From the street, only the sentry huts and a high concrete wall are visible, the consulate itself isn’t. Entry is gained by standing on the sidewalk in front of an intercom panel and making a request via closed circuit TV.
Anna pushed the call button and waited.
“Da, what do you want?” A perturbed voice squawked from the wall.
“My passport was lost. I need a replacement.” Anna said.
“We are too busy. Go away!” Click.
Anna pressed the button several more times at my insistence while I wondered what the chances were of getting a cab back from there.
“What? Speak!” The voice in the wall barked.
“My passport was lost…”
“Oye, it is you! Go away. We don’t deal with passports here.”
“Yes you do.” Anna’s voice was a nervous tremolo. “Our lawyer said this consulate must replace it.”
“So lawyers run the consulate now? Show your passport to the guard.” Click, silence… Clank. A welded steel door in the concrete wall opened a crack.
“Now, what do I do?” Anna panicked.
“You push it and go in.” I said, shoving the steel slab from over Anna’s shoulder.
“Passports!” Rasped a rotund man with three days of stubble, a cigarette and shotgun.
I dug out my Canadian passport and Anna handed the guard her internal passport.
He knew it was an essentially useless document outside of Russia. “What is this? Give me your passport. You think I am stupid?”
Anna stammered, “I am Russian. Ah ah, I lost my passport. The lawyer says I can get a new one here. My friend from Canada is helping me.”
“The Russian goes in,” the guard ordered, “The friend leaves.” He jabbed my passport into my chest.
I snatched it from between his tar stained hirsute fingers before he could poke me again.
“No, my friend must stay with me…” Anna stood firm.
I was impressed.
He straightened, getting as big as he could as I reached into my pocket and pulled out a fist full of Ukrainian hryvnya, candy wrappers, and lint. I placed it on a rusty table beside the wall. Before the breeze could disperse it, the guard had his meaty hand over the small pile. “You and your lawyer can go in.”
We entered a stuffy gray room packed with tired-looking gray people slumped on gray plank benches. The only place to sit was at an empty desk with a banged up metal chair. Anna and I took our places there and waited. There was no counter, no service window — no windows at all — just the door we entered through and a couple of gray doors leading who-knows-where. It felt good to sit, though.
An hour passed. Nobody had come or gone from any of the doors. I had just about given up when an inner door crashed open and an enraged woman shouted at us to get the hell away from her desk and chair. I recalled her voice squawking from the intercom embedded in the concrete wall. Anna jumped with enough violence to topple the chair. Nobody else reacted to the commotion. Maybe they were used to it, or maybe some of them had been sitting there so long they had died without being noticed.
“Please forgive me, there is nowhere else to sit.” Anna gave it her best shot, picking up the chair.
“Ah hah!” Barked the woman. “You should have thought of that before demanding to be let in. You stand!” She slammed the door.
I noticed a closed circuit camera I hadn’t seen while seated, and nudging Anna, joked, “Look, we’re on candid camera!”
CRASH! The gray door exploded open. “Silence! No talking!” The woman pointed a sausage-like finger at us and, SLAM! She was gone.
Fifteen minutes passed and my injured ankle was killing me. I was getting pretty ticked off, but gave the Russian consulate one more try by upping the ante. I felt for the wad of US twenties I carried for contingencies like this, and held one up to the camera. Nothing. I peeled off another twenty and held two of them up to the camera. Still nothing. When I had five twenties spread out like a poker hand, we finally got action. The voice-in-the-wall calmly entered the gray room, sat at her desk and politely said, “I will see you now. Please, do be seated.”
Anna took the only chair. I stood behind her.
“Now then, sorry for the wait. May I see your passport?”
“I don’t have one. That is why we are here, to replace it.” Anna replied.
“I see,” She gave me a significant look. “Where is your passport?”
“Oh, yes, of course, that passport.” Cluing in, I handed her the five twenties folded into my passport. The woman expertly palmed them, pretending to examine the document. Anna told her that her own passport had gone missing in Kiev. The woman started to smirk and get up. “If you lost it in Kiev, you must go to the Russian Embassy in Kiev to report it.”
“Nyet!” I said, ostentatiously slapping another twenty down on the desk. “This is a Russian consulate which is obligated to see to the consular needs of Russian citizens.”
“Fine,” she snarled, producing a form, “fill this out and get it signed by the police where you lost your passport. Kiev, was it? Bring it back and you will wait three months for a temporary travel document.”
That’s nuts! I thought. You only get three months when you enter Ukraine. Anna would be illegal by the time they replaced the damned thing. I started laying twenties carefully on the woman’s desk. “What if we were officials or if we were rich?” The zombies on the benches were starting to take notice when the woman bolted from the room, horrified.
“Oh well, that’s that.” I said to Anna, picking up the bills. “We gave it a try.”
We were headed for the exit when the other gray door opened, revealing a sumptuously appointed office. An imposing man in an impeccably tailored suit stood in the doorway. “You there. Come in here.”
On the office walls hung paintings that could easily have been on loan from the Hermitage. The consular official’s well-stocked bar revealed his refined taste for rare single malt whiskey and Cuban cigars. The desk looked bigger than the entire waiting area, and his leather furniture struck me as custom made. Sitting behind his desk and folding his chubby hands on the blotter he demanded, “What is the meaning of this disturbance in the waiting lounge?”
“I lost my passport and…” Anna started.
The official cut her off and looked at me. “You do not come in here and wave money around! Nothing gets done around here with cash. There are cameras everywhere. I deal with all sorts of people, important people, and they show some decorum. They know how business is done and they certainly don’t do it here.” He deflated, letting his shoulders sag with a long sigh. “Do you think I am paid by the government for all the work I do?”
“As a matter of fact, yes, I do.” I said.
“Well, I am paid less than it would cost to buy one bottle of that Scotch.” He waved a soft manicured hand at his impressive collection. “Still, I work. I get things done. I do the government’s business and it lets me do my business.” He re-inflated, inhaling loudly. “By when do you need the passport?”
“In two weeks.” Anna said.
“Two weeks is a problem. A big problem… But problems, they can be solved.” He scrawled on a pad and slid it toward me. “With these documents I can solve your problem.”
“Holy shit! He wants twenty thousand bucks!” I blurted in English, then, switching to Russian, “For a Russian passport? He must be crazy.”