Equivalents in cash

So then, more bureaucracy. Oh joy of joys. Still, on better note, we’ve just heard that Ananova published an article about us yesterday. Big shout to Ginny for the coverage. They’ve titled it “Football fans create World Cup’s version of Olympic torch” which we like – some nice touches too, such as the first line:

“A group of men (!!! – ed) are taking a football from London to Japan to create the World Cup’s version of the Olympic torch.”

The Ball hits the bar in Tashkent

Our stay in Tashkent has been brief – just long enough to organise how to get out of the place, in fact. We’re heading for the ancient and historic city of Samarkhand, built by Tamerlane to be the capital of his vast empire stretching far and wide across Asia.

The long ball from the centre of defence to midfield went straight to feet. We landed safely in Tashkent, though it was touch and go to say the least – the ball could easily have been intercepted, and we would have been left wide open at the back. Let me explain…

After our photo-shoot in Red Square, we headed off to meet Kevin O’Flynn from the Moscow Times, who will be writing (has already written?) the story about us. We explained ourselves and our trip to him as we ate lunch and later as we packed. Multi-tasking is everything when you travel as quickly as we are…

Finally, we managed to bundle ourselves into a cab – an ancient Volga with serious steering problems – and headed for Domodedovo Airport, which, we had been doubly assured, was to the west of Moscow. To our surprise and considerable concern, the friendly cabbie immediately headed off in the opposite direction, nodding enthusiastically whenever we questioned where we were going.

We had understood that the ride should take forty minutes or so, but an hour later we were still hurtling (in a roughly straight line) down the motorway through the Russian countryside… surges of panic gripped me as I contemplated arriving too late to catch the plane. Fortunately our cabbie knew better than we did, grinned widely as I tried to explain ‘5.20pm’ to him, and eventually we arrived at the airport half an hour before take off.

With a sigh of relief, we checked our bags in at the Domodedovo Airlines desk – only slightly perturbed by the syllable ‘ded’ in the name of an airline, and proceeded to customs… where things began to get really fraught. Phil, it seemed, had left his customs declaration form in his luggage, which at that moment was making its way to the aircraft without him. Thinking quickly, he left to fill in one of the many forms which littered the departures lounge.

Meanwhile, I, thinking to myself with a smug grin how organised I had been in keeping my declaration form with me, handed over my documents to a sour-looking official.

“How many dollars hugh have?”, he asked in a deadpan voice.

“Nine hundred” I replied, truthfully. Big mistake.

“But form say hugh have one hundred pounds angliski.”

“Yes.”

“So hugh can take only one hundred pounds with you.” A triumphant smirk began to creep across his face as a look of horror crept across mine. I had been to the cash machine in Moscow to prepare myself for the next leg of the journey in Uzbekistan.

“Er, um,” I replied, truthfully.

“Show me dollars,” he demanded

I flicked through the bundle of cash in front of him, wondering what I was going to do. If I questioned him or his authority, I would never get on that plane, so I tried another tack.

“The form says 700 pounds, not 100,” I lied, noticing that another official had ringed the figure in heavy ink. “Nine hundred dollars is less than seven hundred pounds.”

“Ok,” he said, handing back my forms and waving me on. I was about to to run to passport control, but at that moment Phil turned up with his newly minted form.

“Nyet. Entry Declaration Form, spasibo.” He began to grin again.

We looked at one another. This was going to be tricky. Phil started to explain the situation to the customs man, who showed not the slightest glimmer of interest in his story. As Phil began to raise his voice, a small crowd gathered around us, and this seemed enough to draw the attention of some airline officials, one of whom came over as if to help.

“You,” she said, pointing to me, “go through to passport control. You,” looking at Phil, “where is your form?”

“In my luggage,” he explained again.

“Then we have to get your bags off the plane and get the form. Come with me.”

“But…” Phil began to protest.

“Do you want to get on that plane?” she shouted.

“Er, yes,” he said, a little sheepishly.

“Then come with me,” she said more calmly, grabbing Phil by the arm.

He shot me a glance and we instantly understood that our journey now rested the hands of fate, or Russian bureaucracy, or both. I signalled to him that I’d see him on the plane, not feeling at all sure that that’s what would happen. I made my way to passport control, utterly unconcerned when they too started questioning my paperwork. Seemed that my arrival by train from Berlin was somehow beyond the limits of their understanding, until I started making ‘peeshti-kuff’ noises and reeled of the names of the cities I noticed on the way in to Russia. That seemed to convince them, and I was let through to the departures lounge.

Nervously, I made my way to the bus that was to to take me to the plane. The bus was empty save for a driver languishing in the front seat with a cigarette in one hand, and a magazine in the other, separated form me by a glass screen. I had no-one to speak to or ask what had happened to Phil, no-one to ease my anxiety, so I sent a last txt message ot Rachel in London, letting her know what had happened. If the worst came to the worst, I figured, at least someone would know.

After what seemed like an eternity, I woke from my internal musings to see a joyous but trembling Phil leaping onto the bus, punching the air in delight. My jaw hit the floor of the bus. He’d made it – somehow – thanks to an anonymous official who had simply walked with him through to passort control. Even as I write, I can hardly believe we’re here in Tashkent together.

Whoever you are, Mr Official, we both thank you from the bottom of our fragile, bruised hearts.

Could sport ever really bring peace, or is it just naivety?

If you’re reading this, my Russian friend, I hope you like this photo of you with Phil.

The Russian translation of our trip:

Phil gets all arty with the digital camera (sorry Phil!) and debunks one of the myths of this trip at the same time (sigh):

What a storming game of football we have just played… Post Moscow derby match between Locomotive (”Loco, Loco”) and Torpedo Zil, we gathered signatures on our World Cup ball, like football star trainspotters (a small bottle of ‘nail lacquer’ to protect) and attracted a crowd of young up and coming Torpedo stars whose trainer was only too happy to agree to their demands of an England/Russia showdown on the training ground across the car park.

The training ground and Roman, beautifully confident before the game

So I threw my Spartak WANKA (shaika, bobble hat bought yesterday) to one side and joined in the 6/7/8 aside. Blimey, could they play or what! The smallest of them, Roman was well gifted so I took him out early doors and we beat ‘em hollow….wrong… he was on my side actually and we linked beautifully now and again and all in all the game was played in a fantastic spirit, England, Russia and peace thrown off several pigeon English tongues.

Post photo session it was back on with my WANKA and head off to this ’round the corner from Red Square’ net cafe.

We were given tickets to the Moscow derby courtesy of Richard, friend and colleague of our Moscow sponsor Fraser Lawson. He also sorted tickets for us to see Spartak Moscow, where I picked up me hat and we also nearly lost the ball to an army lad who assumed we had nicked it from the stadium as they were using the Adidas World Cup ball too!

My WANKA, me and the Spartak ‘Luzhniki’ Stadium

Young Spartak fans

A Spartak player signs the ball

Fan with Spartak flag

Another Spartak player (we think it’s Titov, the captain)