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Bad Boys: Reporting Russian Police Part 2
Yana, my translator, and I went to the police station at 11 p.m. on Friday night to go on a ride-along with Sergei Nickolaevich Aleksandrov, the lieutenant of the Rostov police, in the hopes of catching the underage “offenders” that infiltrate Rostov’s clubs late at night.
While we were sitting in Sergei’s office we asked him how he knows if the young people he catches in the clubs are underage or merely look young. Sergei replied, “We look at their passports.” Now everyone knows that most kids don’t carry their passports with them so I confronted Sergei. “What if they’re not carrying their passports?” I asked. Sergei paused. ” I look into their eyes,” he responded with a straight face.
“You mean to tell me you can tell a person’s age by looking into their eyes?” I asked. “Yes,” he said.
“Ok, how old am I?”
Sergei peered deeply into my eyes and pulled a cigarette out of the full pack on his desk. “20,” he said as he lit the cigarette. Victory.
“I’m 29,” I cooed, eyeing Sergei from across the room. He took a long drag from his cigarette and smiled, looking away. I was smiling on the inside.
He was caught and there was nowhere for him to run so we headed out to his waiting car. On the way he introduced me to Aleksei Ivanovich Dultsev, the senior lieutenant of the Rostov police. Both Aleksei and Sergei would be my guides for the evening.
While waiting for Sergei to pull the car around I cornered Aleksei. “So, what do you think about the new curfew law?” I asked. “It’s ridiculous and everyone knows it,” he said matter-of-factly adding, “But no more ridiculous than the law you have in Alaska that says you can’t throw elks out of airplanes.”
Okay, I admit, Aleksei got me there. But the interview wasn’t over yet.
The four of us jumped into Sergei’s beat up blue car to scour the streets for hoodlums. I asked Aleksei if he thought the new law was successful. “No,” he said. “Then why do you enforce it?” I ask. “That’s my job.”
We stop at the first club which is aptly named, “Chance.” At “Chance” Sergei and Aleksei give warnings to the owners letting them know about the new law and promising they will come back next week to ensure they are enforcing it.
The next stop is “Slot,” a club in a seedy part of town that looks as if no one had been there in years. But I was wrong. As soon as we walk in Sergei and Aleksei pull out 6 kids that all look about 14. Aleksei pushes 2 of them up against the car and frisks them. Sergei goes in search of the manager while 2 of the other boys run off into the night. The other two boys stand their dumbfounded, unsure of what crime they have committed.
“We weren’t drinking,” they yell out. “I wasn’t even playing the slot machines,” the other adds. The other boys swear they are 17, just old enough to avoid the curfew. No response.
Meanwhile, Aleksei is talking to the 2 boys he had manhandled only minutes earlier. Ends up he knows them and now they’re all chatting together. Sergei returns, but he is accompanied not by the manager, but by the boys’ uncle who provides a drunken speech about how it’s his birthday and the boys are with him to celebrate.
After that the police let the boys go and we drive off.
At the next stop Yana hears the police telling the manager that we are t.v. journalists and we are documenting them for American television. Next thing we know Aleksei and Sergei tell us they just received a phone call and they have to run. They wish us a good night and drive off into the night ready to protect the city of Rostov from some real criminals.
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A nice peice on the Russian police, Ruthie.
Did I ever tell you the story of how I was frisked by a Rostov policeman who stole $100 off me in the process? Janet and I were moving to St. Petersburg and had all our possessions and money on us entering the train station. At the checkpoint we were questioned and frisked. Later, at the platform, when I realized I had been robbed, I came back to to officer, who asked I step outside with him out of earshot from his companions. There I told him I needed the money to leave Russia and buy a visa to come back.
Didn't I have a credit card to get more money? he asked.
No, I lied.
The cop told me to shake his hand on the count of three and I understood.
We shook hands and I slipped him about $15 worth of rubles and he slipped me something.
When I got back to Janet and a cart holding all our belongings in the train station I looked into my hand and there was the $100 bill he had stolen.
That is Russia, at its worst and at its best.
Posted by: ben ready at July 29, 2006 11:33 PM in