My First Trip To Russia

The first thing I remember when landing at SVO in Moscow was the Aeroflot airplanes everywhere. The logo is of course in Russian and its right about then that I realized-hey they don't use English much here. Yes, it seems obvious, but when you are an amateur at reading Russian-a language and alphabet very different from English-this is a big deal! At that point it was cool, charming, exciting. I'm in a foreign country--I just flew around the world and here I am!

Finally the door opens and I could head down the walkway, unsure where I would go after that. I had pictured a hustling and busy airport with lots of confused signs and people going everywhere...instead it was quite the opposite. We seemed to be the only plane landing. I later found out that we were in the pre-border area, and the busy crowds were on the other side of the walls.

This area of the airport favors a prison, dark grey walls, yellow stripes and warnings everywhere. It’s not what you expect for such a main artery into Russia, but it’s just a passage way, nothing to base your impression of the country on.

A lady said something unrecognizable in Russian, opened a glass door and off everyone went in that direction. I figured I would follow, and soon we came to a staircase, leading down to a lower level. Once there people were scrambling for pencils and pens to fill out their entry form. No this isn't customs; it's the "Border".

The line was very long and slow, I met everyone around me and we were all as confused as could be. There are no guides or instructions at this point; you simply have to figure things out. If you have a question, you'll have to wait in line and hopefully not have to go back to the end for not having whatever they want.

A female guard or border agent-not sure of their title, walked by and opened another booth. Um, it's true about Russian Women by the way-they are gorgeous by default. She looked very fashionable in her uniform to say the least.

Finally I made it to the booth, it took about an hour+, I said hello in Russian, Privet, and she didn't even look up. Oh, ok.... She stamped my passport and visa and slid the documents back to me. I was done.

Now on to Customs! I thought it might be worse in customs, longer waits, lots of questions over my sexy boxer shorts or some giant Russian named Igor wanting to conduct a cavity search, but actually it was brief and easy. They just want to know one thing, got any property or cash over 10k? If not, pick up your bags off the floor and go!

I made my way through the turnstiles and I was done, I met my girlfriend in the crowd and we were soon traveling down the road toward Moscow!