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| Istanbul airport - photo creds: Tim Keesee |
Saturday early afternoon, I flew out of the new Istanbul airport. It literally opened this week. Security checks went smoothly, and we boarded on time and then sat on the tarmac for an hour and a half. According to the captain's voice over the intercom, we were delayed "due to heavy airport traffic." This was not good news, since my layover in Moscow was only an hour and a half. We finally took off, landed in Moscow shortly after 7:00pm, and taxied for a long time. The minutes dwindled, and it became more certain I would miss my connecting flight. Sure enough, by the time we deplaned, the Aeroflot agent at the transfer desk said boarding for my 7:40pm flight was already closed. Of course, I wasn't the only one trying to make a connecting flight, so I wandered off, found a restroom, and then waited till the lines died down and those with a chance of making connections (“Shanghai! Shanghai! Shanghai!”) got through. When it was my turn to be helped, the lady was efficient and kind: rescheduled me for a 9:20am flight, gave me a 1000-ruble voucher for supper in the airport, and told me to go to the service desk in the terminal at 10:00pm for hotel shuttle arrangements.
I went through passport control and into the terminal. Wandered around, located the service desk area, sat there for a bit, connected to the wifi, checked bus and train schedules from NYC to Boston, rearranged my bus tickets for the next day, texted the people who needed updates, and then went looking for food. I felt rich and at ease, me with my 1000 rubles wandering around and scoping out prices. Landed at an upstairs restaurant with decent food and a server who didn’t seem happy to see anyone. I ordered freshly squeezed grapefruit juice and a salmon and mango salad. I ate and texted and read, but, thanks to my grumpy waitress, didn’t feel free to hang out there till 10pm, so I ventured back downstairs, refilled my water bottle, found a sitting place, read till the appointed time, then made my way back to the service desk.
Join the crowd. Turns out there were two flights that had issues. One from Istanbul, the other from Amsterdam. I was standing just outside the desk area next to a guy that I thought might be English-speaking. I made an offhand comment, and he responded. We small-talked. He was from Portland, traveling to India for work, stranded by the Amsterdam misconnection. We were temporarily joined by a third American, also headed to India for business and stranded by the Amsterdam flight. There was no movement at the desk, though, until two Aeroflot agents swept by us with a stack of papers, went behind the desk, and started processing people and paperwork. No small job. Portland guy and I joined the queue near the third guy from earlier, and the three of us kept chatting. The line moved slowly. Very. The key difficulties seemed two-fold: 1) Russia requires a visa for entry, which none of us had, of course, so red tape was everywhere and 2) the airline was understaffed.
3rd guy got taken care of and moved off, and a 4th guy came up. “Are you guys Americans or Canadians? I heard you speaking English.” Portland and I responded that we were Americans. (Like good international travelers, none of us exchanged names.) 4th dude was from New Jersey: extroverted, shaved head, returning from vacation in Istanbul. He carried a violin case and his enthusiasm quite prominently. (I had observed him give up his seat to women and elderly travelers several times when I was in the service desk area earlier). New Jersey chatted affably, while Portland and I edged closer to the desk. Eventually, all us had our docs and waited together at the edge of the crowd outside the service area. It was pretty close to midnight, and we were assuming that the next step was to head to the shuttle.
We were wrong.
Since we didn't have visas, we had to go through passport control again. All 69 or 76 of us. By now, we stranded passengers seemed to have about five Aeroflot agents assigned to us. They literally walked around counting noses. Not really a fun night for them. The passport control person responsible to process us had also had better days. She was meticulous and curt, and the security process was excruciatingly slow.
Portland, 3rd guy, New Jersey, and I were basically an identifiable foursome by this point. We talked about places we’d traveled, travel experiences, vocations, cultures, the effects of communism, and much more. A Russian guy, who spoke decent English, lives in Germany, has dual citizenship and a great sense of humor phased in and out of our conversation. Being tri-lingual, he could talk with everyone around him and usually evoked smiles. He reminded me of my old Bulgarian manager, Stan: physically a little, but even more, his ironic wit and cross-cultural humor.
After the four of us made it through passport control (we were roughly in the middle of the line), we waited in the waiting area together and continued to chat. 3rd guy and Portland discovered that they’d be returning from India on the same flight as well. I joked that they were basically travel buddies now, even though they didn’t know each other’s names yet, and I observed our careful allegiance to the no-name traveler code. That’s when we finally exchanged names. New Jersey introduced himself as Mark; I, of course, am Miriam. Portland was Mitch, and 3rd guy, without missing a beat, said, “and I’m from Minnesota.” We laughed. His name is Frank.
By this point, we had stood in lines for hours. Stan’s look-alike joined our square. He markets gambling machines, and the conversation drifted to some of his experiences. Eventually, Mitch bowed out and went to sit down in the hallway. I followed suit shortly.
The meleé of Russian, German, Chinese, Turkish, Korean, and French, continued to swirl around us. A Chinese family, led by their patriarch started to become testy, hassling the already-harried Aeroflot agents. Two elementary-aged children played Marco Polo up and down the tile hall lined with luggage, legs, and one lanky teenager unapologetically stretched full length on the floor. Some people attempted sleep. Others sat with their devices. Most huddled in small groups with sporadic conversations.
