-Lasse, as you know we have 78 clients travelling to China two days after tomorrow.
-Yes...?
-Change of plans. We are using another airline, so they need to stay overnight in Moscow.
-Ok...?
-So - I need you to go to Moscow tomorrow morning and arrange accomodation.
-Well, I can do that. Only, there´s a small problem. I´ve got no visa...
-I don´t care, try to get it on arrival. This is important, just do it!
-Right...
Immediately I contacted Novotel, that I already knew had opened a brand new hotel just a few minutes walk from the airport and made an appointment with their sales manager. I booked my ticket to Moscow (and avoided Aeroflot). The morning after I flew with SAS to Helsinki and onwards with Finnair. Easy enough. Bearing in mind that this was just a few years since the perestrojka and the fall of the iron curtain, I was a little bit excited...
Arriving at Sheremetyevo 2 I hoped that my Swedish passport could get me through passport control. The young man in the booth, with his AK-47 standing beside him, just smiled and said in russian-english:
-Sorry, we are not there yet. No visa, you stay in transit.
-But...!?
-As you can see, there are others waiting, so go back and contact transfer desk!
Transfer desk was crowded with people. By their looks, most of them were on their way to Pakistan, India, Thailand or Afghanistan. As I wore my uniform, I went straight to the counter. There I met Anna. I explained my problems, no visa, nowhere to stay, 78 clients and so on.
-Follow me, she said. We went for a coffee and she told me that I could get a provisional visa the day after. The "office" was supposed to open at 9 AM. I asked her if she knew a place where I could stay the night, without having to sleep in a hard plastic chair. "No problem for you, sir. You obviously have dollar". She told me to make contact with "the barman...". He knows, she said and smiled.
I had nothing else to do that day but finding somewhere to eat and sleep. So I went to the bar, as Anna suggested. There I met Colin, "the barman" and from Ireland. He told me that the only place I could stay at, while in transit, was "Cockroach Village", a hotel for people like me. Without a visa. After the second large whisky, I agreed to just do that. The time of that day was now apprx. 6 PM. After having spent a few hours walking around in the terminal I was very hungry. There were no restaurants open. Only the Irish bar. I went for a sandwich and lager, but Colin had gone "home". At that time I was sure he´d taken the first available flight back to Dublin...
Later on, the terminal became rather empty. I was waiting to be called out for my transport to "Cockroach Village". Sitting in a very hard plastic chair, nearly falling asleep at around 11.30 PM, two large russian women in yellow dresses suddenly appears at a range of 50 meters. They were looking at me and shouted:
-You!
-Me...?
-Yes, you!
They took me downstairs out on the tarmac where a coach for about 50 persons was waiting, along with two remaining IL-62´s. I was alone with the two women and a driver. Three persons were taking me to "Cockroach Village"!
To be continued...
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