by Paul Shirley
1. Green
2. Red
3. Orange
And then it gets more complicated.
4. Blinking green, signifying impending orange—a pre-caution caution light, as it were
5. Red and orange at the same time, meaning, about to switch to green—a head start, perhaps
I suppose that these extra light combinations were created in an effort to give motorists more information. Unfortunately, the plan has backfired. No Russian driver wants to be left behind, so each car is already well in motion by the time the green light comes on. Of course, the cross traffic has not yet cleared the intersection, resulting in a snarl of cars headed in all directions as each driver attempts to extrapolate from past experience with crazy people what his comrade might attempt, while trying to avoid the trolleys and buses, which are bound by no traffic laws. At the same time, every man behind the wheel is furiously wrenching on his window crank so that he can vent his frustration with the nearby driver who had the gall to actually wait for a green light, all while trying to decide which should govern his mitten usage—the cold outside air, or his need for a cigarette. Nicotine wins, but the time it takes him to search for a light causes him to miss his chance for forward progress, angering the man now jammed perpendicular to him, beginning the cycle again.
And that’s just the first intersection.
After the first traffic light o’ hell, I was given a brief respite by an area of road that is probably eight lanes wide—if lane lines were to magically appear. It was a moment of calm before the storm. After the brief traffic angioplasty, the artery is quickly constricted to a two-lane road on the right side of a canal. Since it is the only road into the center of the city, the road was full, as usual. (It has been reported that I once reached 20 miles per hour on this road, but those reports are unconfirmed at this time.) Blessed with good conditions, I found the going to be only slow. Under normal conditions—which include (1) a stalled car ahead, (2) the driver of a large truck deciding that the entire right lane is a good place to park, (3) a small accident that won’t be cleared until the two participants quit yelling at each other, and(4) inexplicable circumstances involving stray dogs, pedestrians, and so on—movement is impossible.
After inching along for a mile or so, I found my landmark, a strip club on the left side of the road, and crossed over the canal. I took my next right and found my nemesis awaiting me—the most disastrous intersection I have seen in all of the world. (And I mean that.)
Traffic at this intersection is never fast-moving; the situation is further complicated by the pedestrians present because of its proximity to the center of the city. Said pedestrians are not rational human beings. They will jump in front of a car without fear. They are often old and appear to be holding on to their sense of balance tenuously. The intersection proper marks the confluence of two trolley tracks, meaning that trolleys are never far and are often turning, which is not a speedy process. For whatever reason, the lights are badly timed: green lasts about six nanoseconds.
For me, the path through the intersection followed its usual preset pattern. A trolley was stopped by a group of pedestrians crossing out of turn. A driver traveling perpendicular to the trolley thought he could beat a red light and got stopped in the intersection. Traffic flowing parallel to the trolley received its red-orange combo light and headed out into the havoc. One lane’s flow was blocked by the car. Someone in another lane began an attempt at a twelve-point turn into a side alley, leaving the rest of the participants a winding path that was soon blocked by an old lady stumbling through a pothole. Chaos and much honking of horns ensued. Each new driver to arrive on the scene decided that he was the one getting a raw deal and tried to bull his way through.
Eventually, enough people realized that driving out into the intersection never actually solves the problem, the lights began to have meaning again, and I finally got across. From this intersection, I had only a few trolley tracks to dodge before I arrived at the arena, calm and collected and ready to practice.
Oh, did I mention that the streets are always covered in snow?
So far, I have not made my trip from the hotel to the arena en route to a game in which I would actually play. I haven’t even donned a uniform. In fact, the team recently departed for a game in the city of Novosibirsk, leaving me in Kazan to practice with the junior team. (The coach originally told me that I would travel to the game even though I would not play. When I found out it was a seven-hour flight and three time zones away, I begged my way out.) The player I thought I was here to replace, Chris Anstey, has arrived back on the scene after an appendectomy and should be ready to play in two weeks. It appears that the team is awaiting word on whether another American, Ira Clark, will receive a French passport, as he has been promised. If that happens, I think I will then be added to the roster. Like most European leagues, the Russian basketball federation allows only two Americans per team. If Clark does not receive dual citizenship, the team will be forced to choose whether it wants to keep him or me. (Anstey counts as one American, even though he is Australian—not worth the explanation. Clark is the other.) By the time he would receive the mythical passport, I will have only about two weeks left on my contract. (I am now thinking of this only as a one-month tour of duty; something amazing would have to happen for me to stay past December 25—like all the snow melting and a beach appearing.) I could conceivably play in about four games before taking my leave of this hellhole. On the other hand, they could decide not to pay the fee (it costs a certain amount to change players on the roster) and stay with the current roster, leaving me out in the cold, so to speak. While I think that actually playing might make the time go a little faster, I don’t know that I care that much. If there is no real future in it, it is difficult to put forth any effort. And if the coaches are going to continue to treat me as if I am nothing more than a nuisance, I have very little motivation to care one way or the other. There is the money thing, I suppose. I need to become a little more American and embrace the materialistic.
