This post is way overdue but I’ve been keeping busy and haven’t had much downtime. I went on a couple more trips to remote Russian locations, one in Siberia and one on the west side of the Euro mountains, technically not Siberia but it might as well be. This one, Usinsk, is in the extreme north of Russia and at least 20 degrees C colder than Tyumen. It was a smaller town, much like Grande Prairie, everything and everyone there has to do with oilfield. My tasks there will be a little more challenging as my company recently acquired a local oilfield services group and we are now responsible to ease their transition. As expected, the local Russian employees were quite happy working for their previous company and are resistant in changing their ways and integrating with a large corporation. So I will be dealing with plenty of disgruntled, russian laborers who won’t know enough english to tell me to get lost, but are very good at it in Russian.
The flights to and from these remote locations are a test to say the least. The planes, similar to the one I first came over to Siberia in, are built for a purpose and not for comfort. I see the cost cutting measures everywhere, fold down seats, escape ropes instead of a slide and on this flight I saw another one. A stewardess walks down the aisle before the flight and hands out the puke bags ONLY to the people who think they might need it. I guess there’s no point for everyone to have one, plus i’m sure there’s people who go on to flights and hoard all the vomit bags so they bring them home for their family, that’s just wasteful. Also, if you don’t give someone a bag it will probably encourage them not to get sick on a flight…it’s all psychological anyways.
After arriving and waiting for my ride or before departing, the locals can instantly tell I’m not Russian (I was told today it’s because of my hair, No Russian would ever have their hair in a state like mine) and because i’m usually on the phone talking in english. They watch me closely and most of them laugh with their friends after seeing me as I’m sure they’re saying…’ This town is in the middle of nowhere, I grew up here, I’m from here…What the efff are you doing here?!?’ In these small towns they also have people who check your bag tags to see if you took the right luggage, not a bad idea. This last trip I had forgotten about this on my way out and this lady, who was not dressed in any offical clothing/outift, started walking into my path on my way out. I wasn’t thinking about my bag tags so i just tried to move away from her and closer to the door and she kept cutting me off. She wasn’t saying anything, in Russian or english or even grunting, to me and just held her hand out to block my way. She had to actually corner me against the wall and as I was about to pull out a triple deke spin move to get by I realized what she was looking for. Crisis averted.
The hotel I stayed at had two prices for rooms, a price for locals and a price for foreigners. Apparently it’s some sort of ‘You are going to be a hassle for us’ fee. A novel idea but it probably wouldn’t go over well in North America. I dined with some of the location bosses at night, it’s basically their responsibility to keep the foreigners fed and alive during their stay in the area as we wouldn’t be able to manage to well on our own. I have now had the pleasure of being involved first hand in the vodka experience of Russia, it is not a stereotype. I found out it is very common to have bottle(s) of vodka on the table during a meal.
Unfortunately, this happened on each of the 4 nights I was in this town…and it’s not for sipping. The custom is for everyone to have a full shot glass and each person takes turns throughout the dinner to make toasts and finish it off by downing your drink. It’s frowned upon if you don’t finish the shot in one take. Thankfully, this is one of my strengths and I represented Canada well. One night we went out and played a few round of Russian Billiards. A slightly different game than I was used to, bigger table, bigger balls, smaller pockets and all the balls, save for one, are white. I asked the rules of the game and was answered with ‘Hit Ball, It not hard’. I proved them wrong, it’s easy enough to hit the ball but you have to hit those pockets dead on, you can’t rely on bouncing them in off the sides of the pocket as I’ve always been used to. I took a few beatings but should fair better next time.
In this town, Usinsk, we had taken a drive out to one of our even more remote bases. It was an hour or so north of the town and we came up to the monument indicating we were at the edge of the polar circle which lies at 66 degrees latitude and the marks the start of the Arctic. I’m pleased to say I’ve been that far north as I didn’t have the chance to cross that in Canada but now that I’ve seen it I hope to be in that area as little as possible. I’m now back in Tyumen and am hopefully staying put until the holiday season but I won’t bet on it. It’s been made quite clear I will be spending a significant amount of time in these isolated towns. I’ve attached a few more photos that show the good, bad and odd parts of my experience here. I’ll have another post shorty which will delve into more of the social life topics.
cheers,
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