Chapter 2: Moscow/ 1

The Russian aircraft flew into the Sheremetyevo-2 International airport in Moscow after a 9 hours flight from the Lagos Murtala Mohammed International Airport. We had briefly stopped over in Libya’s Tripoli for a one hour transit and as we were flying into the airport I checked my watch and noticed that the time was just approaching 6am.

The cabin crew made an announcement in both English and in Russian, welcoming us to Moscow the capital of the Union of the Soviet Socialist Republics. They announced that the local time was a few minutes to 9am! “How comes?“ I thought and then remembered that Moscow was on a different time zone and that it was probably 3 hours ahead. They also announced that the temperature outside was 10 degrees Celsius!
“We go freeze be dat!” I heard Ugo exclaim in pidgin English from behind me. He was stating that he believed that we were all going to freeze.

In Nigeria it had been difficult to get really warm clothes, which would have been warm enough for the cold weather in the USSR. So most of us had been able to buy some sweaters and jackets, which were certainly warm enough for the cold Harmattan mornings. The Harmattan season comes up between December and March in West Africa and during this time the temperature would usually drop below the yearly average and could dip below 20 degrees Celsius in the mornings. But 10 degrees Celsius? That was almost as cold as being in side of a refrigerator!

I was wearing a very warm jean jacket that had some patches of leather at the elbows and the shoulder, which I had bought at the famous Ariaria market in the Nigerian South Eastern town of Aba. Though it was not meant for very cold weathers, this was the warmest thing I could get my hands on that didn‘t looked like something discarded somewhere in Europe and then sent to Nigeria to be resold as the second hand clothing’s popularly known as Okrika in Nigeria.

“It gets a lot colder than this in Winter…!” I heard somebody say behind me, in response to Ugo’s comments ”…In winter the temperature can fall well below minus 10 degrees Celcius. And that’s even when its not a cold winter…!”
Most of the passengers in the front rows had sat quietly, waiting for the cabin crew to give the final instructions to start leaving the aircraft. At the back, you could hear the excited chatter of the rest of the passengers, the majority of whom were, like me, young Nigerian students coming to the USSR for the very first time. Some, like the person who had responded to Ugo, seemed to know what they were talking about. And I assumed that they were older students who were returning from their summers holiday in Nigeria.

The aircraft taxied on the runway and finally came to a stop. I looked out of the window again and saw a mobile passenger stairway being driven towards us to attach itself to the side of our aircraft, while several metres away two airport shuttles had now parked waiting for us to disembark.

In the distance the building of the Sheremetyevo-2 airport terminal, which had been built only 6 years earlier for the Moscow Summer Olympics of 1980, stood imposingly in its earthen brown colour. The colour of the building was partially obscured by the morning mist, overhanging the city of Moscow and lending its atmosphere that same sort of ominous greyness, which always clouded the images of Moscow that were imprinted in my mind. The only thing missing here was the snow and the unsmiling elderly people who were always walking about sullenly in their drab black winter coats…

The final announcement was made for us to start getting out of the aircraft. And at that moment It felt like butterflies were flying about in my stomach.