former soviet union 1990

Did you know that in the former Soviet Union, all airports no matter where, ran on Moscow time. I learned this by showing up for an air flight in Estonia an hour early to find out that the plane was going to take off momentarily. So the only option for us (I was traveling with the guitar player and a band he assembled for this trip) was to take a train. Destination - St. Petersburg or Leningrad as it was called then.

Pile into cabs with the instruments (drums, bass, guitar, small rack for audio). Speaking of that rack, I travelled with this rack all over the US and 3 trips to europe to only have a single hop from Estonia to Leningrad (later that year) on Aeroflot managed to do any damage to my gear. Was a cool ride though. It was an old jet that looked like something from the 50's inside. No overhead compartments, just nets. The stewardess, in a dress, served tea in real glassware.

So, took cabs across town to the train station. This was my first train ride. The air flight is around an hour but the train is an overnight adventure. We get 1 sleeper cabin (upon later observation, we should have gotten two but monetary things were outside of my supervision). Haul the stuff into the sleeper. 4 people - 4 beds - 2 guitars, bass, 2 small racks (guitar and audio), drum kit. Kick drum happens to just hang between the top bunks over the door so you walk under it to get in and out.

I am a little claustrophobic so I head out in the isle. We meet a couple traveling musicians that speak enough english to communicate. We also meet an American who was hired to coach a russian baseball team. He loved the trains because of the tea, to quote him, noticing the girls hanging to his side. The bathroom is basically an outhouse that I decided I wouldn't use, ever.

Each car in the train has hostess who takes the tickets, and such. Our lady looked exactly how you imagine a older Russian woman. Short, stout, talked very sternly and loudly. She would come into our cabin and basically yell at us in Russian. The guys would look at her and say, "English, American, don't understand". She obviously didn't understand us and just kept yelling. I thought it was rude to ignore her so I would just sit there and look at her while she talked but would say, "I don't understand you" every now and then.

The train took off and I went back out into the isle as well as the drummer and bass player. They were talking with those musicians that I mentioned before, but I was basically watching out the windows. I turned around and noticed the lady coming back down the isle towards us.

She came right up to me and started talking to me. But this time she wasn't yelling and she had softened up her voice. I turned around and asked one of the musicians to translate for me. So he comes over, she turns to him and says something. He smiles and looks back at me as tells me that she is asking if I would like to have some tea down in her cabin with her.

I politely refused.

Later that year, we went back to the Baltic states (right before Christmas) with the same band. We had finished a gig and they took us to eat. In the evenings, it seemed that the restaurants were also bars with dance floors. So we go sit down in a corner with the local people that were hosting us.

I noticed as we walked in that there was this tall lady out on the dance floor dancing by herself. I assumed that she had been drinking and just doing what drunk people do and enjoying themselves. We had been sitting and talking for about 5 minutes when this lady came up to the bass player, who was sitting next me, and started talking in russian. He looked to one of our hosts who said she was asking if he wanted to dance. He said no and pointed to his wedding band. She just stood there for a moment and then reached over and grabbed my hand and started pulling at me. I looked at her and said no shaking my head several times but she just kept squeezing harder and pulling harder. Finally the hosts on the other side of the table started yelling "Evangelista, Evangelista" (at least that is what I heard) and she let me go.

The guys in the band reminding me that I had way with Russian women from that day on.