07/07/05
Amerikan Komrades,
We have been keeping busy. Nothing in Russia is easy so we are never at a loss for things to do. And there is always something exciting going on.
"THIS IS A BUNCH OF SHEET"
Like the simple task of buying sheets for the new bed - it only took us probably 2 full working weeks to get some, and they still are not exactly right. There are "Euro-standards", "Russian-Standards", "French-Standards", and whatever. There are no twin, double, queen, or king beds; rather you buy a bed in 10 centimeter increments. Buying the bed was whole another story, but will have to tell that later. We bought what was represented as a popular size (kind of like American queen size). Turns out it was not exactly, and we have wondered all over this city of 4 million looking for sheets that fit and are "attractive".
We would walk into a store, tell the sales people that our bed was 200cm by 160cm and would like to see what sheets they have in our size. Their first question was "what size blanket do you have?" We just couldn't understand what in the heck a blanket has to do with buying sheets. But it turns out that all of the sheet sets have a duvet that a blanket must fit into and for some reason that seemed to be the starting point. I kind of thought it made more sense to find sheets that covered the mattress, but not here.
So we buy a blanket and sheets to fit; assured by the blanket sales lady and the sheet sales lady that it would work perfect for our bed. Get home try it and of course it is too small. So everything goes back, fortunately I had purchased the items with my Visa and it was easier to get the credits (only took 5 people to approve and settle the return and credit). But then of course they didn't have the larger sizes we needed so we had to resume our search in different stores. Finally found something that came close enough to fitting that we wearily accepted it.
Oh yes, none of the sheets are fitted and have elastic that holds them to the mattress. Not sure why this technical breakthrough has not made it to Europe.
I think the best way to buy a bed in Russia is find sheets you like and then buy a bed to match.
"A HEAVY MATTER"
Another fun adventure was the bathroom scale. How many Russians does it take to sell a scale in a store like say "Bed, Bath and Beyond". The answer is "alot".
After checking around we decided on the scale we liked, so I walked back into the store (without Irina-she was busy looking at clothes), pick up the scale and head for the checkout counter. Whoooa I am almost tackled by the lady that works this aisle (1). Stupid me; I thought I could just go to the check out, pay and leave - NOT So. She stops me, realizes that I don't speak Russian and pulls me over to this other little station. The guy that works this station didn't speak any English (2) so he calls over another guy that has a little English ability (3) and they proceed to unpack the new scale and want to test it. So I say OK and stand on the scale and am told to "get off of it". They bring over a vacuum cleaner from off the shelf and weigh it instead, not sure why they picked a vacuum cleaner. But after checking the weight twice and coming up with the same amount (not sure if it was a correct amount) the government testing form is officially stamped, signed by the worker and me. On to the to the check-out counter. The aisle lady (1) escorts me to the check out line, doesn't want me to pick anything else up I guess. There the check-out lady (4) takes my money and hands we off to another lady (5) that takes my scale and me to another counter where another lady (6) registers my sales receipt or something. Once all the paper work is completed she hands me my new 10$ scale and lady #5 escorts me to the exit. But before exiting there is some security guy wearing the standard attire, camouflage fatigues and side arms, who is guarding the exit gate. He (7) checks all my paperwork, the scale and once satisfied everything is in order and I am out the door.
No problems of unemployment here - if you want a job there is one
available. The irony of the whole thing is that the scale once we got it home and stood on it varies +/- 7 pounds. If you want to weigh less lean forward, feeling a little light, no problem just lean back.
"IT WILL BE A COLD DAY IN HELL"
So next item we needed was a new refrigerator. Irina's 20 year old
'Soviet Standard' refer was struggling along and just didn't have enough room for all the food needed for 3 hungry, hard working, people. So we went to the local "Best" like appliance store-El Dorado, looked at all of the brands,carefully comparing features, size, whether it would fit in the kitchen and through the doors, and, of course the all-important country of origin. Again there are lots of choices from all of the different countries of world. Decided on a German made model, Liberman.
