So anyway, when you leave Khabarovsk on a regular old domestic flight, then of course you expect to go to the domestic terminal and be abused along with everyone else. Well, in Kh. this does not happen. They like to make things more involved here – goodness knows why, as I never saw this kind of set up anywhere else.
There are three terminals side by side – international at one end, domestic at the other and in the middle, the glory of the “International Domestic Terminal,” which is where non Russians go to check in for domestic flights. Advantage of course is that you think you are going to be very swiftly organised, but like everything else around here, they made it exceedingly involved. You escape the usual Registration first scan of passports and ticket and can go straight to the ‘check in’ counter, which is not much more than a table with a scale. There they pull your coupon and give you a boarding card and of course you expect them to take your bag. Wrong. You have to keep your tagged bag with you and lug it with you to the grand sized waiting room, on the far distant side. This has a lofty ceiling and a smiling (shock horror) receptionist and a bar where you can buy all the usual refreshments plus some suspicious looking open-faced cheese sandwiches. It all rather looks like posh British Rail circa 1950 and you sit in big armchairs (in China they would have anti-macassars for sure) and the place shrieked out for a potted plant or two and some spittoons would not have been out of order. The ceiling to floor windows are very swathed in peach colored material, so some designer type had been through here at some stage of the game. The time for the plane to go has come and gone and you are still there and you get the feeling that perhaps you have just been forgotten, but the girl indicates that it will be late, so you sit and look out of the window at the lines of old planes. Four other passengers, who are Russians, rather overdressed and one wearing real winkle-picker shoes, are sitting there, drinking neat bourbon …they must have qualified as being Mr Bigs, as they are obviously known. I look at them and they look at me… they get bored first.
Russian airports are full of old planes, all in various old color schemes and general coming apart at the seams stuff. An airline may say it has a fleet of 20 planes, but I’ve worked out that probably only 5 are actually operational and the rest have flown their last. But they keep them sitting out there as of course it looks a lot better. So you sit and have another cup of coffee or a Corona beer, which amazingly enough is available everywhere here and all bottled in Mexico and then suddenly you are urgently summoned to take yourself and your bag, back across the lobby, past the check in, to the other side of the building and put it through the x-ray, which is of course at mid thigh level, so you practically put your back out lifting the bag up and in. Having accomplished that, you drag it to the doorway on to the ramp (by which time you feel you are working in the bag room for free and wonder if you will be expected to fly the plane as well) and there is a whole big bus waiting just for you. (At least I didn’t have to carry to out to the aircraft myself, which happened in Mongolia a few years back.) Your moment of glory has arrived. I’m more worried that they will forget my bag rather than me, but they indicate that we shall be reunited down the line and off we go to the plane.
Another TU154, all the other pax are just about already boarded, though one man is having a bit of a problem, as somehow he has managed to arrive at the foot of the aircraft steps carrying a full size set of car front fenders, long wrap around things and taller than he is and does not seem to agree that this is not acceptable cabin baggage. For one frightening moment, I thought they were going to give in, as of course with these nice long open hat racks, it would have fitted nicely over a selection of seats … oy oy oy. So I have arrived on my big empty bus and almost feel guilty, as they were definitely all crammed on to it before. But this is customer service Russian style, so it is not long before we are accounted for and the flight engineer comes down and closes the pax door. He always does this, rather than the cabin crew and I always wonder if the girls can actually open it if they had to.
Although it is lunch time, no food is offered but they do drag a huge cart of items for sale down the cabin. It has enough candy to stock a good sized store and half bottles of Scotch and vodka. I wonder what is in the drawers and ask if there is a beer and a Corona, is produced and it is free. But I could buy peanuts if I wished … I know, go figure
Had been hoping to see the celebrated volcanoes from the air, as we are right in the heart of live and smoking volcano land, but the clouds prevent that. I’ve seen pictures of them, all in a line and v close to the town, but these must have been taken The Day the Sun Came Out, as it is cloudy almost the entire time and I get only a quick glimpse one evening and v dramatic they are too. Snow capped jagged versions of Mt Rainier in Seattle.
A little break here. Find out if Petropavlovsk is worth the time and effort put in to getting there. And a plumbing crisis is about to happen. But I do meet the lady in the red dress and we have a dance.
timothyvalentinestravels 