Today, the 29th of December, I had my first meeting with the police of Russia. Many people have heard stories of cops robbing you blind in Red Square because your papers aren’t in order or you’re missing a registration stamp you never knew you needed. Well, I had a very similar situation happen to me on the largest pedestrian street in Krasnodar. Krasnodar is a city of almost a million people in the south of Russia, so far south it rarely sees snow in the winter! I was waiting for a friend when they asked me for my papers. I thought nothing of it, this is how cops in Russia find people to fine. They also don’t monitor traffic like we do, they just pull people over at random and if something isn’t exactly right, you get fined. Needless to say, almost everyone gets fined.

But the second they saw I was from the US, they asked to check out my registration at the militia stand. I should’ve known better but I went with them (in the direction that was actually away from the stand, upon later reflection) We went about a block off the main road where they asked me to empty my pockets so they could check for narcotics, they were talking the whole time about Krasnodar’s narcotic problem while interspersing the fact that his aunt lives in Florida as we walked.

One cop tried to get me to turn around while padding me down, so the other one could steal my money. But I told them I knew my rights and I wasn’t going to do anything without a translator and without my things back in my possession. After ‘radioing’ in my information (just my name…) they decided to ‘fine’ me for having no registration 500 rubles. About 20 dollars. I argued so he said make if 1000 and he’ll let me go right now. I almost laughed, finally realizing I wasn’t in any trouble nor could these cops do anyhing to me. So I said I didn’t have the money, it was for travelling home. They gave up and told me to mind the narcotics around here and watch for cops. Ha!

It took me a good 15 minutes to calm down, even longer had my friend not shown up. I’m glad she was later than I, otherwise getting a phone call might have been a lot more interesting with the cops around…