At the Russia–Ukraine border, on a night train stopped in Kursk, a thick-lipped border guard in a green uniform flipped through my U.S. passport.
No visa. No entry.
He was heavyset and sweating, the collar of his uniform dark with it. He looked up, then past me, and fixed his eyes on my fiancée. He said something in Russian—quick, casual, almost bored.
“What did he say?” I asked.
Kate leaned in and whispered, “He said he’d let us into Ukraine if I had sex with him in the train toilet.”
I was stunned. Not angry, just stunned. By my third year in Russia, I had learned that corruption in the former Soviet Union wasn’t an aberration. It was an essential part of an inefficient system.
The collapse of the state had made ordinary life difficult enough that parallel systems filled the gaps. If you needed something, papers, money, or permission, you didn’t waste time on laws or procedures for results. You looked for people with connections, блат, as Russians say.
The phone in my apartment in Perm e…
