The Russia Experience
Russia is a country that we really just used as a way back home. We had to stop for fuel somewhere after Japan and the eastern Kamchatka Peninsula provided a convenient path between Sapporo, Japan and Anchorage, Alaska. The map below shows the flight plan from Petropavlovsk to Anadyr Russia. This worked out well with 3 to 3.5 hour flight legs from Sapporo to Petropavlovsk, Petropavlovsk to Anadyr, and Anadyr to Anchorage.
There was a lot of consternation over getting into and out of Russia. Our fearless leader, Guillaume from Air Journey has done it before and it has not always gone smoothly. The Russian immigration and customs officers can be tough and they definitely don’t have a sense of humor. Fortunately, in our case, things went as smoothly as could be expected.
Landing in Petropavlovsk, we were immediately greeted by the authorities. They weren’t armed but apparently they have been on past Air Journey Round the World trips. I won’t say they were friendly but they weren’t nasty either. They wanted to see our paperwork and to search the airplanes. We opened up all the doors and luggage compartments and they looked through things, including boarding the plane for a closer inspection. Fortunately, they didn’t open any bags or packages so the process didn’t take too long.
Deb befriended the customs officer that was working on our plane. When she first approached him, she asked, “How do you say hello in Russian?”. He responded with, “Hello, I am a Russian police officer.” Gulp. He was actually friendly and very curious about our trip. I wasn’t sure if it was genuine or if he was just extracting information. In the end, Deb struck up quite a conversation with him and he really wanted to know where Americans invest their money. She tried to explain the stock market with some limited success. He seemed to think that the only place to invest is in gold and silver...
When we left the US in May, we carried a box of 24 Red Sox baseball caps with us to be used as gifts for friendly, helpful airport personnel. We gave them out to various fuel delivery, customs, and guide people along the way. At one point on the ramp in Petropavlovsk, I saw Deb handing her police officer friend one of the caps as a gift. He seemed to really love it but all I could think of was my wife being locked up abroad for bribing a Russian police officer.
Lizzy also managed to have some fun with another officer. She can befriend anyone it seems. How she got away with wearing this guy’s hat and taking a photo is without explanation. I’m just glad she did!
We spent the night in the “nicest hotel in Petropavlovsk”. The bar in that city is not very high, that’s for sure. The hotel wasn’t bad but no where near the level of accommodations to which we’d become accustomed.
We also dined in the “nicest restaurant in Petropavlovsk”. Same story. Acceptable but definitely not “Wow” (at least not in my humble opinion). Needless to say, we did have some fun together there. That’s a common theme with this group. It’s been an absolute blast.
We departed Petropavlovsk the next morning. After some waiting, document reviewing, and more waiting, they let us go. 3 hours later we were landing in Anadyr. The Kamchatka Peninsula is an active volcanic area and one of the volcanoes has been erupting. This didn’t cause us any trouble as we were able to climb above the ash cloud long before we reached the volcano. However, the landscape made the views absolutely stunning on this flight.
Anadyr was just a fuel stop. We wanted to land, get fuel, and get out of dodge. G set our expectations pretty low for this stop. What should take just a few minutes per airplane he suggested could take several hours. It turned out to be more efficient than we expected. We still experienced plenty of paperwork, passport, and visa review as well as our fair share of being told to wait but overall, it was not a bad experience.
I did think it was funny that the officers insisted on photographing the inside of our planes. Two different guys took lots of pictures of the cabin, cockpit, and luggage compartments. To me, it seemed like a complete CYA act. I’m guessing that if something did go wrong with us / our flights, these officers would have to answer to the higher ups and the photos just might somehow prove that they actually did their jobs. I’ll never know and I don’t care. They can have all the photos of my plane that they want so long as they let me out of the country. Which they did. 3.5 hours later we landed in the USA at Anchorage. I nearly kissed the ground when I got out of the plane.







