4. HOW MANY WAYS CAN YOU SAY NYET

In Tashkent they wanted to buy my camera

THAT FIRST DAY IN THE 'STANS'

That first night on Uzbekistan soil was one to remember.  A long narrow lounge, a deafening loudspeaker system, constant tip toeing through the night.

I’m very much a breakfast person, nothing elaborate,  a bowl of cereal, piece of toast, a cup of tea.  Actually I could probably get by on just the tea, and right now a cuppa was uppermost in my mind.  

The supposedly ill woman on the lounge was now awake and wandering about.  An Afghani, I decided, she wore tribal costume under a brown winter coat with a long veil draped like a scarf across her shoulders and an immense amount of jangling jewellery.  I rolled my eyes and rubbed my stomach, asking without words had she recovered from the illness of the night.  For a moment she looked puzzled, then laughed and with finger to lips indicated the charade should be a secret. I'd guessed right, she and her companions were rorting the system.

I went back to watching the restaurant.  A few more from downstairs had attempted to gain access and now an iron bar had been placed through the door handles for those who hadn't gotten the message.

By now I'm beginning to wish I had booked my obligatory first night at a Tashkent hotel, when a small group, about ten with a guide, knocked on the door.  Words were exchanged and the bolt removed.

A French tour group, chattering loudly as the French always seem to, were seated at tables obviously prepared especially for them.  I quickly moved in behind and sat at an adjacent table.

They were served flat round bread and cheese.  The guide produced a large jar of instant coffee from his satchel.  The waitress passed my table and I asked for breakfast. Nyet again, with a further torrent of words that all seemed to have the same meaning...no.

I didn’t think a cup of tea was too much to ask. Looking across to the French party’s guide I asked if he spoke English.  Yes, and French, German and of course Russian. 

How come, I asked, your group gets fed and I'm left to starve.  The Russian gift for drama was beginning to rub off.  He shrugged with Gallic indifference.

‘Would you mind asking the waitress,’ I asked.

He did and there was a great deal of huff and puff, with, as I again sensed, the waitress about to burst into tears.

‘The cafe has food only for those with vouchers,’ he explained, over smugly I thought...’and we, of course have Intourist vouchers.’

I didn't have an answer to that and casting an eye over his mob digging into their bread and cheese I thanked him for at least trying.  To his credit he turned to the poor girl and exchanged a few more words.

‘She will find you something... but you must pay her one American dollar.’

‘Is that all’ I nearly replied, but nodded yes and waited to see what US$1 would bring.  In due course it arrived, a pot of black tea, no sugar, butter but no bread, some thin slices of white cheese and a boiled egg.  I had scored a veritable feast.

Ignoring Irina’s advice not to leave gear unattended I stashed my travel bag behind a chair and ventured outside the Intourist building for my first daylight view of the USSR.  

I could now see this building was isolated in its own guarded and fenced compound and sandwiched between the international and domestic terminals.   Car parks were interspersed with trees and benches, and across the way open air vendors were selling food cooked over charcoal grills.  The sun was shining but the morning air was chill enough to make me glad I wore a bulky denim coat.

The guard, a young man in casual clothes with a rifle slung over his shoulder, waved me through the gate. Nice to know he wasn't there to keep me in.

A number of dark, stocky men were leaning on small cars looking like taxi drivers the world over, anxious for a fare.  They called out as I passed.

‘Nyet,’ I said to all of them in general, ‘I'm going to Frunze, nyet Tashkent.’

A lot more men were just standing idly about, hands in pockets, chatting and waiting.  For what I wondered. 

Only a few women were evident and these were helping with the char grills. Smoke from the many fires hung in the still air.  The kebabs on the grills smelled good but I hadn't been able to change dollars into roubles and this didn't seem the ideal place to rectify that problem.

I took out my camera only to be swamped by a dozen or so onlookers.  Remembering stories about mugging and bag snatching I felt a little apprehensive.

They were friendly

 I needn’t have worried everyone was jovial, smiling and laughing, exchanging banter.  I relaxed.  A man offered me a price for my camera, I refused with a grin.  Another took the camera and gestured to pose with another man. 

The whole encounter was a jolly light hearted introduction to a new country. 

It was getting close to take off time and back in the terminal I approached the duty dispatcher again, a new one this time, the Sour faced woman had finished her shift.  This dispatcher called in a translator who explained the aircraft for Frunze, which had now reverted to its pre-revolution name of Bishkek, didn't depart until 2.30 in the afternoon. To my query she explained the time on the ticket was Moscow time.

That explained it all...or did it?  Confusion over arrival and departure times surfaced throughout my visit.  Every time I made or confirmed a booking I asked was that local time or Moscow time and very few got it right.  Later I wondered if this was the local’s way of rejecting the long arm of Russian bureaucracy, the Moscow rules that still applied despite so called independence.

Once again I enjoyed the passing parade; A group of handicapped American athletes and their helpers were going home to the States by way of Moscow after competing against locals in Tashkent.

Despite wheelchairs and crutches their mood was ebullient, their visit had been a great success and friendships had been cemented.

A coffee coloured young man from Sierra Leone sat engrossed in a Paul Theroux novel in English.  A final year medical student he said he had learned to speak Russian in one month. I found that hard to believe.

An Iranian born American photo journalist staggered by with bulky equipment and special storage trunks for his film.  In Uzbekistan to do a piece on Soviet Muslims he was in a state of panic waiting for his official interpreter to show up.

The ladies behind the souvenir counter were doing a brisk trade with fellow airport employees.  By pretending to examine their dusty stock I could see on the floor behind the counter a cardboard carton of toothpaste steadily depleting.

It was getting closer to take off time and anxiously I listened to announcements.  Up to now, they had all been in Russian and impossible to decipher, then another clearing of the loudspeaker followed by instructions in stilted English that the flight for Frun-zee was ready for boarding.

A tall Indian gentleman carrying a briefcase was the only other person to line up at the counter. I was asked a question in Russian, the Indian interpreted.

‘They ask are you taking your bag on board with you.’

I shook my head, the bag was taken away and we waited for a bus to take us across the tarmac  to the aircraft.

‘I wondered why the call was made in English,’ the Indian asked, ‘are you American?’

‘Australian.’ 

Much, much later, when I was ready to leave the country, this man would help me side step a maze of Russian red tape and duplicity and see me safely board my flight back to Singapore.  But at that moment as we joined the flight to Frunze I had no idea what lay ahead and the Indian appeared only as a tall, rather handsome man in a well cut business suit carrying a leather brief case and speaking in that precise lilting way his countrymen sometimes do. 

His name was long, and for me, he suggested, unpronounceable; he asked me to call him Cari for short.

________

Episode 5 -  Roubles and Dollars

Next - FRUNZE AND ANOTHER STAN

© Robyn Mortimer 2010