Flying to Vladivostok
On 5th January 2015 I flew from Amsterdam to Moscow, then to Vladivostok. I had an Aeroflot ticket and I thought I would sit in a Tupolev, but surprise, Aeroflot doesn’t have any Tupolevs. Aeroflot has 16 Boeings, over 100 Airbusses and 16 Sukhois, and the Sukhois are the smaller planes for the short distances.
That was the first sign of a Russian industry that has been marginalised over the last couple of years. And not only does Aeroflot fly Airbus, but also passenger cars are all Japanese and Korean: Toyota, Nissan, Kia, Deawoo, Isuzu. For trucks they have Isuzu, Daewoo, Saab-Scania, Volvo, MAN, and I saw a Mercedes, a DAF and a Peterbilt.
Yes, you still see Lada, Kamaz, ZIL and GAZ, but they are old & rusty, they rattle and they smoke, and within a few years they will have disappeared completely.
In Amsterdam I paid extra for the bike, 100 euro for KLM, and then in Moscow Aeroflot wanted to charge me another 100 euro for the second part of the trip. That’s Skyteam (KLM and Aeroflot) for you: working together, but not really.
I still had another three hours before my plane left from Moscow, so I showed the girl my ticket for the bike to Vladivostok and waited. “Bike go in plane to Vladivostok” I said to the woman behind the luggage counter, and “me already pay, me pay no more”. For some reason if people speak Benglish or with an accent I start talking like that too.
The woman didn’t know how to handle this, she called her boss, who called another boss, who… After fifteen minutes some ten airport boys and girls were gathered around my box, discussing what to do with this Dutch guy with the bike box. Then a 50 year-old woman in a uniform with square shoulder showed up and they all turned silent and waited. “What in box?" the woman wanted to know.
Now we can laugh and think the Russians can’t speak English, but actually in my experience their language skills are much better than those of, for instance, the French douaniers in Lille, France. I once had a little encounter with those douaniers, and you would think since they are at the border, the French would speak some minimal English, or German maybe? But no, French is all they know. For sure the Russians are doing a much better job. I answered there was a bike in the box. “Ah! bike!" she said, “bike ok, is good no problem, bike is go”. Thank you lady! My bike went to Vladivostok.
The flight to Vladivostok is more than nine hours. That is: nine hours starting in Moscow, and then you’re already 400 kilometers into Russia. It’s longer than the flight from Paris to Chicago. Gives you an idea of how big Russia really is.
Vladivostok airport is modern and clean, and warm as long as you’re inside. My coat, cap shawl etcetera were all hidden somewhere in my suitcase that I had picked from the luggage belt, and from the building I could see the taxis outside already. Just fifty meters away. I decided to quickly walk in my shirt to the taxi stand. Only fifty meters.
-20º Celcius is cold. It is a little colder than I expected, actually it is a lot colder than I had expected, much much colder. Within ten meters I had to turn back into the building, open my suitcase and get my coat. And my cap. My sweater, gloves, shawl, everything. Unbelievable, that was cold!
I got a little scared at that moment and thought that the whole bike trip maybe was not such a good idea after all. Damn, what a stupid idea, I should have listened to all those people telling me no. Too late now, I was there already.
The taxi driver took me to a hotel ten kilometers from the airport. I paid 2600 rubel per night, and with the rubel at 65 per euro that was not a bad price. It was a bit like a modern European 70 euro hotel, but then with a lot of personnel: a cook, two waitresses, a receptionist, an accountant for the paperwork, two guards and a housekeeper, and then two more that had unclear jobs. They had a bar and a kitchen, and the bar and kitchen were open all evening for just the three guests they had: me, and another couple. Not too shabby.
