Russian Bureaucracy Madness

While studying for our trip to Russia I had read about the bureaucracy that exists in the country that can make travel tough. However, during our entire time in that beautiful country we never experienced it…that is until our final moments before leaving. We were booked on an overnight flight from Moscow to Beijing. In the late evening we headed to Belorussky train station in central Moscow to catch the painless train to Sheremetyevo Airport. Everything was going smoothly until we checked in for the flight…it was chaos. After making through that we thought “the worst is behind us”…then we saw the passport control line. Imagine hundreds of people trying to make their way through about 4 passport control lines (being managed by some very slow moving Russian airport workers). At first it looked like there were 4 lines but after a few minutes people started pushing and cutting and it turned into one blob of people (it felt like a rock concert). I remember thinking to myself “at least we got here early and we have 2 hours before our plane leaves.” Well...15 minutes before our plane took off Lindsay and I were still waiting in the line! Over the last 2 hours we had seen numerous arguments, countless cutting in line and a Chinese man yelling about how unfair it all was. The best moment was when a Russian man and his entire family cut in line and the whole crowd starting yelling. He turned around and said “I am Russian…this is my country…I can do this.” We eventually made it through the passport control with only 10 minutes left before our flight left. We were running through the airport with our bags at full speed (think the Amazing race). We finally made our flight and could finally attest to the “Russia bureaucracy” we had read about. :)


This picture was taken just after we barely made it on our plane...sums up the experience!