Got it delivered in 3 days. The delivery truck stops out front and I watch them unload the refig, it was a big one; over 2 meters tall. I don't see any dolly just one guy, a big guy. The little guy with him tips it over a bit and the big guy loads it on his back and proceeds up to Irina's second story apartment, using the stairs of course since it wouldn't fit into the elevator. I told the guy I wouldn't want his job.
Got it all set up, seemed to work and gave us a lot more storage. So about 2 days later we go back to El Dorado to get our guarantee paperwork all in order. While the guy was stamping the guarantee with all these official looking stamps Irina asks him about some frost that seems to be forming on the back wall.
"OH that is a problem" he says "you need a master (that is Ruskie for service rep) to look at that". So we walk over to the service desk and get the number of service company that would check it out. Go home and try to call the company. Nothing but busy signals for about an hour or so.
Finally get through and they say "we don't work on Libermans - call this number....". So we call the next number and after many tries they say "we don't work with El Dorado anymore because they don't pay their bills".
"Uh Oh" we are starting to get a little concerned now. So it was back to El Dorado to talk to the service desk people and see what was going on. So we talk to this lady service manager on duty and she calls and gets the same answer from the service companies they supposedly use for our refrigerator. Then goes into the back office and talks to the Director, comes back and says "everything has been taken care of, a master will be out in 3 days to check the refrigerator".
3 days later no 'master' shows up. So we call the Liberman refrigerator office in Moscow to see what might be going on. They say "Oh did you get your guarantee stamped".
"Of course" Irina replies and tells her where the guarantee was stamped and what it said.
The Moscow office says "No, that is not correct. You need another stamp and the phone number of the service shop on the guarantee". She did say that the frost on the back wall of the refrigerator is normal, so it doesn't appear to be defective. But without the stamp there apparently is no guarantee. So it is back to El Dorado for more paper work.
This time we don't have the helpful lady manager we end up with some other jerk guy. And he refuses to stamp the guarantee. Says that a master must inspect it and will then stamp it. I am starting to think there is a lot of BS being dropped on our head and get a little upset with the guy. He finally promises to get a master out to the apartment and clear it all up. One thing we were starting to notice is that there is always a line of people at the service desk returning defective items. Even though I don't understand Russkie I am smart enough to see that they are not pleased with El Dorado's service desk.
So the day after the master was supposed to be here, guess what? No master again and the phone at the service company is always busy. So Irina and I get on the tram and head to the service office. It was in the old run down building and had to walk up a couple of flights of stairs to get to the office. As we walked up the stairs more and more people were just hanging around.
"Strange" I thought, but we walk on into the office.
In the corner again there is some kind of service disagreement in progress. A big tough looking guy is in a major shouting argument with someone behind the desk. Irina says it is something about not getting any service since April.
I see these types of guys every day all over the neighborhood and most of them have a bottle stuck in their pocket and are drunk. Another interesting thing that came to mind was something I started noticing during our search for apartments. All of communal apartments where these types of guys live had full body heavy punching bags and weights lying around - what do you expect where it seems like 40% of the people are employed in the "security" business. So I was a little nervous and not sure how this might escalate, fists, chairs or guns. But Irina asks another person behind the desk something and we get ushered into another room, hopefully out of bullet range.
There we met two ladies who seemed to know that we were suppose to have the master shown up. It would be in a couple of days. But I did find out why the phone was always busy. The lady was either talking on the phone or when she left her desk just took it off the hook-Russian customer service at it's best.
Then we are told that they really aren't authorized to service Liberman refrigerators, but someone would come out and take a look. We asked "would the master stamp the guarantee" and guess what? They said "no, the store must do that". Are we getting a run around or what?
So Irina asks to go to the bathroom and before coming back finds a manager with the service company to talk to. Then she gets the real story, but he said he would never admit this in court or anywhere for fear of his life. "El Dorado is not reliable and it is best not to deal with them and our service company is not authorized work on these refrigerators in St Petersburg. In fact we were sold an old model and El Dorado has no contract to sell these Libermans in Russia, they probably got it in the black market."
