The Foreign Service Journal, March 2012

I n 1997, near the end of our For- eign Service tours in Tashkent, my wife and I booked a one-stop flight to St. Petersburg for a vacation. Our first inkling that this was going to be a unique experience occurred as we were boarding the plane. Our fel- low passengers stormed the plane like a herd of stampeding cattle, many of them carrying one or two buckets of freshly picked berries and other kinds of fruits. Once we boarded, many of them placed their fruitful bounty up against passenger windows, in the aisles be- side their seats, and even onto the seats themselves, fastening two or three buckets into place with one seat- belt. After about a three-hour flight, we touched down in Kazan, Tatarstan, an autonomous republic that was our point of entry into the Russian Feder- ation. Prior to the breakup of the So- viet Union a few short years before, this would have been a strictly do- mestic affair — no customs check, no passports stamped, etc. And as we soon discovered, the local authorities were still operating on that assump- tion. When we entered the terminal to complete immigration formalities, we looked for the diplomatic line. After all, there had always been one when we had traveled to other former Soviet republics — but not here. Meanwhile, everyone else was run- ning as fast as possible to the one im- migration counter that was staffed, as if mobbing a rock star. People were pushing each other, throwing elbows and otherwise trying to position them- selves as near to the front of the “line” as possible. That left us dead last, lingering on the periphery, wondering what was going on. We walked over to an air- port official and told him we were diplomats, then asked where the diplomatic line was. All we got was a blank stare. More than an hour later, we finally made it to the passport desk, the last ones to do so. The agent looked long and hard at our diplomatic passports and at the diplomatic visas we had got- ten previously. Then, after looking long and hard at us, he asked: “You are diplomats?” When we confirmed it, he quickly stamped our passports and waved us through to the departure lounge. After perhaps half an hour of wait- ing there, a pleasant female official came up to us and said, “Come, we go now to the plane.” No one else got up or made a move as we followed her out of the hall and onto a large airport bus. We were the only two passengers on a bus built for 50, which took us the half-mile to our plane, still waiting on the tarmac. We were escorted off the bus and up the stairs to the plane, then on to our seats. For 15 more minutes we sat there, alone, waiting and wondering what was going on. Finally, three busloads of passen- gers were herded up the stairs to join us. Within half an hour we had taken off and were on our way once again to St. Petersburg. We’ve never been quite sure what happened back in Kazan, but we guess that initially the airport officials had no idea how to treat diplomats. Later, having had some time to think things over, they must have decided that it would be prudent to give us the red- carpet treatment — just in case treat- ing us poorly (as they had initially done) might somehow come back to haunt them, with potentially negative repercussions. Whatever the explanation, it was the only time during our 18 years in the Foreign Service that we ever got ambassadorial treatment! George Wilcox, a retired USIA For- eign Service officer, served in Tashkent from 1995 to 1997 as the first Regional English Language Officer for Central Asia. R EFLECTIONS Touchdown in Kazan B Y G EORGE W ILCOX 80 F O R E I G N S E R V I C E J O U R N A L / M A R C H 2 0 1 2 Meanwhile, everyone else was running as fast as possible to the one immigration counter that was staffed, as if mobbing a rock star.