Conquering the Impossible (35 page)

Now I just had to resolve the problem with my authorization, but Alexander Borden still couldn't be reached.

*   *   *

The days passed.

Vladimir and I spent part of the time making phone calls, sending faxes all over the planet, exploring every contact or lead imaginable. Cathy was moving heaven and earth—all to no avail.

In the meantime, I stayed in shape by hiking in the nearby mountains and kayaking in the bay. In town, people stared at my red parka, which clashed with the gray surroundings. I would greet their stares with a wave and a hearty
“Privet!”
—meaning hello. The men and women all looked as if they had survived a nuclear war.

Even though I had been traveling solo for nearly a year, it was in Provideniya that I first began to feel genuinely lonely. But it all changed quickly as I made the acquaintance of one person, who introduced me to another, and so on. People took interest in my journey, were fascinated by stories of my adventures, and bombarded me with questions. They sympathized with my bureaucratic plight. Basically they adopted me as one of their own. Bottles of vodka, which were very cheap here, emerged from pockets. Even though everyone here lives beneath—in many cases, far beneath—what would be considered the poverty line in Europe, no one would let me pay for anything, and people lavished their generosity on me. Paying no attention to the fact that I was technically under restrictions by the authorities, families invited me to come stay with them.

None of the buildings had elevators, the staircases were steep and crooked, and tiles were falling off the walls. In the few apartments that were occupied, the poverty was heartbreaking. Between the cracked walls, a table, a kettle, and bare cupboards were often the only furnishings. However many of these apartments I saw, I had a tough time believing that people still lived like this in the twenty-first century.

Under a bare lightbulb—often the only lightbulb in the apartment—I would be offered vodka, sausage, orange slices, and black bread. They would sing Russian songs for me and tell me about life in Provideniya—where hot water was available only occasionally, where electricity worked twice a day on fixed schedules. When the electricity was about to be turned on, women would get ready to do their cooking, and children prepared to do their homework. There was a feverish buzz of activity in that short span of time, and then it was back to night … and a melancholy calm.

*   *   *

Dmitry showed a depth of heart and intelligence that soon made us fast friends. He was less of a stickler for the regulations than his fellow guardsmen, and sometimes that got him into trouble. He did his best to broaden the views of those around him—a challenging job, no doubt, but Dmitry was an idealist.

He took me to a Russian
banya
(sauna), where fifty people showed up to see the madman who wanted to walk across Siberia. People smacked one another with
venik,
bundles of leafy birch branches. Questions flew as if it were a press conference, and Dmitry interpreted for me. I even saw a few Russian journalists who asked for interviews.

*   *   *

No one had told me that any foreigner who arrives in Provideniya has three days to go and report his presence to the police. One week after I got there, the police—who had seen the article and the photographs that a journalist had published in Chukotka's main daily newspaper—summoned me to the police station.

While he was accompanying me to the police station, Vladimir Bychkof happened to glance at my passport and stopped short. The passport contained an official invitation from the provincial government, along with a visa for one month! Alexander Borden had given me an entry visa for thirty days even though I had expressly requested a visa for three months, which I expected to renew once I was in the country. Furthermore, the one-month visa was effective not from the date of my entry into Russia but from the day it was issued—which was one month ago on the dot!

And so I was already technically in violation of my visa, and I was put in a guarded residence. How Western of me not to have double-checked the dates! This sort of carelessness can be very costly when you are dealing with a powerful bureaucracy like they have in Russia.

Just for starters, Vladimir and I were both given fines—eight hundred rubles for me and, for having found me a place to stay, five hundred rubles for him. Then the police turned the case of my expired visa over to the FSB, the former KGB.

That same day a major and a lieutenant from the intelligence agency questioned me in Vladimir's office. How had I arrived here? Who invited me? Who exactly was I working for? Why didn't I have the required papers? I mentioned the name of the deputy governor, and I told them that a second visa was supposed to be on its way; but, of course, I couldn't prove anything. The interrogation dragged on until three in the morning. I was exhausted, but I kept insisting that my file was in the hands of Alexander Borden. The FSB agents finally decided to try to call him and—miraculously!—managed to reach him. Borden vouched for me. He knew who I was and was astonished to hear that I had only been issued a one-month visa.

The FSB wound up admitting that I was acting in good faith. Nonetheless, it was a matter of standard procedure at this point. I was going to be put onto the next plane for Moscow, and after that, back home. In short, I was being expelled from the country.

It was nothing short of catastrophic. Once deported, I would be forbidden to return to the country for a year!

*   *   *

The next day Dmitry and I called Alexander Borden. The deputy governor fully appreciated the close call I had had with the authorities and committed to do what he could. In the meantime, Cathy contacted Ian Banner, one of our friends with the Richemont Group and the Laureus World Sports Awards, who reached out to Bernie Ecclestone, president of the International Federation of Formula One racing. Ecclestone in turn spoke with Viacheslav Fetisov, the Russian minister of sport. Fetisov called me to get an explanation of my situation and promised that he would intercede on my behalf. I had some key political connections, but it seemed that even they couldn't keep me from being deported.

*   *   *

Bychkof, Fetisov, Borden. Each of them tried separately to persuade the FSB not to make my expulsion grounds for a year's prohibition of my return. At least let me wait in Alaska for authorization to return to Russia, they argued. Unfortunately, my American visa was in my second passport, which had by now made its way back to Switzerland. And so the FSB couldn't even send me back to the United States. Willing to try anything at this point, I offered to have my brother bring me my second passport with the American visa that would allow me to return to Nome.

They agreed to this plan, and I called Martin right up. He hopped on the next flight to start his journey out to the Russian Far East.

