An Afternoon in the Drunk Tank in Kyiv-
Within
a few minutes we pulled up to a police station.
We got out of the car and they brought me in.
We went through a few rooms with cops everywhere and came up to a
window. The cop behind the glass asked
for my passport. I gave it over and he
started leafing through it. Since I was
entering a new, previously unknown, phase of police harassment, I decided to
call Polina, our office manager. I
wasn’t in a hurry or too worried, but I didn’t want to get lost in the bureaucracy of a police
station in northern Kiev without anyone knowing where I was. I told the police to wait a minute and made a
call on my cell phone. Polina answered
almost immediately, but with a voice that betrayed the fact that she didn’t
want to be bothered by me once again over a weekend. We spoke in English, which the cops couldn’t
understand at all.
“Hi
Michael.”
“Hi
Polina. I think I may have a small
problem. I’m at a police station in
Podil and the cops just took my passport.”
“YOU’RE
AT POLICE STATION! OH MY GOD- WHAT
HAPPENING?”
Well, that clearly got her
attention.
“Please
don’t worry, everything is fine. They
are just harassing me for a bribe that I won’t pay. Maybe you can talk to them and tell them I
work for a Ukrainian company and that I’m supposed to be here?”
“OH
YES, OH MY GOD. PUT THE PHONE TO
THEM.” I felt a warmth rising inside me
that she cared so much about me. Polina
earned some good points with me because of this reaction.
“Polina,
please relax. Everything is fine. I told you in the office that this happens to
me all the time here. It’s because of my
skin color. You know as well as I do
that my papers are in order. Here’s the
cop. Don’t be nervous, just tell this
guy that I work for the bank and I am supposed to be here. Please breathe and be calm.” I heard her take a deep breath.
“Ok
Michael.”
I
handed the phone under the glass to the copper.
He took it and they had a conversation.
A few minutes went by and then he hung up the phone and handed it back. I was about to call her to see what the hell
was going on when the cop who spoke with Polina started talking to the cops
that brought me in. I didn’t understand
it, but they did. They immediately
brought me to a back room.
Once
there, they opened a green wooden door with a fogged out glass pane in it and
pushed me into a dark room. The door
immediately shut and the lock turned behind me.
I turned on my phone to make a call, but I had lost the signal. Bastards- I thought to myself.
I
looked around the room. It was a holding
cell about six feet wide and eight feet long.
There was a small bench that ran around the perimeter of the room for
people to sit on. The room had four
other people in there with me. All of
them looked homeless and drunk. All but
one of them were passed out. It smelled
of terrible body odor mixed with urine, vomit and feces. The holding cell was as dirty as my fellow
inmates. The only light was what made it
through the fogged out glass in the door, which was also covered in a thick
layer of filth. Needless to say, it was
pretty dark in there.
After
a few minutes, my eyes adjusted and I could see pretty well. I sat down on the bench near the door. This was before mobile phones had flashlights
or anything, so I just sat there and thought about what was happening to me,
the room itself, the foul stench and the people I was now surrounded by. I also wondered if there were roaches in
there with us. There had to be. All the people looked broken, tired and
lost. The one other guy who was awake
immediately came over and sat next to me.
He was very close and his aroma of body odor, piss and vomit overpowered
the general smell of the place. It
wasn’t very pleasant.
He
leaned on me, put his hand on my shoulder and said something in slurred,
heavily accented Russian. I had no idea
what he said, but I looked him straight in the eyes. He was dark skinned like me, most probably
from Georgia or the Caucus. I felt for
him and his predicament. These fellows
were the underside of society. The ones
that embraced alcoholism to get through the economic hardship and racism that constantly confronted
them amid the chaos of the social and economic transition
that was taking pace all around them.
“I
don’t speak Russia very good.” I said to
him in my Russian.
He
held my gaze and repeated slowly, “Yes, yes. What happened? Why are you here?”
“Police. They want my money. I will not pay them.” I replied in my broken Russian. He smiled and shook his head up and down.