"Woooo" I think "we are really getting scammed, no wonder all those people in the service building were so pissed". I decide to call Visa and see if I can cancel the charge, but we are returning in 3 weeks and may not have enough time to settle all this mess. Probably will just hope German Engineering lives up to its reputation and we don't have any problems.
So at 10:30 pm I get Visa and they say "no problem, send us a letter and we will credit your account and debit El Dorado's account, then we will send El Dorado a letter and see what they have to say". How sweet it was talking to an American again!
I could see this drawing out for a couple of months and we decide to first call Liberman's Moscow office and see if they can help us any more and then call or visit El Dorado and tell them we plan to cancel the deal through Visa. So Irina calls Moscow and strange enough they remembered her from her fist call. Well it started slow but when she told them we had talked to Visa and were canceling the order she starts moving up the chain of command. The Liberman person says they want to check some things and will call back in 30 minutes. "Right" we thought. But sure enough some guy from the Moscow office of El Dorado calls and says he will take care of everything. Next we get a call from guy at the local El Dorado that we had talked to earlier, who seemed a whole lot more polite now, who tells us the master will be here tomorrow with the guarantee stamp. Strange how his story has changed. Then another guy from the service company calls and says he will try and get a master over here after 4:00pm today. Suddenly we are getting more service than we can handle.
So it looked better, but in Russia you never know. When we were sitting discussing our options earlier this morning Irina was very concerned about taking this too far. She says "they will just kill us! They know where we live, our phone numbers and they will just have someone in a car run us over - they do it all the time". Hopefully that will not happen and all will turn out OK. The phone rings and it is the master, he wants to setup the appointment!!! Irina talks to him and confirms that the frost is normal and he says that he doesn't have the stamp needed for the guarantee; we will have to get it from El Dorado. So we decide to call our new friend at El Dorado and see if he will stamp the guarantee. Strange - now he will do it!!! So call the master back tell him not to bother coming and we go back to El Dorado and get the guarantee stamped.
End of the refrigerator story - I hope. It has been working and has seen a lot of food cycled through it.
"GOD WATCHES OUT FOR THOSE TO DUMB TO KNOW BETTER"
You probably all know about our aborted new apartment search. How after spending almost a month and a half looking at new and old apartments we decided to put it all on hold - too many questions and problems. Well yesterday Irina was reading an article in our neighborhood paper about problems with new apartments.
The first part told about how the law is changing and the only government inspections of new apartments in the future will be to insure that they will not collapse (at least not before all the apartments are initially sold). Everything else is the buyers responsibility.
The next part of the article described problems in new apartment buildings. You may remember that when buying an apartment here all you get is a concrete cave with electric wiring and windows - that's it! Everything else to make it habitable is again the buyer responsibility and costs extra. According to the article (and some of my observations) these concrete caves, which start at around $110/sq foot, have the following minor issues:
1- 90% have unlevel concrete floors
2- 80% have walls that are not square or plumb
3- 60% have leaky or unsealed windows
4- 60% have problems with the joices between floors and moisture dripping
5- 50% have leaky roofs
6- 30% have ventilation problems
7- 20% have inadequate insulation, mold and fungus problems
8- Don't expect the elevators to work, to have any hot water and possibly cold water for the first 18 months after the building is completed.
So what do you think the chances are that things will improve now that there will not be any governmental agencies inspecting the new buildings.
"A REAL REAL ESTATE HORROR STORY"
Two weeks ago we all spent the weekend at Igor's, Irina's son in law marri
ed to Vicky Irina's daughter, parent's Dacha (country home). It was an great visit to the rustic countryside, no indoor plumbing, no running water, no screens for bugs, communal sleeping and eating. But plenty of fresh vegetables right out of the garden, a real Russkie "Banya" with birch leaves to beat sweat off your body, plenty of wonderful Ukrainian food and Russkie vodka. Quite enjoyable.
While picking berries I noticed that right next to Valodia's (Valodia is Igor's father) dacha is another dacha which looked to be in pretty good condition and abandoned. Later I asked Valodia about it and apparently the owner wants to sell and I could probably buy it for a couple of hundred $s. Then put another 3-4 hundred into it and we could have a very nice place next door in the country. In our liberated state after a couple of vodkas that didn't sound too bad and we kicked around the idea of being summer farmers in Russia.
