Entry: Dragon at the Gate

Strait is the Gate, Narrow the Path...

Arrival at Sheremetovo (2) is always a special event for me. In the bad old days,
I held my breath, crossed my fingers and all the other charms. There were -adventures-
and harrowing ones. Like being lead away to a special interrogation booth and being told
that my papers were not in order, detained for 45 minutes, and I was on my way to
my wedding scheduled for a few days later. But now, routine, no worries. The landscape,
always a thrill at first glance, strikes me as looking a lot like Georgia (Atlanta) where I
had landed some 15 hours earlier: green, flat, fields and forests, clusters of houses,
and a stretching south a flat steepe. The sun is paler but there is sun. All is well.
Thanks to helpful tailwinds, we arrive 40 minutes early and I wonder what I'll
do waiting for my friends to show up at the appointed, scheduled time.
But trudging down the familiar stairs to Immigration there is a halt.
Only three Passport booths are funcioning. Lighted signs label one for Russian
citizens, one for Diplomats, one for everyone else. Soon a crowd of about 500 people
forms, winding all the way up the stairs. Nothing moves. No process begins, eventually
I can spot the heads of three women in uniforms in the booths. Still no movement.
20 minutes pass. We're frozen in a time warp, I realize. The crowd of passengers if roughly
2/3 Russian, 1/3 Americans. And we wait and we wait. Everyone is silent or all but
whispering to each other. I start grumbling (one of my talents and passtimes in Russia,
a finely tuned skill), first in Russian, then in English to fellow Americans, who are
in holiday mode and eventually keep up a cheery chatter about nothing. My grumbling--
rather sharp and political--is received in friendly fashion from the Russians in front and
behind me, but not really answered. In a kind, but very soft voice one young woman and
a fellow passenger from Atlanta, asks me my nationality and compliments my Russian.
But end of conversation. We stand waiting for 1 1/2 hours. In virtual silence, not
counting the Russian sotto voce comments and the American group chatter. I give up
my critical monolog. The amorphous line does not move for whole quarters of an hour
at a time, and the crowd blocks the view of what might be happening.
Soon we learn, by sheer analysis of evidence, that the signs are meaningless, just
decor. There is no separation of categories. Ordinary people are in the Diplomats Only
line and Russians are in our Other Citizens line. The difference is that the Diplomats'
line does move right along. Not my line, dutifully chosen as where I should go.
No official appears in the entire hall. The women officers keep inspecting passports,
stamping them, releasing people. The silence of the crowd, chats in English excepted,
is broken only by the sound of the stamp. Pow. Pow. Pow. Some people actually
smile at their inspecting officer, thrilled to have made it to the head of the line, or
is this a nice little gesture of deference to authority.
While annoyed with the long delay after such a long flight, I look at the instructive
side of this stage set. The silence of the Russian passengers is a metaphor, used
long ago by Pushkin (Boris Godunov): the people are silent (narod bezmolstvuet).
They do not complain. Do not question. Agree that it's Sunday and a reduced staff
is on duty. Don't call attention to yourself. Accept. Get out, forget it, go on with
life, just waiting beyond the gate. This passivity in the face of State Authority
is a metaphor within a metaphor - a dragon at the gate of Russian life. Authority
itself cannot be bothered with making peoples' lives more comfortable, with making
the machinery of the State (here Immigration) run rationally and even pleasantly.
Why spend money on such nonsense as a larger staff. Let them wait. What else
do the little people have to do? The fact that the dragon (passivity of the crowd)
is a strange chimera -- eating itself, recreating itself - is not to be given cognizance.
After all this wait is an assertion of State power -- a reminder that you are here
at Power's decree, a kindness extended and a necessary reminder that you do not
matter.
I congratulate myself on not greeting the Officer as I reach the booth. She even
seems to understand. I emerge, find my suitcases, long churning on the conveyer,
and find my friend Lyudmila waiting with a warm smile. "It took a long time," she
says brightly and we go out into the gentle and radiant September sunshine.