“We
have the same problem.”
“I
don’t think so, but who knows.” Was all
I could say. At this point he was leaning into me with his hand on my shoulder. The disposable 35mm camera I had in my coat pocket was on his
side, so he was pushing it into my upper kidney. This gave me an idea. I pushed him off me, gently of course, and
took out the camera. It had a flash on
it, so I turned it on and waited for the light to turn orange to indicate that
it was ready. How great it would be to
document this experience with some photos I thought. It was good luck that I brought this camera
with me this morning. I put my arm around
the bum next to me, held the camera away at arms length, put on a big toothy
smile and took the shot. The flash burst
out like lightening. I rolled it to the
next frame, waited for the flash and then took another of my new friend and
me. Then I took one of the two guys
passed out directly in front of me. Each
time the room erupted in light and now everyone was awake and staring at
me. I was laughing and having fun. My friend to my right was also loving
it. I took a shot of him laughing. I guess that was too much for the cops
though, as they noticed the flash going off and after the last one, a cop
opened the door with a scowl demanding to know what was going on.
“Photos. I’m just doing some photos.” I said meekly pointing to my camera. I didn’t know the word for taking photos, so
I used doing, which could maybe be translated as making I thought. The cop wasn’t happy. All the bums were enjoying this thoroughly
though and with the door opened I could see that none of them had many teeth
and they really were totally filthy. My
heart felt for them again. The cop’s
didn’t. He yelled at everyone to shut up
and be quiet. He took my camera and shut
the door forcibly.
“Whores!”
my bum said to me referring to the cops.
“Da,
it fucked up (pizdyets).” I said in agreement. I had recently learned some bad words in
Russian and this seemed like the right place to try them out in conversation
for the first time. My bum loved it- he
laughed and again put his arm on my shoulder in an open display of
camaraderie.
After
another ten or twenty minutes, the door opened again and the cop motioned for me to
get up and follow him. I shook the hand
of the guy next to me and wished him luck and then got up and started walking
out of the holding cell while saying “goodbye” and waving to the others. The cop looked quite confused by this display
of friendship and respect for my fellow prisoners. Once out of the cell, he locked the door,
handed me my camera and I followed him back to the front area where the guy at
the window had taken my passport earlier.
Once
there I saw Yuri, our head of research.
My heart sunk. I had no idea
Polina would make this a five alarm fire.
Yuri looked really nervous and concerned, but once I spoke to him I
realized it was just a general fear of his of dealing with the corrupt police. I went to the window, the guy behind it
handed my passport back and we were free to go.
I
asked Yuri what happened. He said that
the cops told Polina that someone from my office had to come get me and since
my boss was back in Prague for the weekend, she called him. He also said that he had to pay forty Hrvnyas (UAH 40) as a fine. That equaled about $20 and I
flipped out.
“A
fine for what? I didn’t do anything
wrong!” I said with shock and anger.
“Michael,
it's forty Hrvnyas. It’s nothing. This is how the country works.”
“It’s
not right and I didn’t want to pay them anything- that’s why I got arrested in
the first place- I didn’t do anything wrong!”
“The
police will use it to buy vodka and cigarettes.
It’s the way it is.” And with
that, Yuri was done with this topic and didn’t want to talk about it. He wanted to go back to his family and day off. I gave him the UAH 40 as we walked to his
car. He offered me a ride, but I didn’t
want to hassle him and told him I would rather walk. He insisted on taking me home fearing I would
get in trouble again. I didn’t want to
make a scene and who knows, maybe the original police that hassled me were
still patrolling the neighborhood, so I got into his car to avoid a
confrontation.
Once
back at my apartment, we said goodbye and I apologized again for bothering him
on a Sunday. He drove off. When I was back in the friendly confines of
my apartment I was still upset that Yuri didn’t fight the fine, but it was too
late now. I opened a bottle of wine and
kicked back on my couch to digest this latest run in with the Kiev police.
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