Glimpse - Your Stories from Abroad

Life is good, I think to myself, as I jauntily step out of the Taganskaya metro station. I somewhat know my way around Moscow, I can respond to people when they ask me questions, and I am going to meet a friend of mine for an evening that promises to be entertaining. What more could I want?

“Hello,” says a voice next to me in Russian. I turn and see a policeman, smiling and saluting me. “Can I check your documents please?”

In Russia, everyone is required to carry his or her passport at all times. Irrespective of citizenship, the passport is considered the only legitimate proof of your identity, and the police carry out random checks on people everywhere in Moscow.

In addition to carrying your identification, if you are in Moscow, you need a special permit that allows you to stay in Moscow. Again, this is true for both Russians and non-Russians. If you live in Moscow, the government registers you as a resident, and if you are a tourist, you need to be registered at the local office so that you are allowed to carry out your daily activities without hindrance.

As I hand the police officer my passport, his eyes light up. “Foreigner,” he says. “Where is your visa?” I point out the page as he ruffles through my passport. “And where is your permit?” I take the passport from his hands, find the page with the permit, and hand it to him. He looks at it for a while, then scrutinizes me shrewdly. “This is not in order.”

“Excuse me?”

“Your documents are not in order.”

“Why?” I ask.

“Your permit to live in Moscow has been issued by the hotel that you are staying at. It should be issued by the university where you are studying.”

“But I am not staying at the university. Isn’t the place where you stay the one that has the authority to grant the permit?”

He thinks about that for a while. “No, your permit should have been issued by the Ministry of External Affairs because you are a foreigner,” he says, reconsidering.
“But the Ministry has given permission to the hotel I am staying at to issue permits. I have been to the Ministry and they have told me the same thing.”

“Your documents are not correct,” he says in response.

“Are you saying that the Ministry is not correct?”

“Your documents are not correct,” he maintains.

I sigh. I have been through this before. Corruption is very much a part of police life in Moscow. There are a number of policemen who supplement their incomes by pouncing upon foreigners or tourists to check their documents. If the hapless tourist does not have the proper documentation, then he or she has to line the pockets of the apprehending cop.

As a non-white person in Moscow, I am like a walking ATM machine. Cops come flocking to me to check my identification, and even though my documents are all perfectly in order, cops who are having a bad day, or cannot find enough people to fleece, will conjure up imaginary mistakes in my permits and ask for a “fine.”

I need to meet my friend so I decide to hurry things up a bit. “How much do you want?” I ask.

“What did you say?”

“How much do you want?”

He draws himself up to his full height. “This is the police of the Russian Federation that you are speaking to,” he says haughtily. “Do you think you can get away with bribing a government officer? Do you know that this is a crime? Your documents are not in order. I will have to take you to the local police station. Come with me.”

I am alarmed. I follow him to his patrol car. It is about 6 p.m., and the streets are crowded. People are returning from work, streaming steadily from the metro station. Street vendors offer flowers, baked potatoes and ice cream.

Great, I think, the last thing I needed was to be taken into custody in a foreign country. I can already hear the anguish in my parents’ voices when I call them from jail, if I am even allowed an international call.

The officer gets into the front seat. Instead of turning on the lights and starting the car, he looks back at me.

“This is not right,” he says. “You don’t have a proper permit.” I shrug my shoulders. There is nothing I can do about it now. “You should not do this. It is illegal,” he says.

Now I get it. He was hesitant about taking money from me outside, in full view of other people. He is not going to take me to the police station, as long as I pay him off.

“How much do you want?” I ask again, cautiously.

“How much do you have?” he returns instantly.

“I can give you 50 Rubles,” I say. It comes to a little less than $2, a low figure, and I hope I don’t have to bargain with him. I don’t want to give him any more than I have to.
“Okay,” he says.

As I hand him five 10 Ruble bills, he counts them: Then he looks at me and asks, “Did you drive here or did you take the metro?”

“I took the metro,” I say, not knowing what he is getting at.

“Do you have money to buy a ticket to go home or do you need some?”

He has changed from the formal "vy" ("you") to the more informal "ty," used with friends and close acquaintances.

I assure him that I have a monthly pass and that I can go home without problems. I am a little anxious to get out of the patrol car now, and I wish him a pleasant evening.

“Enjoy your stay in Moscow,” he says as I step out of the car. “Russia is a beautiful country. You will see things here that you won’t see anywhere else.”

I could not agree with him more.