Arriving into Sochi

The Airport

The flight to Adler-Sochi (AER) from DME was with S7 Airlines. S7 used to be Siberian Airlines, and is now Russia's biggest domestic carrier. The experience starts with the surreal sound of the announcements pertaining to flights on S7 Airlines at Domodedovo. In amongst all of the Russian of the announcements, you then hear "S7 Earlines" (that's not a spelling mistake - it's how the automated announcements sound) interspersed on regular intervals. You then notice that Russians don't wait their turn, largely, to board airplanes. A lot are polite and line up, but there is a larger contingent happy to push in. 

Aboard the plane, you then get a Stepfordian set of robotic hostesses delivering the safety dance in perfect sync. Every gesture or smile seemed like it's rehearsed down to the second, to be done in sync with the person in front. In total, 3 hostesses stand down the length of the crowded plane.

The hot food on S7 is abysmal, but the open-by-perforation box of ambient food products is fine. On the way out, I asked for an omelette and got what seemed to be a pile of congealed mashed potato, a fossilised broccoli and a single piece of pepperoni. Not only were the boxes mis-labelled (probably), they were gross. I would have complained and sent it back, but if this is what mashed potato is like, I dread to think what omelette looks like! Please imagine all of this - I didn't get a photo on the way out!

The flight into Adler-Sochi (AER) airport is pretty breathtaking, as far as flights go. This bests Nice-Cote D'Azur for an arrival over water. You actually fly out over the black sea, and then descend into Adler actually over the top of the hotel I was staying in.

The arrival into Adler over the Black Sea

The landing was greeted with applause. Even though the weather was fine - look at the picture above - the air was quite turbulent on the way down. You also come in low over buildings, which gave the landing a small fear factor for some, I guess.

Sochi Airport, at the gate waiting to deplane

Adler-Sochi airport itself, although upgraded for Sochi 2014, still seemed like a pretty small metropolitan airport.

Before I even left the UK and to save me time and hassle, I booked a taxi using welcometaxi.ru. For an advance booking, and to also save the haggle factor that Russian taxi's are so famous for, I went with a 1500Rub pre-booked taxi with an English speaking driver.

As I deplaned, made my way through the airport, got my bags and arrived in the Arrivals hall, I noticed that there wasn't anyone here holding a plate with my name on it. I knew my name in Cyrillic also, and sure enough there was no one here. "OK", I thought... I wasn't going to panic. I've got a few things to do here while I wait. The booking said the driver would wait an hour... clearly, he's in the wrong place, just like my driver was in SFO.

I went and sorted out my SIM card. I bought a "Welcome To Sochi" plan from Megafon, and after going and getting Russian Rubles from the Bank of Moscow on the top concourse, fired up my iPhone and - for a brief second - had data connection; just enough to deliver to me the email telling me that the driver had been waiting in the Arrivals hall since 12:06, and that he had left because he'd been waiting an hour for me.

12:06? My flight is scheduled to arrive at 12:40. My flight is only 2 hours and 20 minutes long, so we'd have to be hustling it to be a full 34 minutes early on such a short flight! What?

OK, so no one is coming to pick me up.

So, I went over to the Sochi 2014 volunteers desk, where a very nice lady came out with me onto the concourse outside the airport, and she took me to barter with some taxi drivers. This is where I learned two very valuable lessons. The first lesson is really the second lesson in reverse: don't book online before you go, and you'll get the best price if you barter well.

I didn't barter well, but I got a reasonable price. The barter started at 1200Rub. I said no way, but I knocked it down to 900. The lady said to me "Oh, you've got to knock him down more. 900? You sure, that's high!" Well, I'm not used to this! AND, I don't really know how much English these guys know, so do they know I'm saying "900", or is it all gibberish to them?

So I do a pre-barter with the lady, getting her advice on what to do and eventually the original driver bows out when I knock it all down to 700Rub, but then another Taxi driver who's been standing in the background kind of steps forward, and he says "Seven Hundred?", I say "Yes... Dah", we shake hands, and then the deal is done. "Paydirt!" I thought... at less than half the price of the taxi I booked, I thought I had a result!

