As the plane lurched northward, the spots of light that marked towns and roads dwindled to black. It was 4 p.m.įlying across the Russian Arctic at night, in winter, I experienced an eerie sense of having flown off the edge of the world.
The sky was deep black and sprinkled with stars of extraordinary brightness. He was a mash-faced octogenarian with a bulbous alcoholic’s nose who introduced himself as “Ivanych” - short for Alexander Ivanovich. From the usual post-Soviet police lineup of grinning crooks, I chose the only one who hadn’t bothered to get out of his car. Outside the airport taxi drivers waited in their vehicles, waiting in a head-lit swirl of exhaust to close in on the single emerging foreign passenger. The antique Soviet Tu-134 touched down at Salekhard airport in a slicing crosswind, bunny-hopped twice, then juddered to a halt in front of the terminal with a macho squeeze of brakes.
0 kommentar(er)
