Siberia, Russia Part 4 - Airport Follies and a Stern Lecture
In this continuing series, we cover my decision to move from
San Diego to Chita, Siberia to be a professor at Chita State
Technical University. We pick up the story aboard the flight
from Anchorage to Khabarovsk, Russia.
Day 3 [Still]
As I lounged in my huge Aeroflot seat, the stewardess announced
that we would be arriving in Khabarovsk in the next 30 minutes.
Khabarovsk is located in the deep south of the far east of
Russia on the border with China. It is the home of the Far East
Military of Russia and is the largest city east of Lake Baikal.
I was primarily interested in how hard it would be to find a hot
shower.
Well, this was it, the first day of my year in Siberia. I had my
phrase book, electric blanket, traveler's checks and a solid
rush of adrenaline. Of course, I had never actually taught a
class before, but I would deal with that later.
We descended out of the clouds into a rainstorm. The view was
still incredible. We were flying into a flat valley surrounded
by snow-capped mountains. Everything was a deep green. A few
cabins could be seen on the ground.
There was a very clear view of the airport as we banked through
the valley to approach from the West. Umm, aren't airports
usually lit up? This one looked like a ghost town. The runways
looked fine, but there were no lights in the buildings. There
appeared to be a dearth of activity on the ground. I had never
backpacked from a plane to the airport, but maybe this was the
way it was done. When in Rome...
Finishing off an incredible flight, our Russian pilot set us
down with a light touch. As we taxied up to the airport, I could
only think that if the rest of Russia was as good as the flight,
it was going to be a great year.
Blink, blink, blink...lights started coming on in the terminal!
Despite being no more than 50 feet from it, we were herded onto
a transport. We started, did a wide u-turn and stopped at the
gate. All I could think of was "The Gods Must Be Crazy."
"The Gods Must Be Crazy" was a hilarious movie released in the
eighties [no jokes about my age]. The first scenes of the movie
are biting satires of our modern way of life versus the
indigenous tribes of Africa. In one scene, a woman gets into her
car, backs down to the end of her driveway and puts a letter in
the mailbox. Ah, progress! The journey from the plane to the
airport couldn't have been much longer.
The airport terminal was pretty industrial. That is to say, no
effort was made to sell you fast food, booze, ice cream,
"Khabarovsk Hard Rock Caf