Bribes, bribes and more bribes

We were sorry to be leaving Ukraine. We have really enjoyed the past few weeks there – much of the country is really interesting and (with only a few exceptions, mainly in Kyiv and Yalta) we have found the people to be very friendly (not least Svetlana and family, during our random and bizarre Ukranian family dinner with them – see below). As we headed towards Russia, though, things changed.

First we had a terrible night’s sleep, as monsoon conditions brought swarms of mosquitoes which invaded our van. In such a confined space, there is no escape, and despite killing quite a number of the little critters, we were bitten half to death. Normally that wouldn’t matter, but the lack of sleep later proved to be rather less than ideal.

Feeling quite groggy the next morning, we headed for the border between Ukraine and Russia. We were relived to note real contrasts between the Ukraine border and our previous Russian border, notably that the Ukrainian officials smiled (rather than looking like they wanted to kill us) and the female customs officer was dressed in a remarkably normal short skirt and kitten heels (rather than sporting the butch bull-dog look which we had previously encountered in Russia). All of our organisation seemed to be paying off on the Ukrainian side, until the customs man decided that he would try to extort money from Michael in return for stamping Michael’s passport on the same page as an existing stamp (in the continuing saga that is Michael being short of passport pages for our trip). Michael played dumb to his request for a “present” and eventually we were waved on without having paid anything. Bribe number one: avoided.

On the Russian side, Michael’s passport received the usual extra attention: he now has significantly more hair than in his photo; his passport is very old and worn, with no gold GB embossing; and they clearly don’t like some of the stamps in there one little bit (we are not sure which ones or why). But we got our entry stamps with relatively little difficulty. Then the customs searches started. Until now, we have raised little suspicion, prompting only fairly cursory checks of certain of our bags at the borders. But at this border, we had a full search of every cupboard and drawer; our tea bags were examined and smelt for “narcotica”; and every inch of the inside and outside of our van was reviewed with a mirror on a long stick, designed to give a view of hidden corners. We watched the customs man like hawks the whole time. In the end, he waved us through to see his mate.

His mate proceeded to fill in exactly the same forms as we had been given the last time we entered Russia. Except that this time, he wanted money for his efforts. We made clear that we had done all this before and had not needed to pay. Suddenly, the price of the document which had he claimed carried a fee dropped miraculously by 75%. Strangely, we were a little suspicious about whether that fee was ever going to make it into Russian Federation coffers. But having made our point and got the price dropped, we paid him a small sum that we could get all of our documents stamped and get the journey underway. So that was bribe number two.

We didn’t make it very far before we saw our first traffic police. And on it went. Every 10 minutes or so, more of them. They have no interest in whether people are doing anything wrong. They just wave their black and white stripped batons at cars on a random basis, with the same “the power has gone to my head” looks on their face that bouncers often have at nightclubs. There is always a car pulled into the side of the road, so whether you get pulled over depends on whether you happen to be the next car to come down the road after the previous victim has left.

We had been stopped in Ukraine, but the police had been friendly and reasonable. In Russia, it was a different story. We had been pootling along, well within the speed limit, for a good few kilometres, with no other cars in sight on a wide open stretch of road. We saw a huge group of traffic police on a roundabout and made sure that we continued to do everything right as we approached. Yet still they waved us down. A deeply annoying policeman dragged Michael out of the car and accused him of overtaking in a no overtaking zone. This was a pathetic work of fiction – we hadn’t overtaken; there had been no “no overtaking” signs or solid white lines in the road; and there had been no car to overtake for quite some time, even if we had wanted to. He clearly knew full well that we hadn’t overtaken, as his efforts to convince us of what we have done wrong were extremely half hearted, but nevertheless he started filling in paperwork trying to invalidate Michael’s licence and fine us a small fortune. Except that, at the key moment, he whisked Michael to one side and mentioned the word “roubles”. And also refused to hand out an official receipt. Again, strange that – but then I suppose that you can’t expect a receipt for a policeman’s beer money. We were both livid, but he had our passports and driving licences and the bottom line is that he could have made life very difficult if we didn’t co-operate, so after some bartering, Michael slipped him the equivalent of a fiver and we drove off. During the time we were there, our bloke’s mates stopped endless other locals who did exactly the same. Which is why they all stand there, on the roundabout, in their big police money making exercise – because it is cheaper for everyone to pay their back-handers than to deal with the paperwork and rigmarole involved in explaining that you have done nothing wrong.

So, welcome to Russia. One day, three requests for bribes, none of them with any foundation at all. And we suspect that it will only get worse as we continue in Russia and onwards to Central Asia. Remind us again why more people don’t come here…..?