Going back happened in stages, felt a bit like descending down into the past, level by level…like in an old theatre of a country town…watching the same play they’ve been running for the last few decades…the actors got old and wrinkled, the decorations faded out and the wooden parts decayed…but the lines were still the same, and the characters were profoundly realistic, except from they didn’t seemed to have life’s energy in them, but rather acted like ghosts on the stage…and I had this eerie experience of knowing ahead the words they will say, the ways they will act, the thoughts they will think and the weird illogical logic behind their behaviour.
London Airport's check out let us through without paying any attention to our documents or luggage we carried…In Moscow on picking up connection flight we were told to almost strip off, taking off belts, jackets, shoes and do not have anything in hands, not even flight ticket, after which they subjected us to the thorough, almost indecent personal check, probed in such a places that you would never thought you can put anything in there! The security officers were all stiff and official with the faces that say “I do not do jokes”…on arrival to the final destination in Kazakhstan, they didn’t seem to be concerned with the weapons or drugs we might sneaked through into the country, but they tortured us with the most lengthy in the World bureaucratic customs procedures. We spent about 2.5 hours in “neutral” zone – not in Russia already, not in Kazakhstan yet. Until they stamped our passport with the sacred sign of their authority after a long interrogation…I wouldn’t mentioned this being a significant impression, if not for the fact, that the town we arrived to was just as it is – a tiny insignificant country style town, somewhere in the East of the Kazakhstan, not a capital, not of any historical or political value…and yet the procedures were in place as if we arrived to the world’s most famous packed with tourists place, surrounded by the flocks of terrorists waiting in ambush…I’m being slightly sceptical about it, yet in reality, somewhere in the middle of our long wait for our turn for customs a thought occurred to me that the Time has stopped there…that the past never changed…that these people in military uniforms just doing what they always do…for the last…decade?! As if there were no technological developments since last century, as if there were no progression of the thought…and I said to myself “welcome back in time”…
Later I’ve noticed, of course, all the changes that did occurred, and the most of them – for the better…but at the entrance point the first impression has been imprinted to my mind in a shape of Old And Weary…
London Airport's check out let us through without paying any attention to our documents or luggage we carried…In Moscow on picking up connection flight we were told to almost strip off, taking off belts, jackets, shoes and do not have anything in hands, not even flight ticket, after which they subjected us to the thorough, almost indecent personal check, probed in such a places that you would never thought you can put anything in there! The security officers were all stiff and official with the faces that say “I do not do jokes”…on arrival to the final destination in Kazakhstan, they didn’t seem to be concerned with the weapons or drugs we might sneaked through into the country, but they tortured us with the most lengthy in the World bureaucratic customs procedures. We spent about 2.5 hours in “neutral” zone – not in Russia already, not in Kazakhstan yet. Until they stamped our passport with the sacred sign of their authority after a long interrogation…I wouldn’t mentioned this being a significant impression, if not for the fact, that the town we arrived to was just as it is – a tiny insignificant country style town, somewhere in the East of the Kazakhstan, not a capital, not of any historical or political value…and yet the procedures were in place as if we arrived to the world’s most famous packed with tourists place, surrounded by the flocks of terrorists waiting in ambush…I’m being slightly sceptical about it, yet in reality, somewhere in the middle of our long wait for our turn for customs a thought occurred to me that the Time has stopped there…that the past never changed…that these people in military uniforms just doing what they always do…for the last…decade?! As if there were no technological developments since last century, as if there were no progression of the thought…and I said to myself “welcome back in time”…
Later I’ve noticed, of course, all the changes that did occurred, and the most of them – for the better…but at the entrance point the first impression has been imprinted to my mind in a shape of Old And Weary…