Outside Adler-Sochi airport, photo taken by my taxi driver

The driver was good, and insisted on taking my bags, even though I know how awful they are to roll anywhere. I repeatedly said I could take them, but he was very cool about it. 

He gestured that we were going up to where the road is above. It just so happens that as we exit, A-House is Amosov's House (centre of picture), where I would have stayed had I not been overbooked. Good job I wasn't there!

There are two vehicles parked near the yellow sign in the picture below as well. I knew of Russia's fragrant reputation for dodgy taxi vehicles, which was one of the reasons I always tried to book with providers before going, because you could choose the class of vehicle to pick you up, and could ensure that something safe would arrive! Naturally, my hopes gravitated towards the ford minibus in the photograph, and the reality - when he asked me to wait with my bags while he picked up his car - was to turn out to be the ancient Lada parked in from of it.

 

I got into the Lada - sat in the back - and noticed as we took off that as I stuffed my hands down the back of the seat, of course there were no seat belts! The negotiation phase prior to this journey didn't take into account vehicle make or safety, and I now also noticed that Lada's are low to the ground, and made out of what looks like tin foil. The springs in the seat had seen better days, and my butt was in serious threat of getting road rash. 

Firtunately, his driving wasn't too bad and thankfully, because it's a Lada, it actually cannot go fast, so there's no threat of us being the cause of a high speed collision. Every now and then, I'd see big cement trucks that could crush this tin can into smithereens, followed by thoughts of how my holiday surely couldn't be over this soon, but then they'd drive past and I lived to tell another minute.

Rostov Hotel

My driver pulled around a bend and then he said "Tsvetochnaya", gesturing with his hand along the length of the road. This looked about right. We then pulled up outside the hotel (above), where I paid hims, and snapped a picture of him with his vehicle (below).

On arrival at the hotel, seemingly random looking dudes were hanging around inside the gate. It's always an impression I've had of Russia - lots of people standing around on street corners, in alleyways, or wherever, not up to much, and so far this fitted that bill. But then a young guy - who turned out to be Nashan, one of the people who runs the hotel - grabbed my bags from me and ushered me in, clearly he knew that I was the non-Russian they've been expecting at their hotel, given how I didn't really know what to say to him. It's weird like that when you're in a country where no one speaks your language, and you don't speak theirs. The instinct to just talk and say stuff has to be put to the back of the cupboard, and you have to find a new way of communicating, that both of you will be guaranteed to be bad at initially, but that both of you will also find a way to settle on a common vocabulary for that meets the needs of the situation as time goes on. Writing this in hindsight and after the trip, I can say that you can still communicate with anyone using gesture, and often via weird coincidental similarities between your languages.

My taxi driver, and his dodgy Lada

 After sitting down in the reception room, which seemed to be the front room of the apartment where the people who run the hotel live, I met Angela who was the only real English speaker at the hotel. It was a relief to meet her, because the whole checkin affair was quite complex, given the registrations that had to be done by the hotel after I arrived. Apparently, they'd just introduced a new system, so they had numerous troubles with adding me on there.

After being given my keys and unpacking, Angela was then really helpful, showing me around Adler and taking me to the Spectator Registration Centre for picking up my Spectator Pass.

Inside the Mandarin Mall Sochi 2014 Spectator Registration Centre in Adler

The inside of the centre was like organised chaos, as with so many things in Russia, like driving up busy roads, or getting on airplanes. They make you go to different ends of this building to do different things to get your spectator pass, and then you have to wait while someone with a megaphone reads out your name from the centre of the building after they print it and laminate it.

On the way back from having Angela help me fix a problem at the Megafon store with my data connection, I then asked her about dinner at the hotel. Being a bit tired, I didn't necessarily fancy braving the street food. She said they're open from 5pm until 10pm for dinner. She also offered to make me a menu, translated with google translate, so that I could order in the restaurant, where the ladies don't speak any English. It was really helpful!

I ordered the borsch, which as you can see below was a beautiful light soup, made with umpteen vegetables, and topped with a blob of sour cream. They make it there, and it was really delicious! I had that the next evening as well....

I would need some good food, given the next day was going to be my first one on the Olympic park, and I wasn't quite sure yet what to expect from that!

I'll be back soon with the next instalment.