Chapter 1 : Arrival in St. Petersburg
A Summer That Never Slept in Russia
Chapter 1: Arrival in St. Petersburg.
Our flight was at around 10 am. It had been a while since I'd flown Emirates, and it was the first time in almost 10 years. The last time was when we traveled to Dubai.
Things had changed a lot since then, especially with my dad and me requesting a wheelchair. The ground staff kept asking so many questions, and I got annoyed. She even asked personal questions, including about family matters. We waited almost 40 minutes for my dad's wheelchair, and by then everyone around us was staring. I kept thinking, is this her first time working here? We even had to show proof from the doctor at the clinic.
Meanwhile, when we went to Norway, everything was so easy — no fuss at all. Too many conditions, dear Emirates. Even the people around us started rolling their eyes.
After we checked in our pushchair as oversized baggage, we went back to the counter to wait for the wheelchair service again. Funny enough, the staff member suddenly switched positions to help another passenger in need. Well, maybe someone had complained about how slow she was. Gosh, please don't ask so many questions next time.
Anyway, once we finally boarded, the flight itself wasn't bad. I sat beside Kak Mona, our tour guide, who has experience with her husband, who is OKU (disabled), so my mom and I didn't have to worry too much for this trip.
This trip, we chose to travel with a tour agency — partly because of my dad's condition. He has Parkinson's, and my mother wasn't quite ready to trust me alone with the logistics of a big trip like this. So we went with MyZarra, and I have to say, the agency more than lived up to its reputation: an all-female team, and their service was impeccable from start to finish.
Our journey began with a transit in Dubai on Emirates. Everything unfolded smoothly, the service warm and attentive at every turn. Dubai's airport, I noticed, had changed considerably since I'd last passed through — quieter now, less crowded, and far easier to navigate. After a three-hour layover, we boarded our connecting flight to St. Petersburg, landing just as night settled in, though for me it still felt like maghrib, caught somewhere between daylight and dusk.
It was there, upon arrival, the moment I went out from the flight, I whispered
"Handsome gila."
Those young men all looked like models. Blue eyes with blonde. Then, we met Yuri — a young man assigned as our wheelchair assistant, and my very first real impression of the Russian people. I'll admit, I was almost startled by how wrong my expectations had been. In films, Russians are so often cast as hardened, almost menacing figures. Yuri was nothing like that. He was gentle, patient, and quietly kind. We communicated by using Google Translate. He helped gather our luggage, pushed the trolley all the way to the bus without being asked twice, and did it all with the quiet diligence of someone who genuinely cared about the job — remarkable, given how young he was. We tried to thank him with a cash tip, but all we had were larger bills, and in the end, we simply couldn't make it work.
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