Sochi (Moscow) Istanbul

We left Volgograd for Sochi after I made the previous entry at the internet cafe in the Volgograd Hotel. Soon after the train departed I had a look at our Russian visas and discovered to my shock that they were expiring the next day. It was the strangest experience, how could this be a shock? Did we not know from the start when our visas would expire? It was like waking up out of an enchanted dullness to discover that impending disaster is upon you – you don’t know what is worse, that you could have been so dull-witted or that the disaster is upon you? The implication was that if we reached Sochi and there was no ferry to Turkey waiting there for us we would be stuck with expiring visas and nowhere to go.

In the face of this realisation of the urgency we were facing the relaxed atmosphere among our fellow passengers was very defined. Sochi is one of the holiday destinations in Russia and our co-travellers were enjoying the first day of their holidays with festive zeal. After our midnight stop at a town that is famous for its smoked fish the party atmosphere among the group of vodka drinkers in the carriage became a bit fishy too... but they left us alone and not being able to do anything to hasten our way or make sure that we would find a ferry waiting for us, we had another good night’s rest.

At dawn the view outside the window revealed that we had left the steppe for the forerunners of the Caucasian Mountains. Soon the train reached the Black Sea coast and we spent the rest of the morning looking out over its blue-grey expanses as we made our way south to Sochi. We could feel the tension rising as we approached Sochi. Just then we got an SMS telling us to read Exodus 14:14: The Lord will fight for you, and you shall hold your peace.

On arrival we grabbed our little bags and made for the ferry harbour as fast as we could. Eugenie had spent a few days in Sochi on her previous journey and she knew exactly where to go. This was expedient because Sochi, apart from being on the longest conurbations in the world (150km), must also be one of the cities with the most pedestrian subways. So we pulled our little suitcases down the stairs through the shop-filled tunnel up on the other side of the street, down again, up again and down and up and...

The beautiful ferry-port building was basically empty with many unused ex-official spaces but we found one place that had a living person in it and were told to look for the ferry-ticket booth on the dock. Out we ran, and over and down not knowing why we were in a hurry because there was no ferry in sight. At least there was a person in the booth, but what she was there for no-one can really say because all she could tell us was that there was no ferry today, or tomorrow or any specific day that she knew of. All she could suggest was that we came back the day after tomorrow...

We spent the rest of that afternoon running around in Sochi up and down up and down with our little suitcases bouncing over the pavements. We went from the hotel to the Aeroflot office to the court back to the Aeroflot office to the home-affairs office back to the Aeroflot office... We discovered that there was no way to cross the border to Georgia that day. There was only a direct flight to Turkey the next day, but they could not sell us the tickets because we would not be able to leave the country after our visas had expired. To extend our visas was only possible at a fictional building that everybody knows about but no one has actually seen. We could not stay at a hotel or book a train ticket back to Moscow because we did not have visas. If we did not leave Russia before midnight the only thing we could do was to hand ourselves over to the police.

We were in the Aeroflot office wondering how the Lord would make His promise of Exodus 14:14 true when the lady in the queue behind Eugenie asked if she could help. She was Russian married to an English man and she offered to expedite comprehension between Eugenie and the lady behind the Aeroflot counter. The result of much talking this way and that saw us sitting in her brand new 4x4 on the way to the Sochi airport where she offered to take us. As it turned out the airport was more than 30 kilometres away and as we drove there the sun was setting over the Black Sea on the day that our Russian visas was expiring.

She stopped at a gas station where she exchanged cars with her husband and he took us to the airport. At the airport he set about discovering the parameters of our problem in his more fluent Russian. We were hoping to buy the tickets to Turkey for the next day and exit passport control to wait in no-man’s land on the airport for the night, but this was not possible. The only hope seemed to be in getting the last flight to Moscow that evening and throw ourselves at the South African Embassy the next day. We bought the tickets with his help and then to our surprise he took us to meet his wife again and they bought us pizza before returning us to the airport, explaining to us how to dodge the corrupt customs officials and what to do when we get to Moscow and sending us off. They said they had their own Spa business and that he was an expert bath builder, but I think that’s only a decoy – they are really angels...

The customs officials were as corrupt as we were told to expect and Eugenie did an amazing job at convincing them to let us go without the required bribe. We were on the flight and off the flight and when we had our luggage in Moscow it was 00:30. Our visas were expired.

The bath-builder told us to ask for the consul when we get to Moscow. The kind lady at the airport information desk helped us reach and he explained that he could extend our visa if we had a ticket out of Russia. We spent the night in the waiting area at international departures and the next day we had flu. With fever and runny noses we made the 3 hour trek through Moscow to the other international airport where Air Turkey flew from. There the adventure of misunderstandings continued for a few hours but finally we had our tickets and every hope that the consul at that airport would be issue the visas just before we fly.

Eugenie’s fever was very high, and while she was sleeping in the waiting room I spent about an hour trying to find a way of spending the last few Roubles we had. I finally got tree cups of hot milk from a coffee machine that we mixed the last cappuccino into – the best coffee in Russia...

The memories of the flight out, the arrival in Istanbul and the finding of the ugly little hotel are all washed in a haze of fever. We spent the whole next day in bed watching Turkish television in a rainy Istanbul.