This is Russia

Back in 2005 Moscow Domodedovo, door of the great Russia, was nothing but a dirty and decadent ring corridor. It represented the full disregard for public affairs of the new Russian people, finally free to play at the most unbridled capitalism standards. National dignity and sense of responsibility towards the public were the victims, but both the murders could be forgot with a handful of dollars and if it was not enough with a bottle of vodka.

Smoking was permitted in any area and everybody was contributing hard at it. In August and with no air conditioning I experienced a less tempting alternative to turkish bath. Impossible to find soap and toilet paper in the dumps. When I rinsed my face, an Egyptian guy in the mirror dangling his thick mustache murmured: “This is Russia.”

The rude local hostess hated Chinese passengers of that manifest and morbid hatred that threatens to blow off steam at the first excuse. My traveling companions could be pushed and shoved like animals with which it is useless to communicate. Courtesy and complicity, were reserverved to other passengers, I was ashamed of it. The Chinese Communists - still on paper at least - they could travel by air and worn expensive cameras around their necks, I am sure these were the only triggering reasons: they could just afford to be happy. Whooping, laughing, in a word: they were living their lifes. Those soviet women, who I could not imagine if not as guards in a prison, had lost this ability. And they could not just ignore the Canons tossed carelessly to the neck of the unwelcome Asian guests and they knew, that one of those cameras was worth the equivalent of their salary, annual salary.

Afterall there was an efficient service, I must to admit it, it was called VIP exclusive. The management system was normally reserved for preferential industrialists, politicians and mobsters. I was ended there because, apparently, someone at Aeroflot had my name marked down on the wrong list.

Alena was a model and her work was to be the girlfriend of a wealthy VIP of Kaluga. We talked for half an hour between countless false and reciprocal waivers of label inspired by delicious Beluga, Osetra, Sevruga, Salmon, caviars canapes which tirelessly landed on the glass of our table. Zarskaya Vodka for her, Borjomi water for me.

When she ran on her flamboyant Gucci “Hysteria” slippers as if to go out on the stage of a theater I was not able to stick her man in one of the three categories I was thinking at few minutes before. Alena was bored in Kaluga so she decided for a shopping spree in Paris. From the way she brushed her hair as she imagined herselft already standing at Charles de Gaulle, I hoped that she was going to meet another suitor, who really loved her and who did not need to give her expensive but soulless shoes.