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Image of Chisinau Airport by Breyten Ernsting,
via Flickr.com |
Each Saturday evening, the weekly Air Moldova flight from Frankfurt arrived. Sometimes the flight brought temporary visitors. Always it brought the unclassified pouch. That meant we always sent someone to the airport Saturday evenings with a truck to pick up the pouch. Because Alex was determined to make the arrival process less time consuming than we experienced when we arrived, he was always one of the Americans who went to the airport. He brought Slava, one of the local staff, as his translator.
While there, Alex used the time while he waited for the plane to get to know the people who worked at the arrival area. In addition to the large, dark, and cold arrivals hall that we experienced, there was a smaller room with chairs and lights available to use as a VIP lounge. But it was never used. So Alex's first goal was to get the airport to open the VIP lounge for the arriving diplomatic temporary visitors to wait. Over time, he convinced the women at the airport to let all our visitors, by then most were the cleared craftsmen, not just those with diplomatic passports, wait in the VIP lounge.
Along the way, he managed to ruffle a few feathers, but he brought flowers and chocolates with him to the airport the next day, along with Slava, to apologize. He also adopted the Moldovan greeting of kissing the hands of the women, something the young Moldovan men at the embassy weren't comfortable adopting themselves. They saw it as an old-fashioned tradition. I had observed the same pattern first in Iran where several of us had Romanian music teachers who insisted on kissing our hands when we met them. And I saw it again in Romania, so I wasn't surprised to see the hand-kissing tradition in Moldova. The women were delighted with Alex's apology as well as his method of apologizing. He now had allies at the airport.
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| Patron side of the VIP lounge |
One Saturday evening when we had no arriving visitors, Alex returned from the airport with the pouches and returned to our suite just before the phone rang. It was one of the women at the airport. She spoke no English. I understood some Romanian and some Russian, enough to know the woman wanted to speak with Alex about a couple of Canadians who had arrived in Chişinău without visas. Using a combination of Alex's British English and my pigeon Russian, Alex assured the woman that he would be responsible for making sure the couple got visas if they were allowed to enter. He asked her to take down information from their passports and where they planned to stay so he could go to the British embassy, which had responsibility for Canadians in the absence of a Canadian embassy in Chişinău, on Monday to get their status in the country regularized or he would return the couple to the airport personally. This shouldn't have been possible, but Moldovans are the nicest people in the world and they trusted Alex.
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Sarah at the bar and Alex behind the bar at the VIP
Lounge cafe |
The weekly flight out of Chişinău was Saturday mornings. Once Alex had convinced the women at the airport to open the VIP lounge for arrivals, it was easier to get them to open it for departures. And at that time of the day, there was also a small cafe and bar that was opened. They served Moldovan pastries and sandwiches as well as Turkish coffee, beer, wine, brandy, and champagne. As the American craftsmen began leaving Chişinău, Alex encouraged them to leave all their leftover local currency as tips for the cafe staff. That was stage 1. Stage 2 was when Alex took over behind the counter serving drinks and food. The women who worked there just moved to one side with a smile and let Alex take over.
One day when Alex arrived with departing craftsmen, he was told by someone he hadn't met yet that he couldn't bring the Americans into the VIP lounge. He wasn't pleased with either the message or the attitude of the man, so he expressed his displeasure and insisted on seeing the head of the airport, Mr. Cherednatski. Alex had met Mr.Cherednatski early in his cultivation of relationships with the Moldovan airport staff, so when he came and explained to Alex that this time the VIP lounge was being used by another group so Alex and the departing Americans couldn't use it, Alex understood. Alex thanked Mr. Cherednatski for the explanation and asked Slava to go with him to the new man to apologize. Alex stressed that Slava was to translate everything exactly as he said it. And Alex warned him that he would be able to know if Slava didn't translate everything exactly because he would see it on the man's face. Slava objected saying that Alex would lose face if he apologized. But he agreed to follow Alex's instructions as Alex told the man he had been wrong and wanted to apologize. Instead of losing face, Alex's apology led to a huge grin and a hand extended for a shake. The apology worked.
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| Alex's propusk or airport tarmac access pass |
Still Alex wasn't satisfied. When pouches were loaded into the belly of the plane, Alex wanted to be able to observe the pouches until the door to the belly closed. To do that, he needed a tarmac access pass. No one thought the Moldovan government would issue a tarmac access pass to a foreigner. But they underestimated the power of the relationships Alex had established. Alex received tarmac access pass which made it possible for him to meet the incoming visitors at the bottom of the ramp. That is when some of them began referring to him as Mr. Chişinău Airport.
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