LOL that was a long time ago data:image/gif;base64,R0lGODlhAQABAIAAAAAAAP///yH5BAEAAAAALAAAAAABAAEAAAIBRAA7 It is so transformed now (well Moscow area), I can't wait to go back. I got to go for work for two weeks soonish, need to get me visa sorted again next week and still need to get a letter of invitation...
I'm going to go looking for my SOXMIS card. I wonder if I still have it.
I always remember flying into Bucharest during the Cold war and getting my first experience of the 'welcome' by lines of military jeeps with mounted PKM clones (Russian machine guns) along the runway at the point the planes actually land and slow down - but to be honest, it was the worst case of food poisoning that I have ever had that really made the greatest Romanian impression on me .....
PS I was a young teenager not there for commercial purposes, so other than the air port, my experiences were very restricted to the somewhat 'artificial' experience created for foreign visitors.
Yes it was in the middle 1980s. I well remember the smell of boiled cabbage and old sweat, unsuccessfully masked with rose-scented perfume.
Hence my reference to Corbyn coming out smelling of roses.
Had 3 weeks working in Bucharest, stayed in the Lido hotel. Had to stay clear of the beautiful young women at the bar, they constantly pestered you to 'buy them a drink'. So many Western blokes were caught and subsequently blackmailed by these girls.
Oh, the joys of constant surveillance and traps set to get you in the old Soviet countries.
Lol that is still there. Those guys try and get me to go in a taxi with them. I just call an uber and get a nice Mercedes GLS instead. I don’t get it that there are still people gong in with a stranger.
OK, Russian story time.
I flew from Moscow to Tomsk and was met by the Chief Geophysicist who promptly opened his briefcase to reveal half a dozon bottles of vodka.
That was just the start of the trip. For the next week in Siberia we were cracking open bottles at every opportunity. They had a pull top like an old milk bottle, so you had to finish it once opened.
On the last day, just before the flight back to Moscow, they brought breakfast and vodka! They wanted to toast Margaret Thatcher! They really admired her. My Hungarian colleague/translator bottled out and said he had a stomach ulcer!
But to bring it back OT, the Russians were really happy that the country was moving away from the Communist ideology.
My main eastern experience was an evaluation of them in Kazakhstan. The UN wanted to know if they were fit to serve with them. I never saw Borat but I did met a family who weren't far off.
I was amused by numerous things.
An incredibly lax attitude to explosives. When they made bat sims they were not too bothered about health and safety etc.
Cannabis plants grew wild on the exercise area. Literally growing as a weed.
Amusingly they brassed up the wrong target on an ambush. We'd set them up for an ambush. A dignitary turned up to visit them so they thought, "hey we're an ambush, that's a vehicle, hit it." So they did. The passengers on the vehicle weren't impressed.
Their seniors were violent to them. If you weren't of a high rank you weren't respected. If you told them to parade at 0800 they would rock up when they felt like it. So you had to grab them by the throat and threaten to pummel them if they didn't turn up and they would then comply. This wan't like modern army teachings and it was back to basics. Think Bad Lads Army etc. Threats and violence motivated them.
I also remember having to break water in the sinks to shave in the morning. It was ice.
Also getting hammered on vodka while playing Jenga with one of their commanders. Happy days.
apologies, for a split second I thought that meant you shaved with your pee
In the morning it was freezing cold so you had to smash the water to get some water to shave.
There was other things I thought was funny. The idea was to see if they could be deployed to serve with the UN. So they'd have to respect the Geneva convention, treat prisoners of war correctly, be professional etc.
One of the guys there evaluating them was a Royal Marine officer. His view was they were "hard" and better off on our side than not. He got steaming drunk in a yurt with them and threw up everywhere. Actual projectile vomiting during the dinner. I'm not sure how that was diplomatically but we figured, "he's a marine, what do you expect."