It was 1995 and Laura and I were travelling around the world. Literally. From Seattle I met up with her in Hong Kong, we took the train from Beijing to Moscow, then to St. Petersburg. We would eventually move on to Warsaw, Berlin, Paris then Amsterdam before flying home, but it is a story from St. Petersburg that I want to bring up.
There has been a proliferation of ridesharing services in the last few years and these are coming increasingly at odds with local jurisdictions with regards to taxi services as well as municipalities themselves.
Back in 1995?
In Russia?
One guidebook (which I don’t have any more) recommended against taking any official cabs because the meters were notoriously rigged and tampered with. The recommendation was to flag down private cars as people would routinely give others rides for a nominal charge. And for the most part this worked.
But this one time was different.
The main post office in St. Petersburg. Taken from the city’s website.
Laura was in the hostel resting while I had gone to the post office to mail a few things home. This experience is probably worth its own blog post.
As I was returning from post office I stood on the sidewalk with my arm out hailing a driver. There were surprisingly few cars on the road for the middle of the day. it took a few minutes but I finally was able to flag down a couple driving a small car. I told them where I was going and we were off.
It should be noted just how crappy the economy of Russia was at the time. In Moscow people would stand by the train station selling the clothes off their backs or the one or two tomatoes they grew themselves. This is part of why people would use their private cars to earn money driving others around.
So I flag down a car and I’m on my way back to the hostel. We haven’t gone but a few blocks and the guy starts trying to sell me…. something. I don’t know and/or remember. What I do remember was an endless string of items products, the “only in Russia” variety.
When I didn’t accept any of the products or other services the guy who was behind the wheel started offering up the woman in the passenger seat.
That was unexpected.
I declined and could not get out of that car fast enough.
Then Laura and I went about the rest of our vacation as normal.