(It’s hard to convey the surreal and yet incredibly mundane and human texture of circumstances like these. The surreal feeling comes, in part, from the weariness and displacement of traveling, coupled with the stress of undesired changes and uncertainty. The mundaneness of it comes from people showing respect and kindness and taking things in stride. We all know no one likes this, and everyone is put out by it, to a greater or lesser extent. But here we are adjusting, making arrangements, and working towards a communal making-the-best-of-things. Hence, the jokes and the smiles, the understanding nods, the periodic eye-rolls, and the sympathy for those a little more bent out of shape. We get it. Sometimes life stinks; even normal everyday life requires lots of patience and flexibility. You gotta roll with the punches. And that's what we're doing. We’re practicing our life-skills in a slightly different context, under a little more pressure and uncertainty. That’s all. In a very real sense, it feels normal. Even deja vu sometimes.)
As the process wore on, some of the travelers with early morning flights decided it would be a waste of time to go to the hotel, and opted to just stay at the airport. Mark was one of those. We were down to three. Choosing to stay at the airport was all well and good except for the fact that apparently Passport Control Lady had to accompany us to the bus, so when people decided they wanted to go back into the terminal, she had to re-process them to allow them back in, thus delaying our departure even more. Finally, a little after 1:00am, we headed downstairs with our Aeroflot-assigned babysitters counting noses all the way. (I think that, since we didn’t have visas, Aeroflot legally had to keep tabs on us at all times.) We got downstairs and waited again. This time for the bus.
A bus came.
It took all but eight of the passengers. Mitch, Frank, “Stan,” me, and four others. We stood in the entryway with good ol’ Passport Control herself (we were almost growing fond of her; Mitch and I had created a narrative for her) and two other agents, waiting for a second bus. The door was propped open, and the cold Russian night air found us easy prey. We consoled ourselves by saying that, at least by the time we got to the hotel, the others would have received their room assignments already, and we wouldn’t have to stand in line there as well.
A second bus came, and we and our escorts boarded and drove the 15-20 minutes to the Novotel hotel. The bus pulled past the main entrance, circling around to a seedy back entrance. Our agents got off the bus first and stood as we filed past them into the building. No joke, a security officer met us at the door, muttering into his earpiece. He crowded us all into an elevator, closed the doors, and pushed a button. The elevator began to rise, and Stan hummed a tune. He would. “Elevator music?” I said to him. He chuckled; we relaxed. The worst was over, we felt. The doors opened, and a second security guard was waiting for us. They led us through doors that said things like “staff only” and “do not enter” in both Russian and English. “They’re taking us to their maximum security rooms,” I muttered to Mitch. “I’m wondering how we get out of here in the morning,” he replied. My eyes fell on the security guard’s name-tag: Maxim. It seemed appropriate.
After all the lines and waiting, the official rush and crispness of the last few minutes was making us hopeful for hot showers and beds soon. We blew through a set of double swinging doors, and Frank let his breath out suddenly. We were at the back of a long line again. The hotel hallway was filled with our traveling companions. All of them. Still.
Maxim moved through the crowd to the check-in desk. There, he and another hotel official began photocopying passports and assigning rooms one by one.
We fell in behind a young Korean couple.
Stan joked that there wouldn’t be enough rooms, so we’d still be sleeping in the halls or sharing rooms. (I wish you could hear the mix of accents in these dialogues.)
The Korean wife, who didn’t know him as well as we did by now, turned around. “Are you serious?”
“Yes,” said Stan. “Four to a room. Four Chinese. Four Germans. Four Americans...”
She hesitated, not sure if he was joking or serious. “I don’t think so...”
“This is how they do it in Russia,” he insisted.
We suppressed grins. She looked at her husband for support.
“We were here three years ago and that’s not how it was.”
“But you had a visa then.”
He started smiling, and she realized he was teasing, and turned back around, unsure of how to take his humor.
“Wonder how New Jersey’s making out at the airport,” Frank commented. “You’ll have to let him know about this in the morning.”
I rolled my eyes and nodded.
The sturdy old-fashioned copier took its time documenting our presence, and slowly but surely the line dwindled. Eventually, it was our turn: the end of the line. Mitch and Frank and Stan motioned me forward, “Go ahead.”
“Thanks, guys.”
“Passport, please,” said Maxim.
He copied it while the lady at the desk signed me in. “Breakfast will be delivered to your room at 6 o’clock; come back here at 6:30 for your shuttle. Your room is 1177, down the hall on the right” (remember to read that in a Russian accent).
It was after 2:30am. Maxim handed me back my passport.
I nodded to the guys. “Goodnight, y’all.”
“Goodnight. Sleep fast.”
And the encounter was over. Just like that. Four hours of making the world a better place for each other, and we’ll probably never see each other again. I liked those guys and prayed for them as I settled into my room.
A long hot shower and 2.5 hours of real sleep. Worth it.
At 6:30, one other passenger, I, and two Aeroflot escorts were at the desk. Maxim checked us out and led us through the back passageways again to where the shuttle was waiting to take us back to the airport.
Once inside the airport, our agents released us back into general circulation. I wonder how many shuttle trips they made that day: taking us back to the airport and turning us loose in groups of twos, threes, and fours. Bless their hearts.
This time the flight left on time: 9:20am, and I landed at JFK in New York 9.5 hours later.
