It's fun flying out of Russia

Flying out of St. Petersburg (Spb) was interesting.

In order to even enter the airport you have to pass everything through
a metal detector. Pretty easy.

Then you have to get into what can only be loosely described as line.
A blob is more accurate. I stood around awhile not moving until I saw
a guy just walk past the bline (blob/line) and get checked, so I
followed him. Bingo. I literally pased about 200 people, half of which
I believe where Iranian. (more on this later).

Once past that chaos I find the ticket desks. I only had a small
backpack so I tried to electronically check in and get mu boarding
pass to no avail, which meant getting into a another bline. I notice
more chaos and now the Iranian group, I saw a passport, was in the
bline and there was a pretty big clog up, so I skipped again. And
again success!

Now passport control to leave Russia. That honest to goodness real
line was easy, passport control was not. Web it was my turn I handed
the girl my pasport and then lots of typing with altenative staring at
me, which turned into simply starjn at me with a doubtful look on her
face. Apparently she didn't think the photo on my passport looked like
me. Yikes!

Several reasons for this. 1st, As many of you know I'm a bit of an
idiot. When I last renewed my passport I took the photo with glasses
on. 2nd, I took th photo in the winter, white as a ghost, an I was now
tan (sunburnt). 3rd, after getting minimal sleep and a very hot and
sweaty day, I looked even worse than my passport photo, yes that's
possible. 4th, I've lost about 60 pounds since the photo was taken. A
good problem, but a problem none the less.
So sensing her doubts I fished out my glasses and put them on. Her
look eased a bit but was still doubting me. So being the mature person
I am, I stuck my thumb in my mouth and blew my cheeks out and
smiled....., she gave a big laugh and a nod. She then seemed to stamp
every paper, passport, visa, and receipt she had of mine and let me go.

Though passport control, done? Hardly the end of the fun. We then had
to go through ANOTHER set of x-Ray machines and checks. I'm fine with
this by the way; I'd rather not have some Chechen rebel take his
frustration with Putin or Medvedev out on me. Th only problem the
doors this additional security check was closed. So a nice unorderly,
poorly smelling bline was former. Absolute chaos. I initially thought
I came to airport to early, wrong. After 15 minutes it opens, and I as
usual for the day slither forward and bypass most of the bline.

After making or through I had a enough rubles for a beer so I of
course grabbed one, Nevskoe was the brand. Finished it it time to take
a bus to our plane on the runway. Let state that the Spb airport looks
neither large or modern and then I get this fantastic flying machine.
Next to it, as i can only imagine, our three "service" vehicles.

See next post for picture and story.., it involves me being questioned
by the Russian police.