The next day in a more sober state I was told about the witch and that having THAT dacha would be a very, very bad idea. "What witch problem" I asked and got the story. Not hard to believe in a land where "old village Babushkas" provide perfectly acceptable alternative medicine.
Igor's brother is apparently married to this lady that both Vicky and Igor feel certain is a Ukrainian witch! Irina doesn't know about the witch stuff but thinks she is absolutely disgusting. No one can understand how Igor's brother who apparently is a decent, but not very bright, guy could be married to this older, ugly, ugly lady with a couple of kids from a prior marriage. So they are all convinced that he is under a spell. And in fact she apparently told Vicky that she has "ways to get what she wants, especially from men and that people in her village told her these secrets".
Vicky and Igor are so scared that they opened Igor's mother's camera so all of the pictures of me would not be available to her. I guess witches use things like that for their spells. Vicky also said that she wanted a flower from her wedding bouquet, this was before Vicky really knew her, and she said she was so glad she didn't give it to her. No telling what the witch could have done with that flower.
So needless to say, it has become very clear that real estate in Russia brings with it all kind of risks, most of which are not even imagined by the civilized western mind!
"WE ARE FROM THE GOVERNMENT AND ARE HERE TO HELP YOU"
One last little story about Igor's day. Yesterday while working in his office he gets a call from the building security. "The FSB is in the building!!!".
What is the FSB you wonder. Well best as I can tell it is a hold over from the branches of the KGB, which is suppose to fight "economic crimes". Kind of like our IRS, FBI, and others rolled into one. Apparently there was one business in the building that they had papers, like a search warrant I guess, to question and search.
So why was Igor panicking? His name wasn't on the warrant. Apparently these guys work kind of like a Mafia Shakedown. They have the papers to search one office and then,since they are in the neighborhood anyways and wanting to maximize government resources and operate more efficiently, they just go ahead and search everyone else in the building . It doesn't matter that they don't have warrants for the other people, it isn't a legal operation anyways. They seal the building entrance and then proceed from office to office.
Igor was there alone and his first job was to delete all the files on his computer. I can tell you why that was important, but not on the internet - it is not secure. His next job was to divide the money he had in his office, the majority hid on his body and the remainder in his second office. Since Russia still operates like most 3rd world countries, everything is in cash, businesses generally have a lot of cash sitting around - not checks.
So Igor locks the doors and soon the guys outside are beating on the door. This went on for 3 hours. I guess if they don't have a warrant they won't normally break the doors down, but will stay there forever. Finally Igor decides to open the door and these heavies rush in, put him against the wall and ransack the office looking for money. They find the half in the second office, tell him "this will be enough today", take it and leave. And they did this same thing to all the offices in the building, no wonder the panic!
The Russian Government at Work. What to do? Nothing is the answer, because if you resist they will return with a search warrant and WILL find that you are committing an Economic Crime. And then they will take everything. Of course the money they take goes right to the government coffers - RIGHT! Not a chance it ends up in the goon squads pockets. What do expect from a out-of-control barbarian civilization built on corruption.
So now Igor has to call his clients tell them that their money had been confiscated and he will either have to pay them back, which will mean everything he makes for the next couple of months goes back to his clients, or learn how to walk with only one knee.
This all reminded me of a story Igor told last weekend about a "job offer" he had received sometime ago and didn't accept. Apparently someone, a "connection", offered him a job with a quasi-governmental agency. There really wasn't any job description, he would just pick it up "OJT" (on the job training). The only minor issue was he had to pay the "connection" $250,000 to get the job and another $250,000 after the first year. (I know for my friend Doug this sounds just like a normal recruiting operation - but the "connection" was not a recruiter) All he needed to do was figure out how to use the position to exhort a sufficient amount of $s from common citizens to pay his connection and himself. Of course they don't fire you from such a job, they just kill you if have a bad your annual review. Igor just decided that such a line of work he could not do, and declined the offer.
