How I ran out of money in spite of having lots of it; and how I saved my ass.

Sochi… glittering up for 2014 Winter Olympics

I was not sure of writing this post since after reading it you might think that I have earned a masters degree in mismanaging money on my travels (Blogged earlier: running out of money in Bhutan). I went to Sochi with lots of cash – some roubles and lots of dollars. Exchanging money is very very easy in Russia, there are banks and private booths all over the place, so I was comfortable with my dollars. Unfortunately the dollars I was carrying were… Canadian. In a completely hopeless situation like that in India, people would simply go to a store and get money against a fake purchase on their credit card.

Since when did CAD become a universal currency? I completely missed that fact that Sochi, unlike Moscow, is a small town and may not have a CAD exchange.

My credit cards did not work in the bank machine for some reason, nor did my debit cards. It was a real panicy situation, since I had only about RUR 1000 (USD 50) and I needed atleast RUR 2500 (USD 125) for a comfortable 2 day stay (Sochi is somewhat expensive).

In a completely hopeless situation like that in India, people would simply go to a store and get money against a fake purchase on their credit card. The store owner would keep a hefty percentage of this transaction as his commission, but atleast your ass got saved. I decided to try the same in Sochi.

So a foreigner who barely spoke the local language was going to ask a storekeeper to cheat, using a credit card issued in another foreign country.

It might sound like a ridiculously impossible feat, but somehow it happened.

: : :

I went inside a swanky apparel store near the Sochi waterfront. Walking straight to the cashier, (wo)manned by two young girls who are addressed as Devushka (like Señorita in Spanish) I had the following conversations in Russian:

Me: Hello devushka, do you speak English?
Her: Not at all!
Me: Okay, I speak some Russian, I will try. Help me please. I have a credit card and some Canadian dollars, but I have no Russian money. In bank, no exchange Canadian dollars…. bad… So I have no Roubles. I am thinking, maybe you give me some roubles… I have credit card of American dollars.

Apparently such ‘tricks’ are not popular. OR they did not understand anything I said.

Plan B.

I picked up a shirt and asked if I could pay by credit card.
She: Yes, RUR 800.
Me: Ok, so this cost RUR 800. Maybe I give RUR 1000 on credit card. Then you give me RUR 200. You understand?
I tried saying that atleast five times in different ways. Finally the girls talked to each other and understood what I was trying to say.

She: umm.. okay.
Me: Can you give me more money?
She: Yes, how much do you want?
Me: I will need RUR 1000
She: Okay, so the total is RUR 1800.

I had no intent of buying anything. The girls were about to lose patience, I thought.

Me: I no buy shirt, but I buy socks, is that okay?
She: Ok, but you dont want the shirt?
Me: No, I just need money, roubles.
She: Ahhh now I understand. No problem, I can give you money. Don’t buy anything.

And thus after struggling at the counter for 15 minutes, using every possible word I knew in Russian, surrounded by other employees who had stopped their work to watch, they finally agreed to give me money against a fake purchase on my credit card.

Me: What time store close?
She: At 8
Me: That’s late, I want to buy you coffee. Because you help me.
She: No, no need. *blush*
Me: Please, I want to buy for you.
(Oh, what an un-gentlemanly language… I wish I knew more words…)
She: Okay there is Mc Donalds outside

Ah, McDonalds! Probably the most favorite restaurant in Russia (more about it later)!

I bought four coffees for all of them and left the store with my pockets full and an ear to ear smile on my face. First thing to do now was to go to a Georgian food joint and eat some Caucasian food. I shuddered at the thought of what would have happened if the girls didn’t help me.

Khachapuri (Georgian food) – Bread filled with cheese.

Yet another example of outstanding helpful nature, tremendous patience and modesty shown by ordinary Russians. Their gesture completely swept me off my feet – they had stopped their work to listen to a foreigner asking for an outrageous obligation, without getting frustrated. Salutes.

© RSS feed from Final Transit - Priyank's notes from the road.. If you are viewing this content on a website instead of your RSS feed reader, then the website you are on is guilty of stealing my content without permission. Please visit my blog (Final Transit) and let me know so that I can take action against this spam website. Thanks!

