Moscow blasts and subway security checks
After today's explosions on the Moscow Subway, new calls may follow for security checks at Russian subway and railway stations. Those who call for this usually give an example of China, where security checks are ubiquitous - you have to X-ray your bags before you enter any station.
However, such a system is absolutely infeasible and would paralyze the whole subway: security checks in China, in fact, are nothing but decorations:
1) Nobody really cares about what you carry in your bag. Liquids etc. are allowed, unlike on the planes.
2) Body search is not carried out on China's subways. You can just carry any weapons or explosives on yourself.
3) Railway stations do have personal inspections, but the girls working there just lightly touch you one or two times, as if they are touching hot iron.
4) Chinese subways have a lot of places where the "sterile area" is separated from the public access area by just a tiny unsecured fence. One could just hand a bagful of explosives over the fence.
Even such symbolic, useless checks create large queues; if real security checks were to be implemented, such as those in the airports, the subway would come to a complete stop: too much time would be required to check each mass transit passenger. There is no way one could search all 7 million people using the Moscow Metro each day: less than a second for each passenger at each station. And still, even airports with their tight security cannot prevent all terrorists from getting on the planes.
The goal of security checks in China is to create jobs; the goal of security checks in Russia would be only to make profit for the security equipment vendors.
Doors in Beijing
One of the striking differences in everyday life of Beijing is what they use instead of doors now, when temperatures are far below zero.
I noticed two types of these ad hoc doors:
1) Thick heavy blankets made of rough cloth, with a window. Looks very barbaric and unaesthetic, but you'd be surprised at the number of places where you can see this - from entrances to public toilets and tiny shops to huge "European" supermarkets like Carrefour.
2) Transparent plastic curtains, sometimes so yellow and worn out that you cannot see through them. This type is used everywhere, too, from small shops to modern multi-storey malls.
Sometimes I come across a mixture of these two types, such as at the entrance to Tiananmen West subway station - see the photo on the left.
Why not install regular doors? The answer, I guess, is that the cold time in Beijing lasts for only a couple of months, and these improvised doors are removed later, while regular doors would only add problems in the warm time.
The flight from Russia to Beijing
I love flying.
I have to explain it every time when people ask me why I didn't take the direct flight to Beijing.
What I tried to do is to find a balance between the time spent in the air and the cost. I wanted to fly for as long as possible, of course.
I chose the Emirates flight Moscow-Dubai-Beijing, since Emirates is one of the best airlines in the world. And my domestic Russian flight CEK-VKO was with SkyExpress, the first Russian low-cost airline. The ticket was $380 for the Emirates flight and $70 for the two-hour SkyExpress flight.
The farewell that my Fatherland gave me reminded me once again that I've made the right choice. Rude security girls at the Chelyabinsk airport, shouting at passengers and trying to look like the kings of the place. Middle-age understanding of comfort and customer service.
A lousy overpriced train with rusty metal interior, cold, with wind and snow falling on your head from somewhere up above. That's the "aeroexpress" train from downtown Moscow to Domodedovo airport, Moscow's only airport of the not-that-awful class.
The train, costing you about $10, or 10 times more than a regular bus, hardly reaches an average speed of 60 km/h. Compare, for example, to Shaghai's similar airport train: 430 km/h, and no snow or wind or rusty seats inside.
Passing the border control is probably the most stressful experience for me. Every time when I stand in the line before the migration officials, I get sweaty, my heart beats faster, then I notice this and try to look natural which makes me look even less natural... I'm trying to think of answers to possible questions they may ask me, then I notice that my passport is wet because of my sweaty hands, and I try to fix this...
This time the threatening-looking lady, after satisfying herself by shouting for several minutes at some Muslims in the line, briefly inspected my passport and asked "Tourist trip?". Trembling like hell, I could not say more than a quiet "aha".
I crossed the Russian border. I was free now. My mood instantly went up.
My favourite Fatherland had another surprise for me, though. I naively thought that e-Boarding pass is OK to have, but I forgot that it is Russia, and all modern services that are claimed to be provided are never provided in reality. Despite being one of the first people in the boarding line, I was told to stand aside and wait until all the other passengers pass and my e-Boarding pass is "registered". This is a punishment for being too smart, I guess, and it was suffered by me and another techie-looking guy on the same flight.
Emirates, just like many other airlines now, has what is called "e-Boarding pass", besides the e-ticket that we are already used to. You register at home, print the boarding pass, get to the airport and go straight to the gate, without any check-ins. It also allows you to select your meal and your seat, which is especially great since I wanted a perfect view out of the window, not blocked by the wings or other passengers.
