Forest Shakedowns and Full-Frontal Scanners: Notes from Moscow

I’ve mentioned before my past business trips to Moscow, back in the simpler days when relations were considerably warmer, even if the hospitality still had a sharp, Soviet-style edge.

Before my first trip out to the airport, a colleague took me aside and offered a piece of advice that almost certainly saved me from having a coronary.

At the airport terminal itself, taxi regulations were aggressively rigid: drivers were strictly permitted to halt just long enough for you to tumble out and for them to haul your luggage from the boot. Lingering to settle up, sort out change, or fiddle with receipts was completely out of the question.

Naturally, the local solution to this logistical bottleneck was as subtle as a sledgehammer.

Halfway along the desolate motorway to the airport, my driver suddenly swung the wheel and veered off into a dense, silent patch of birch woods. No explanation. No English. Just the engine idling among the trees, followed by a grunt, an outstretched palm, and a mime asking whether I needed a receipt for my expense report.

If nobody had warned you beforehand, your immediate assumption would be that your life was about to end and you’d promptly hand over your wallet, your watch, and the company laptop. Even with the warning, sitting in the dark surrounded by pine needles, a small voice in my head still whispered: “Well, this is it. He’s taking the laptop.”

Having survived the woodland shakedown, I arrived at the terminal only to encounter another marvel of modern travel. Both Heathrow and Moscow had just taken delivery of those infamous full-body scanners.

At Heathrow, British sensibilities prevailed; the software blurred the naughty bits into an ambiguous, dignified blob. Moscow, however, had clearly turned the filter settings completely off. The security guards were treated to the unfiltered Full Monty in high-definition clarity.

Between the counterfeit roadside abductions and airport security getting a clinical tour of my anatomy, travel behind the old curtain was certainly an education. My enduring tip for anyone navigating a Moscow terminal? Always carry cash for the woods, keep your receipts tidy, and for heaven's sake, unscrew your body piercings before stepping into the scanner.