Apprehended!

If you look like a foreigner in Ukraine- chances are, at some point- you will be stopped by the police. They ask for your passport and check to see if you are in the country illegally. Most of the time, they are simply looking for a few bucks of "chai" money.

Arun and I have been stopped a couple of times. Never near our home in Fontanska because it's a suburb; generally it's downtown on Deribasovskaya.

They are generally cordial- they ask for papers, and Arun just NEVER carries them! But so far he has gotten away with showing his Texas driver's license. Usually, they ask him, "Uchinik?" meaning- are you a student? That's because usually the foreigners living in Odessa ARE students! But we (I) usually have to correct them and explain that we work here (he shows them his office id) and they see that he's married and that we look innocent-enough and they salute us and let us go.

Well- this didn't happen the last time Arun got caught.

I think mainly it's because this is the first time I wasn't with him.

AND he was hanging out at the airport (waiting to pick me up!)

Well, the police caught up to him and asked for his passport- which of COURSE he wasn't carrying. He tried his old trick of showing them his driver's license and Raytheon ID card and they just refused to budge! They sent him to the police station nearby to talk to the head guy there. Well, by this time Arun called the office manager at his work and they quickly faxed over a copy of his passport to the police office. About 15 minutes later, the whole thing was cleared up and Arun was released.

Well- news spread like wildfire at his work! Arun was APPREHENDED!

Little did they know that this had been our third time. And that Arun STILL hadn't learned his lesson about carrying his darn passport around!

I was speaking with one of my students, Zoong, who is Vietnamese in origin (but Russian in every other way!) and he mentioned that he gets stopped by the police all the time too. It seems Arun's main mistake at the airport is not slipping them a 20 Hr note! The police, like everyone else in Ukraine, are incredibly underpaid- so it's really just a way to bolster their income. They mean no harm! And it's true- generally they are young guys who are usually very respectful to us. One of the times on Deribasovskaya- Arun even tried to shake the cops' hand at the end! That didn't really fly....

Live and Learn!