Sochi sea terminal

Petr Pervyi (I don’t know who he is)

Sochi’s water front is elegant and tacky at the same time. Modern structures hug around older Soviet constructions giving the place a strange feel. Wide squares and tree lined promenades dot the coast, which even has a small stony beach which I saw but never went to. The gentle see breeze made me Mumbai-sick and I walked around watching the sunset and ducking crowds at fancy restaurants oozing with booze and food.

Viewing gallery

Boats travel to Trabzon, Turkey and neighboring Georgia (which was closed since the latest Russo-Georgian war had just ended) from here and I fancied a Istanbul-Trans Siberia-Beijing trip as I saw several people lining up at the immigration office before boarding their ship.

Cranes at the port. One can take a ship to Georgia, Turkey etc. from here.

Hooking up

You often meet random interesting people while traveling and sometimes you hit it off together – the circumstances are perfect: no strings attached, traveling in an alien land and everyone is looking for some entertainment anyway. I have this theory that locals are always interested in foreigners because foreigners are like rare commodities. A traveler on the other hand has multiple options. Sometimes you are consciously looking for something, at other times you are definitely not and this story is one from the later case.

Ship

After I found accommodation in Sochi, I dropped my backpack and went out to to see if I could have a quick snack. There was a little roadside shack manned (or should I say womanned) by an old lady (called Babushka – they keep Russia functioning) who was making Chicken Kievskaya, pieces of chicken (and cheese) stuffed in bread and deep fried, about which I had heard but never tried. At RUR 30 (1.5 USD), it was cheap and just the thing I was looking for. A twenty-five’ish girl came up to me and asked something to which I replied, “Sorry, I speak only a little Russian.” She was delighted and stopped there to speak English with me. I LOVE chatting with strangers and gosh, she spoke English! I was on the way to my room and I don’t know where she was off to, so we walked to a park nearby and sat on a bench in front of a Lenin statue (he watches us from everywhere) to eat. She spoke good English but she was talking very randomly and asking me every 2 minutes, “Hi, my name is Sofia, what is your name?”, while the molten cheese was dropping all over her face and hands.
She was beyond drunk.

Exhausted from the train journey and dying to crash on a stationary bed, I quickly finished my snack and proceeded to leave, but she insisted on going along with me. “What’s that ring on your finger, are you married? You have a girlfriend?” she kept on asking. “Ugh.. something like that..” “Buy me a beer, I will come with you, you are a nice guy.” I giggled in my head with sympathy… oh honey… and told her that I must go for I can’t do what she expects of me. But her grip on my hand was quite firm, making me wonder if she was the legacy of one of those steroid-fed Soviet power women.

I dragged her to a bus stop and the scene turned somewhat ugly. She wouldn’t let go of me and even started shouting, “Don’t you like me?”. I was yelling firmly “Я хочу уйти сейчас!” (“I want to leave right now!”) And people looked at us. And I looked away, slightly worried of police (who are everywhere) intervention since I had not registered my travel visa. And she walked behind me. “Do you really want me to go? What kind of a guy are you?” I said, “Dasvidanya, seeyou..” “See you? really? when?” Oh damn, why did I say ‘seeyou’.., I thought (some phrases come out of your mouth as a reflex, pravda?)

Anyway, finally I got rid of her, much to the amusement of onlookers and to my embarrassment. This whole incident reminded me of Cusco, Peru, 2008, where in a somewhat similar incident in the hostel common room, a girl ended up puking on my back, on my shirt that said ‘I love Machu Picchu‘ which I had purchased only few hours earlier. Damn!

Traveling is fun, isn’t it? Go ahead, lemme hear you laugh…

Sunset at Sochi dock, on the Black Sea

© RSS feed from Final Transit - Priyank's notes from the road.. If you are viewing this content on a website instead of your RSS feed reader, then the website you are on is guilty of stealing my content without permission. Please visit my blog (Final Transit) and let me know so that I can take action against this spam website. Thanks!