “everyone else besides me,” or to illustrate something that is indescribably different from that with which you are familiar. The faces of locals on the escalators, then, are exactly that. An old man or a young woman, in nondescript attire, with a nondescript haircut, heading home or to the office, still triggers the same realization in my head: they are different. They are not like me. Perhaps I’m simply attributing an exaggerated difference to them by virtue of the fact that I am, after all, not in the States. But I think it’s something else. post comment

[28 Sep 2005|05:00pm] Well, I have access again. Guess it was all a false alarm. Nevertheless, I'm going to keep my journal entries restricted, just for peace of mind. If you want to find out what I'm up to, you'll just have to sign up. post comment

privatized [01 Sep 2005|10:13am] ive changed all my entries to be accessible to friends only. there is an interesting reason for this, though i wont go into it here. i dont know if ill be able to add any entries until im back in the states, but if you want access just in case, or if you want to go back and read past entries, drop me an email. youll have to sign up for a (free) acct with livejournal, and then i can add you to my friends list and youll be able to access everything once more. sorry if it sounds troublesome but hey, not much i can do about it. kennon,leeep,com 3 comments|post comment

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