From Russia, With Apprehension

Here's a narrative piece I wrote about a crazy cab ride in Russia for my Techniques class last summer.




Though I hadn’t ever really given it much thought, I assumed that the only sound that a human would generate from the locked trunk of a car would be one of frenzied, desperate panic. Pounding, cries for help, screaming. I found out on a cab ride in the depths of an April night in St. Petersburg that this is not the case.


It was the “travel break” portion of my semester abroad in Copenhagen, Denmark, during which my Russian Literature class had planned a literary tour of places we had read about in class, including several sites in St. Petersburg. Our instructor Jon and the class TA Anna were the only members of our group that were fluent in Russian, and as the likelihood of finding an English speaker in Russia was on par with the chance of running into a Russian teetotaler, we relied on them heavily, following on their heels like young chicks scurrying after their mother hen.

One night after an exhaustive tour of the city’s literary landmarks, including following Raskolnikov’s murderous 730-step journey from Crime and Punishment, Anna decided that she wanted to take some of us out for a real Russian bar experience. She was an expert guide; though an Icelandic native, Anna had lived in St. Petersburg for several years and knew the city well.

As we were a small group and the subway had already proven to be a claustrophobic, purse-clutching ordeal, we decided to cab to the bar. Russian taxis, we learned, are often are not marked (though inexplicably still easily identifiable to locals) and instead of meters, fares are agreed upon ahead of time. After haggling with a driver for several minutes, Anna turned back to us and shouted, “Okay, he’s going to take us for free!”

Wait, what? We Westerners exchanged puzzled glances that eventually gave way to shrugs. Maybe he was just being nice. Maybe he wanted to show us Americans that Russians weren’t all vodka-swilling misanthropes or other cinematic stereotypes. Maybe this was just how cabs worked in Russia, giving out free rides for no apparent reason. Besides, Anna wouldn’t put us in danger. She’d be fired (and likely sued) so fast if anything happened to us. So we hopped in, four Yankees crammed in the back, and Anna up front with the boisterous driver in the Members Only jacket.

Though I usually find myself on guard around people like Anna, prickly and impatient with the bored self-righteousness of an adolescent, I put my complete trust in her in Petersburg. Her fluent Russian and vested interest in not letting harm befall me were very large comforts in a country that had turned out to be much more foreign than I had imagined. I had felt off-balance and vaguely unsafe since arriving in this familiar-but-not-really land, where the buildings looked like buildings and the roads looked like roads, but there was still an alien feeling to the whole place, as if I was in a dream or on a movie set. Beneath Petersburg’s warm, pale skin, I felt a monster’s heart beating. Sitting in the deep leather warmth of the crowded backseat, my muscles relaxed for the first time in days.

Just then, as our driver lurched into the dim evening chill, I heard a curious noise behind me, coming from the trunk. Two noises actually. A low one, which wasn’t quite thumping, and another, which wasn’t quite a yell. Definitely something alive, though. Almost definitely a person.

As I glanced nervously around me, I realized I wasn’t the only one who had heard it. Tyler, sitting half on top of my right leg, furrowed his brow deeply, then after a few moments of what I assume was spent gathering up a courage that I myself didn’t possess, inquired uncertainly,

“Um, is there someone in the trunk?”

Anna and the driver broke from what seemed by its intonation to be a jovial conversation to peer back at us. It must have been hard not to laugh right then at the tableau of our stricken faces, so politely silent in their worried confusion.

Anna listened for a second, then without any change in countenance or inflection, fired off some Russian at the driver. He fired back. All I understood was Nyet. Nyet, nyet. They both laughed.

“Oh, no, he says that is just his friend,” Anna responded.

At this, a peculiar feeling came over me. I knew that if I had heard an ambiguous non-answer like this in a “free” taxi ride at home, I would be outside on the street by now, reciting the license plate number to the 911 operator. But the instinct to panic never came. To this day, I am not sure why; perhaps it was because the driver was one of the first people in Russia that I had seen smile with his eyes as well as his mouth; maybe my survival instincts had been nabbed in the subway while I was too busy watching my wallet; perhaps I was just sticking to my policy of taking cues from Anna, who remained as cool as chilled bottle of Russian Standard. Instead of freaking out, I leaned back against the cracked leather and laughed – a mixture of disbelief, resignation, and an appreciation for the absurdity of the whole thing.

My comrades reacted similarly, and the rest of the ride was cloaked in tentative laughs – we couldn’t be sure, but we thought we heard a chuckle coming from the trunk, too – and incredulity. The driver laughed hardest of all, his raspy chortle barreling out from behind a succession of unfiltered Marlboro Lights.

As we reached our destination – safely, and without paying a cent – I immediately recognized the strains of music leaking out of the smoky glow of the bar. It was a classic 80s hit, Journey’s “Don’t Stop Believin’,” the same song that would be playing in countless American bars in a few hours. Walking inside, I thought, Maybe St. Petersburg isn’t so foreign after all.