Moscow Diaries- Back in the Great City

This is the first of a few daily posts documenting my return to the Russian capital after a long gap.

In order to travel directly to Russia from India I took the early morning Aeroflot flight from Delhi to Moscow. So, this series begins with a rant about the Indian capital’s airport.

When Delhi’s Terminal 3 opened for international flights in 2010 ahead of the Commonwealth Games it was rightfully praised, but since then the airport has become woefully inadequate. This is not just because of a large increase in flights but poor planning.

I am not sure if check-ins of many airlines are handled by Air India staff, but I have repeatedly dealt with those wearing badges of the airline. They are absolutely rude, unprofessional and seem to be miserable about their jobs. Few imagined Tata’s takeover of Air India would result in the airline’s employees becoming even worse than they were, but such is the case.!

Now for the immigration and security check facilities. Both are stuffed in a small bit of space, whereas the terminal itself is wide and expansive and has plenty of room for retail. Misplaced priorities fuelled by capitalism!

To their credit, Delhi’s immigration officers are quick and professional, or at least this has been my experience with them over the last several years. The security check, on the other hand, is a total disgrace. It takes ridiculously long and the officials on duty are stressed because of how compressed the space they operate in is…

On Board Aeroflot

The Russian flagship carrier used an older Airbus 330-300 for its flight between the two capitals. The aircraft was absolutely full, with the majority of travellers being Russians. When Airbus and Boeing decided to sanction Aeroflot, the airline had to cannibalise its own aircraft for spares. It also lost a lot of business since people cannot buy tickets directly from its website, as Visa and Mastercard quit Russia.

The airline, like the Russian economy, is resilient in the face of sanctions and has managed using big planes on its long flights. As soon as I boarded my first Aeroflot aircraft in more than three years, I felt like I was back in Russia.

An athletic Russian man, presumably in his 30s, sat next to me and began a cheerful conversation. I could smell the alcohol from his breath, but he seemed quite harmless. He told me he loved India, but absolutely hated the food, with the exception of garlic naan. “The original flavour of every item is killed with masalas and spices,” he said. The man kept asking me if I was offended and I replied in the negative.

I had a window seat but on the right side of the aircraft. While it was nice to see the sun rise over Punjab, the view of the Hindu Kush, Pamirs and Tien Shan were blocked by the strong sun.

I did see the snow-covered mountains near Kabul, and also the wide landmass from Orenburg, near the Russia-Kazakhstan border, onwards to Moscow. It was obvious that European Russia did not get much snow this winter. A beautiful sight before landing was the frozen Moskva River snaking its way around the town of Khimki, north of Moscow.

Hello Moscow

The flight landed almost 30 minutes ahead of schedule. So far, so good! But then began the agonising wait. Our flight landed at the same time as one from Bukhara and the queue of non-Russian/Belarusian citizens was very long. Adding to the wait was the fact that all foreigners had to give their finger prints at passport control.

As the line moved painfully slow, I was thinking of how quickly the airports in Vancouver and Shanghai handled the recording of biometrics. They both have a system in place where the biometrics are recorded before actual immigration. In Shanghai, the details are verified at passport control again, but I still felt the process was smooth.

W

henever a new system begins in Russia it takes time for it to operate smoothly. As I got closer to the front of the line I understood that the delay was because the immigration officers were scrutinising every Central Asian visitor and sending many of them for a secondary check.

Ahead of me was an ethnic Russian who had a German passport. The officer asked him why he gave up his Russian citizenship, and sent him for secondary as well. Just before me was a man from Turkmenistan who was offended about the questioning and was also sent for another check, despite his protests.

As I approached the booth I wondered what kind of questions I would get, and whether the officer would look at the Western visas on my passport and grill me, but the whole process took less than a minute and she was genuinely nice to me…Zero questions, to boot.

My suitcase was taken off the carousel as I was stuck at passport control for almost an hour. Then it was Customs.

Sheremetyevo Customs officers are generally friendly and I was asked to proceed without them scanning my bags.

The mild adventure began after all this. I could not connect to the airport wifi as I needed to make a call to a Moscow number and I didn’t have roaming. So, the option of hailing a taxi from Yandex was off the cards, but a young gentleman working for the company hailed a ride on his cell phone from the counter. He also told me about a new rule that made it difficult to get a new sim card in Russia without submitting biometrics and that too with a Russian passport. Apparently this measure along with extra screening of Central Asians was because of the involvement of people from that part of the world in the 2024 Crocus City terror attacks.

Apparently today was the sunniest day in Moscow in a long time and I saw a lot of people on the streets smiling as they walked. Mind you, it was -5 Degree Celsius but the sun warmed up the environment and people’s spirits.

Spending the afternoon with a friend and his two children, I asked if it was just my feeling or whether people genuinely seemed happy and calm in Moscow these days. He said those who were ashamed of being Russian or hated the country left in February-March 2022 and Russia was better off without them…

An interesting spring sojourn awaits me in my favourite city on the planet.