Traveling With Russians

10/1/07
I was psyched for my Lufthansa flight because I thought it would be more luxurious than my last international flight, which was on Aeroflot (a Russian airline). I was initially dismayed to find I was sitting behind some Russian sailors from Kaliningrad who were busy knocking back shots of amaretto and Jack Daniels. But then Genye, the giant and somewhat foul man across the isle, offered me a drink and we stared talking (in Russian). After a while I decided these guys were pretty alright, and definitely more entertaining that in the in-flight movie. At the back of the plane, another sailor, Demetri, showed me his pictures from Ghana, Congo, and New Orleans on his laptop. We were getting in a heavy political conversation (he knew a decent amount of English) when an old American guy said, “It’s 4 am. I’m trying to sleep. Keep it down.” Not quite true. It was 4 am Frankfurt time—our destination. Our flight had departed from Washington, DC were it was only 10 pm. However, by this point the whole back half of the plane was probably getting annoyed with us, so I broke up the conversation. A couple of my fellow volunteers had quietly asked me if it was OK. Yeah, I’m fine. It’s not my first time traveling with Russians.