After consulting seatguru.com, the website that gives you the recommendations about the best seats on airplanes, I reserved my seat 42A on the Moscow-Dubai flight and seat 42K on the Dubai-Beijing flight. That is, the leftmost and the rightmost seats in row 42.
Boeing 777 is an awfully huge airplane, one of the largest in the world. It has about 50 rows of seats, 10 seats in each row. It also has the largest jet engines in the world - 3 meters in diameter. Imagine this: one such engine would probably not fit into your room. However, it is not as cool as Emirates' other aircraft, the double-decker Airbus A-380, which has private compartments with beds, showers, a bar etc. But this time I had to fly like on a Boeing like a total loser - no showers, no bar, just the seats.
So what's the deal about choosing seats 42A and 42K? That's because I really wanted to see Burj Dubai, the tallest building in the world, a magnificent skyscraper almost 1km in height. Knowing that aircraft can land on the runway both directions depending on the current wind, in order to see Burj Dubai out of my window, I had to either calculate the landing direction using the weather forecast for the wind direction, or just reserve one seat on the left and one on the right, to be sure that I'll see this 850m baby at least once. And I did. And she was amazing. The biggest wonder of the world indeed.
Dubai on the whole is a paradise on Earth. Even though little as I was able to see from the plane, the harbour full of brightly lit ships, the artificial islands with luxurious houses, the streets with palm trees and the futuristic-looking Dubai Metro stations (above the ground) made me realize again the power of money.
And so I flew from -30 to +30, right to the brand new Terminal 3 of Dubai Airport. It looks like a combination of ancient Muslim castles and modern hi-tech, with nice and big gardens inside, Arabic-style windows and, most importantly, free wi-fi. Free, unlike Russian airports, where you can easily spend tens of dollars just checking your email.
I never saw so many people from so many countries before. It was a true future: brightly lit, with thousands of goods waiting for you everywhere, and people of all ethnicities and styles. Indian women with stones in their forehead, Arabic businessmen in large white robes, Muslim women in all kinds of veils. That was also the first time I realized that Muslim dress may look amazingly sexy, unlike the western almost-naked clothes style.
Interestingly, the Internet authorities in UAE block Vkontakte, the Russian clone of Facebook. Social networks are deemed a vulgar phenomenon in Muslim countries. But even the Chinese authorities do not block this social network (though they do block Facebook). As Vkontakte is owned by Russian mafia from Saint-Petersburg, does this mean that the Chinese authorities do not want to disappoint authoritative people in Russia? Or they just don't know about Vkontakte yet?
Returning to the planes: Emirates boasts its meals - they make it look as if you're in a luxurious restaurant. They first give you a nice menu, and then serve their delicious meals, as if taken from a restaurant - something with shrimps, delicious sauces, wines, etc. They also provide metal spoons, knives and forks - another pleasant addition.
And yes, unlike Aeroflot, they never stop smiling and do not treat their passengers like some worthless cargo (hello Aeroflot!). That is why I'd recommend to choose this flight over a direct Aeroflot flight from Moscow to Beijing.
Emirates also provides you with electric sockets for your laptop, a USB port to charge your phone or insert your flash disk to read a PDF or listen to your own music, if you don't want to enjoy one of the 1000 entertainment channels in the built-in monitor - games, movies, music, cameras outside the plane and so on.
And so I went from one biggest airport in the world to another biggest airport in the world. That's right, Dubai's airport claims the world record for the biggest building (by floor space), while Beijing's Capital Airport, I think, claims some other "the biggest in the world" title.
In order to move around these enormous buildings (Dubai: 2 km in length, Beijing: more than 3km in length), they had to use some kind of transportation. While in Dubai they only have electric cars for the cops (and they race them at huge speeds around the airport, nearly hitting people), Beijing Airport has its own small metro (remember, the building is more than 3km in length!) and buses running through the middle part of the airport building.
The airport metro is completely automated. As far as I know, Moscow was also going to have a monorail line with driverless trains, but after wasting hundreds of millions of dollars they decided that they won't be able to do it and just hired the train drivers.
By the way, the airport in Beijing is not a bad place to exchange your money, you're paying just a flat $10 fee. Strict governmental control means no fraud like in Russia and Ukraine, where they try to rip you off by offering exchange rates 50% lower than the real rates (e.g. by setting the exchange rate as "1.097" instead of "1.97")
I entered the subway train and in 30 minutes I stepped into the cold but snowless Beijing. My 30-hour trip was over.