While in Helsinki Finland we found out about the shopping boat trip to Leningrad, Russia. A novel trip where you get on a boat in Helsinki and go to Russia for the day. No visa, no papers, just go shopping. We thought we could shoot across and see Leningrad with all of its beautiful architecture, churchanes, and museums. All we had to do was be back at the docks by nine that night to take the boat back to Finland. Simple, right? Not so fast.
We spent a few hours doing the artsy-fartsy tourist stuff, had lunc at a small cafe, and headed back to the touristy stuff, around six we found a cute little family restaurant to have dinner. It took a while to order because they had to get one f their grandkids to come over to translate for the owner and his wife who didn’t speak any English
somehow, one thing led to another. They ended up gathering the whole clan to see the ugly American tourists. Another somehow, time passed quickly and all of a sudden it was nine thirty and we had missed the boat back and were now in Russia illegally. What to do.
It was decided by one of the grandkids that one of their friends and his wife would put us up for the night and he would take us to the boat in the morning to catch the shopping boat to Helsinki. It seems that the boats cross paths in the morning, we would give them the equivalent of ten dollars and were warned that no matter what happened we were not to say anything about money. No matter what. Ten minutes later a young man came by. We gave him the money, and he reminded us and we said we know. It was a three or four o’clock walk to their house and on the way my girlfriend (who was kind of drunk) was speaking loudly. after her sixth or seventh use of the FFFF word two patrolling policemen heard her and followed us to the house. Once inside he introduces us to his wife. Then, a loud knock on the kitchen door shook me sober. He said remember and I nodded. In comes the popo one older and one younger, more oir age came in. They asked who we were and what we were doing. Our host started to explain to the older cop while I started to explain to the younger cop who spoke some English.
The story was exactly the same. But my girlfriend wasn’t having any of this. She started swearing and yelling, We’re American citizens, while waving her passport around. In the beginning the cops seemed pretty cool, even the older one. But his patience ran out pretty quick. It took a little longer for the younger cop. I knew we were in trouble when the cop speaking to me said I should have her shut up and maybe we could still salvage this mess. Too late. They all started speaking Russian and it went downhill from there. I was decided that we would go to the station and let the captain figure it out. Back to the street with our new friend two cops me and my girlfriend in tow shouting and screaming all the way to the police station.
It looked like a scene from car 54 where are you. Us cuffed to a metal bar with our new friend try to explain that he and his wife as a favor to the restaurant owner were trying to help us. That he was going to personally take us to the boat in the morning. Then we would go back to Finland and bother them no more. She was still spouting the American citizen crap but not as loud. The captain was getting a little bit mad at her. The captain finally yelled for her to shut up! then I told her she better listen and she shut up. The captain decided that we would spend the night in jail. Then the popo would drive us to the boat and make sure we got aboard and left.
In the morning, they brought us coffee and a roll with some butter. Told us we had ten minutes to get ready. We wolfed down the rolls and slurped down the coffee, grabbed our stuff and went out into the main room where the original two cops were there. They drove us to the docks and made sure we left on the boat. I’m pretty sure they were all happy to see us go, especially the captain, and even more so me.