Tims Times

The English language section of my shore pass from my “run up the road” in St. Petersburg yesterday. If you think that airport security is tough or has gotten tougher in the last few years, think again, the security in St. Petersburg was almost intolerably hard. To get out of the port installation there were two checkpoints, the first one had 5 guards they checked the ID papers, which had to match up with the paper which they had received from immigration. OK. Then there was a second control checkpoint with about 15 guards some armed, this was an immigration control who checked ID again and you then got the above shore pass. There was about 3 kilometers between each checkpoint, enough time for you to forge a new ID and escape unnoticed? nah, forget about it, unless you are an expert in Russian which is all anybody speaks. Russian is not only a foreign tongue, they have a completely different alphabet called “Cyrillic”, some letters may resemble the Latin alphabet but they mean something completely different here “B” means “V” and “C” means “S”, and then they have there own shapes too upside down v’s and back to front k’s and a few more thrown in for good measure.

All very straightforward? Enter Tim the sailor from Erin’s green shores, with my dark green Irish seaman’s discharge book, which may sound like something strange but it’s just a record or log book if you will of my time on various ships. On the front cover is a golden harp, and when you open it up it plays “When Irish eyes are smiling” ……OK it doesn’t play any music, but it’s fairly obviously Irish.

Checkpoint 1. Enter building 10:05 CET. Book taken by guard 1, everything seems to be in order but no, wait, hould on a feckin’ minute Patrick, one letter on my book does not correspond with the immigration papers. Guard 2 takes book, looks at me, looks at book, looks at photo in book (me from 1990, the book goes out of date when its full, a few pages left in mine) photo vaguely corresponds, and is in monochrome, stamp from immigration corresponds, same name, correct ship name only one flaw the serial number is one letter from perfection. I do believe I have entered the twilight zone. Are they being serious or is this some kind of humour I don’t get? Guard 2 hands book to Guard 3 who I don’t see, he is making a phonecall to Moscow or to somewhere important. Time now 10:40. It’s looking like Tim will have to go back to the ship, but salvation in the form of the young surveyor who speaks English appears, he takes the book and paper and drives to the immigration people who happen to be on a ship nearby. At 11:05 book and paper arrive back, and Guard 1 checks the details again, the thought crosses my mind is he taking the piss or does he have a very short attention span, anyway 10 minutes later I get passed the first checkpoint.

Phew! Checkpoint 2 is easy enough, I don’t know if any communication has taken place between checkpoints 1 & 2 but all goes well and I receive my shore pass, part of which is seen above. The pass is from the old days of the CCCP and has been through many greasy fingers over the years, many sailors have had it in their possession for a short period of time and it has remained in use. There was a serial number on the pass so there is probably a record of all the sailors that have used this pass somewhere. Penalty for loss of pass 1 rouble, which doesn’t amount to much these days about $ 0.04 so I was very tempted to lose it just to see what would happen, but I did not fall for my fleeting temptation, as it was not known what the Russian bit said, and they probably would not appreciate my sense of humour. I got back through the checkpoints without hassle, although the formality was at the same level, nearly no recognition, although I got a grin from Guard 1 and he mentioned Irlandia as he checked me back through.

Further notes on my shore leave to come, keep tuned to this page!