An encounter with the authorities

On a day full of sunshine and magnificent autumnal colours, we had our first experience with the Russian authorities. It seems to be that you are not pulled over for actually doing anything wrong, but more like you get pulled over and then they try and find something wrong. We were waved down by a surly looking cop, so Hayden quickly pulled over, hearts starting to race already. Two mistakes were made here. One, the folder with the paperwork was in the back (for the first time ever of course) and two, I took my seatbelt off too soon (rookie error Watson). We managed to explain to him that he had to let us out to get the documents for him. Whilst Hayden was getting out of the car he asked if we had guns (well, I don’t speak Russian so can’t be sure, but he had the actions to match). He began poking and prodding parts of the car, looking for something to catch us out on. He was satisfied with all paperwork, as he should be as it is all there in plain Russian for him! From what we gather he decided that he was going to try and fine me for not wearing a seatbelt. There was a lot of ‘niets’ on our part and explaining in English that why would we have seat belts if we weren’t going to use them in this country where people drive like maniacs. He tired of this argument and moved on to looking in the front of the car. I unlocked the ‘lock box’ between our seats and he pulled out all sorts of batteries, chargers, Go Pro equipment, small tools, all sorts of crap basically. He got to the bottom and found the personal breathalyser kit (a supposed must in France). His eyes lit up like he’d got us! “Narcotics” he said. “Niet” I replied and tried to explain with actions what it was, but I think he thought that I was saying that Hayden had been drinking! He made Hayden blow on his face to be sure, quite comical really, but I wasn’t laughing. I then had to open the packet so he could be sure. He continued eyeing the contents of the front of the car, disappointed that all he was getting was first aid kits and toiletries. Next came my handbag. Old receipts and maps, hair elastics, lip balm, tampons (threw him off his game a little), my pill which then had to be followed by miming a pregnant person and another ‘niet’ as I’m sure he was still on his narcotics hunt, and finally a knife. Yes I had a knife in my handbag. It’s for cutting tomatoes and salami at lunch time. Fortunately I didn’t have to try and explain this as it seemed he was not interested in knives. He flipped it open, measured the blade against his hand and chucked it on the seat.
Still not satisfied he asked Hayden to open the back. As soon as the back was open, Hayden slid out the drawer that stores the oil as well as our fairly pricey German paraffin lamp. Well that was him gone. A huge grin broke out on his face and he even gave Hayden the thumbs ups. The lamp also explained to him why we have so many lighters but no packets of cigarettes. Hayden then pulled up the bonnet to show him a map of our travels. He appeared suitably impressed. Now I’m not sure whether he just got bored of us, or if he realised that after his smile and thumbs up he could no longer return to the stone faced policeman he once was with us. He brushed us away with his hand, walked off, got into his car and drove away in search of his next victim, leaving us to tidy away all our belongings with slightly elevated heart rates.