Such is life in Russia, always an adventure. The days are getting shorter, the leaves are changing to a splendid gold and there is a touch of fall in the air. We are ready for a change, but the Island will surely seem dull.
Till we meet again, soon I hope
07/10/05 OH YES, how much do your cigars cost?? The 3$ Cubans are OK, the 9$ ones are really great; especially with a little vodka. They are strong, but smooth. I am wondering how to get some home, not really. Told Irena, who said she would put them in zip locks in her bags, that it wouldn't be a good idea. Probably send her back to RU and fine her $1,000s of $s. So we will just have to settle for Dominican Republic, which are milder. If they are cheaper here I will bring some back for you, to be used only when you par a hole, of course that doesn't happen very often as we all know.
Last night on Russkie TV they had a big special about the toys coming from China. What immediately came to mind was our trip to the Chinese toy store in Austin with Lacey. Apparently there is a lot of contraband toys sold to Russkies on the far east border with China that are terrible!! All that stuff about rendering you impotent from breathing the fumes from Chinese toys is only second to the fact that they are sending stuff with mercury, heavy metals (remember them from A.J.s), and other assorted poisons in the paint, etc. Sounded really bad, and I thought it was probably only RU, but you better not let Lacey go back to that store on Guadalupe St. You better check your angles to make sure they are not contaminated.
All: We are just enjoying the summer weather, low 70s, and starting to think about RTUSA (Return To USA). Mamula gets her interrogation by the US Consulate heavies on 7/18, if she fails then she stays-no question. If she passes then we have to decide if she goes or stays. Not sure what to do, lots of issues to consider. Heck, if a Dennis like storm heads for CC, there wouldn't be anything to return to anyways.
Well got to get another vodka shot and get ready for dinner.
07/11/05
Yesterday went to the Naval Museum which was interesting until we got to the Soviet period of history. Mostly propaganda about how great they were. Irina was getting mad since she could see that there had not been any changes made to the exhibits since apparently before the fall of the communist system and a lot of the old history has be discredited now that everyone knows what actually went on back then. I was upset because they always want to charge foreigners 10 times what the Russians pay and then they don't even have anything in English so I can understand what they are displaying. Oh well we cheated and just bought 2 Russian tickets and they didn't catch me this time
07/13/05
I seem to remember that there is a way to get rid of flies using a zip lock bag with water. Am I correct about this? Please give me the complete details. Using your theory about flies one would believe that it would be raining here all the time. We need to keep the windows open and for some reason screens were apparently not invented in Russia so they must not be something the comrades need - hence no screens and lots of flies and other flying bugs.
07/16/05
Irina just walked in with the Soft Scrub cleaner that she bought the other day and exclaimed "theis is conterfit - this was not made in America. Look at the label it was just printed here in Russia and stuck on!" Sure enough looks that way to me too. Oh well, that is Russia - the last frontier of the barbarians.
03/14/06
Food: In the restaurants it is just like the furs, you generally get what you pay for. At home I think they are improving. Last time it was almost impossible to find lettuce. Now it is available at this little kiosk at the metro all the time. So we are happy that we can make normal salads, instead of just cabbage, tomatoes and cucumbers. But we still eat lots of cabbage and potatoes. Vegetables are the most scarce item; they have them here but you must go to special stores which are a long way off and carrying your grocery bags in the metro didn't sound like too much fun. Then meat is a little different also. We bought what I thought looked like some nice steaks and I thought we would pan fry them since we don't have a barbeque. Well I was told that you don't want there to be any blood in the meat here so I coooked and coooked it till it was dry and tough as a rock. Irina does much better with her stroganoffs. We quit eating chicken last month after the avian flue scare. Now all the poultry is loaded with chemicals to prevent the flue. Also have given up Sausage all the time after Vicky found this article about the chemicals that goes into it. We now have a little chart of all these "E" numbers that are found on the packages. Of course they don't tell you what the chemical is they just put this "E" number in the list of ingredients. The chart then tells whether it is considered dangerous, a carcinogen, etc. Now we started checking all our food and find that "E" numbers are everywhere.
