The Soviet experience

Sometimes things get so stereotypically Russian - so inefficient, so illogical, so plain rude - you just can't help but laugh. It's easy to imagine the bad old days of the Soviet Union, when endless lines, "service with a snarl," and shortages of everyday goods were the order of the day, because it's often still like that today! A good example was our experience on Sunday when a group of us thought it might be fun to go ice skating...

We decided to go to a rink on Petrogradsky Island - later on in the year its possible to go skating outdoors on the Neva River, which will be really neat! After taking the Metro for about 45 minutes we arrived and had just walked through the door when a guard came running up and told use that the rink was closed! What a total waste of time we thought and, thoroughly disgusted with our lack of foresite, started to leave when Ina suggested that at least we might ask him when it was open, so that we'd know for next time. The answer: 30 minutes. ARgh, thanks for telling us in the first place mister, we almost went straight home!

So we waited around and ate soggy fries and suspect sausages from the concession while a lineup formed out front for buying tickets. We probably should have just waited in line, because it soon stretched longer then a Soviet bread queue and it was a wait of a good 20 minutes til we were at the kiosk, whereupon they let three of the five people in our group buy tickets before announcing that the arena was now completely full and everyone else would have to wait 2 hours for the next session! The grim babushka ticket master refused to let in Ina and I who hadnt got our tickets before the line was closed until, begging and cajoling with the help of one of the other rink employees who say what had happened, we finally managed to convince the old crone to open the gate and let us in with our friends! Ahhh so ridiculous.

Little did we know that the fun had just begun! We now had to get into another long line to rent ice skates! 10 minutes later we were just about to pay and take our skates when the women behind the glass sternly informed us that rental was "impossible" without anything less then a passport! For ice skates?? Granted that we are exceedingly suspicious-looking foreign types, this still seemed a bit much especially since I'll bet that in Russia you probably dont even need a passport to buy a submachine gun! Of course no-one had thought to bring their passport skating - Aurelie looked ready to throttle the old woman. Thank goodness Joka happened to have her Belgian passport at the bottom of her purse, or that unmoveable old crone would have been the end of our skating debacle! By then, we'd been through so much hassle and nonsense it was hardly surprising when their picked-over selection of worn skates turned out to be sparse as the shelves of your typical Soviet department store; Ina was the worst off and was forced to wear boys' skates because the closest they had to her ladies' size 33 was a solitary pair of 40s! She was just livid and I was trying hard not to laugh! You can't help but laugh at how absurd things here are sometimes and I think its the only way to survive in such a country!

Having run the gauntlet, our now exasperated and bitter little group finally got on the ice. We actually ended up having fun, despite the best efforts of the establishment! I brought shame to our country that day, I'm so abysmal at ice skating, though on the bright side I didn't once fall, an improvement on the last time I was skating some ten years ago! Good thing too, because at my height it probably would have been fatal.