Before I knew it, I found myself before the tribunal that would determine my fate. The decorum was intimidating: a podium draped with red velvet, a Russian flag, neon ceiling lights. A line of judges, an official interpreter, and two magistrates made up the tribunal that would review my case and decide my punishment. Numerous border guards were called to testify. Vladimir served as my lawyer. I was seated in the second row, right behind him. The Coast Guard officers testified one after another.

Since the proceedings took place in Russian, Vladimir translated for me in English that I wasn't going to be fined. That was actually a bad sign because I then expected to be told not to return to Russia for a long time. But instead I got surprisingly good news. I wasn't barred from returning to the country. The court recognized that I had been acting in good faith. As a result, I was authorized to leave Russian territory and to return whenever I liked—this time with the proper documents, of course.

During the course of the ensuing, interminable formalities, the various parties filled out pounds of forms, in keeping with the cumbersome local tradition that I was starting to get used to.

So I had been sentenced to go back to Nome to wait for authorization to resume my expedition across Chukotka. I had been hoping that I would be allowed to wait in Provideniya, but no Russian official could overlook the expiration of my visa. After all, a visa couldn't be renewed on Russian territory except in cases where it was physically impossible to leave within the stipulated time—because of accident, bad weather, or the like—and, even then, only for the duration of the problem. That is what I explained to the residents of Provideniya who were sad to see me go, which touched me deeply. But the main emotion I felt was relief that my expedition wasn't going to end here in this bleak outpost. I would continue. It was just a matter of time.

*   *   *

It was Thursday. I theoretically had until Friday to leave Russian territory aboard a Bering Air plane I would have to charter to take me to Nome. However, the airline officials told Cathy, when she called to charter the plane, that they would need three days to obtain permission to land at Provideniya. And since they didn't fly on the weekend, I was stuck there until Monday. Problems began to develop once again.

Amazingly, Cathy managed to accelerate the process. She pulled strings to schedule the plane for Friday, and since Martin was supposed to land Friday morning in Nome with my passport and American visa, he could just board my plane to bring them to me.

The timing was perfect. Too perfect, as it turned out.

The flight from Seattle to Anchorage was delayed, preventing my brother from getting to Nome on time, and preventing me from returning to the United States. Fortunately, Vladimir was able to persuade the authorities to extend my visa until Monday. That was something.

*   *   *

On Sunday my wife received an e-mail from the U.S. Bureau of Customs and Immigration, informing her that I was forbidden to set foot on United States territory, and that was the final word. They extended this order to my brother Martin, too, who was on his way to Alaska at that very moment!

No one wanted me anymore in either Russia or the United States. It was as if I could no longer move in any direction, like a king who finds himself in checkmate.

It turned out that the reason for turning me away was that I had entered American territory without reporting my presence. Of course their information was wrong! At the first American town I had reached, Kaktovik on Barter Island, I had reported to the authorities, who had informed the Bureau of Immigration. At first, Immigration had wanted to send agents to screen me but then decided against it, requiring only that I report my departure from American territory—which I had done just before leaving Point Hope.

As for Martin, I knew that he had all the papers, all the stamps, and all the visas required.

Cathy contacted the American authorities who had jurisdiction, and they quickly agreed that it was a mistake. The e-mail had been sent by an ill-informed and overzealous official. Crisis averted.

*   *   *

On Monday morning the Provideniya airport officials called me to say that the weather had cleared up. The plane was expected soon, and so was I. One hour later Martin stepped out of the plane with my passport. I showed my American visa to the border guards so that they could authorize me to board.

Then the officer noticed that my Russian visa had expired three days before. I explained that it had been extended until today. Unfortunately, no one had thought to inscribe that extension on my passport. I no longer had the right to leave Russia!

When I was informed that I had to start over from scratch, going through all the formalities of requesting an extension of my visa, I exploded. “Well, I'd like to know what you guys want! First you say I can't stay here, you expel me from the country, and now you refuse to let me leave! Look at that plane! I chartered it just for this trip because you ordered me to! It cost me a fortune! And now what am I supposed to do with it? Send it back?”

This outburst compelled the officer to call his supervisor, who just happened to have with him the official stamp to extend my visa. He stamped my passport, and charged me one thousand rubles.

To avoid the risk of being searched again the next time I entered Russia, I left all of my equipment—carefully packed—with Vladimir. A backpack was all the baggage I carried. Without bothering to open it, my friend Dmitry asked me solemnly whether I was carrying any forbidden goods or if I had anything to declare. I answered no, and this time it was the truth.

After completing that last formality, I marched straight to my plane, passing between two lines of border guards whom I saluted as I passed. The soldiers surrounded the plane until it began to taxi. I heard the pilot's voice as he identified himself and asked the control tower in Russian for permission to take off. The plane halted momentarily at the end of the runway and then began gathering speed for takeoff.

We briefly flew over Provideniya before tipping the wing in a turn, heading due east on a course for Nome, Alaska, USA—a city where I had never expected to set foot again.

*   *   *

Time passed slowly—between Jeff's cabin, Gerry's trailer, and the Breakers Bar.

Martin had first made the acquaintance of Jeff Darling, buying a new battery for my boat in Jeff's auto supplies store. Jeff then invited him to a barbecue at his house where he had met Gerry Allan. And that's how I happened to have two friends from the minute I arrived in Nome. I made lots more friends in no time, including Sandy, the woman who owned the Polaris Bar, and Olga, her mother, who was a big-hearted baseball fan.

Like those I'd encountered everywhere else in Alaska, the people of Nome were remarkably generous to me, helpful in every way possible. Like so many inhabitants of the Arctic, they were sincere, straightforward, and considerate of others, in part because they live in such harsh conditions. To be here is to be a member of the family. There is no other way to survive.