December 9
My team plays in an international competition in addition to its participation in the Russian league. Shockingly, it is not easy to get in and out of Kazan for the trips to the international games. In fact, I might file our return trip from a recent game in Macedonia under “Most Ludicrous Travel Itinerary Ever.” We left a hotel in Skopje, Macedonia, at 5:15 A.M.,on a bus to the Skopje airport. Departed from Macedonia at 7 A.M. Arrived in Frankfurt, Germany, at 9:45. Left Germany at 10:45 with a 3:30 P.M. (Russian time) arrival in Moscow. Rode a bus two hours across town to the “bonus” airport in Moscow. Waited. Departed Moscow at 10:30 P.M. Arrived in Kazan at 11:45 P.M. In all, it was an eighteen-hour journey. I could travel from New York to almost any city in the world in that amount of time.
Our stay in Skopje started off well. The ride into the city took us through modern-looking, semi-civilized streets, and my opinion of Macedonia was at an all-time high. It would only drop from there.
We practiced the night of our arrival in Skopje and then headed off to bed in what is easily the nicest hotel in which I have stayed in all of my European basketball adventures. So far, so good. Because we had traveled to Macedonia a day earlier than usual, we had another day to wait before the game. (I don’t know why. See above difficulty regarding travel in and out of Kazan. It didn’t really matter to me—a hotel room in Skopje beat my mattress on the floor back on Hoth.) Our day-before-the-game ritual included a double shot of practice, a concept of which I am none too fond. I managed to wrench some odd muscle in my back during the first practice, which was not encouraging. I can deal with only one negative stimulus at a time, so I was dismayed when my stomach began to roil just prior to the second practice. I managed to hold things together through the workout; in fact, I had one of my best practices since joining the team. When we got back to the hotel, the team gathered for the evening meal. I played my part, except for the eating-of-food aspect, with my mind on my room and a hope of s
ome back-pain and upset-stomach management. I asked the team’s trainer (who speaks less English than I do Russian; how does a team expect to deal with American players in this capacity?) for some help with my back; he came to my room and gave it a good rubdown. (Insert gay-sex joke here.) I did not mention the clash of microbes that was going on in my digestive tract. As I have mentioned, I generally like to keep my complaints to trainers down to one at a time. After some run-of-the-mill diarrhetic trips to the bathroom, I fell into a restless sleep.
My trusty little Timex travel clock informed me when I awoke that it was 2:30 in the morning. I knew something was amiss. I wasn’t sure what was going on, but I did know that (1) I needed to be in the bathroom and (2) my body needed to be oriented in a direction opposite the one usually used in the vicinity of the toilet.
When I was finished, I spent some time lamenting the end of a nine-year vomit-free streak—and then I cleaned myself up and went back to bed. Sleep did not come easily; I think my mind knew that something big had happened—or maybe I was just sick. The next morning, after a few more bathroom bouts of a slightly more conventional manner, I managed to summon the team doctor to my room. He gave me some voodoo pills and sent me back to bed. (Actually, I should not make fun. I have found European medicines to be quite effective. I don’t know if that implies a lack of government oversight or that I have not yet developed a tolerance for their drugs, but their stuff seems to work.) No shoot-around for me that day. I was not displeased, as I certainly had enough things on my plate, not the least of which was starting a new vomitless streak.
Our esteemed coach informed me before we left on our road trip that I would probably not play in Macedonia. I didn’t protest my inclusion on the travel list because, as I may or may not have made clear, I hate the city of Kazan and thought the adventure would do me some good. My position vis-à-vis playing did leave me in something of an awkward spot with my teammates. Because of the language barrier with most of them, it was difficult to explain that while they may have perceived that I would be playing in this particular game because I was on the trip, that had never been in the cards and my bout of food poisoning had not been the cause of my absence from the lineup. That being said, had the coach wanted me to make my UNICS Kazan debut in Skopje, I might have had to decline. Come game time, I was still in pretty bad shape. I had only subtracted calories over the previous twenty-four hours, and my back had definitely not benefited from my night of trips to the bathroom. Needless to say, I was pleased to watch the game from the sidelines.
It was quite a game. Reminiscent of my time in Athens, the temperature in the gym was being maintained at about 55º F. The court had more dead spots than a barn floor and appeared not to have been swept for years. My team came out the victor, to the dismay of the crowd that hovered over us the entire game, showing its displeasure by occasionally spitting at us. (I managed to contain my Artest-like reactions, but only because I was in street clothes.) The best part of not playing was still to come—in the fact that I was not forced to use the despicable showers in an attempt at a body cleaning. I guess a little out-of-place microorganism and a crazy coach are worth something after all.
December 15
Soon after our return from Macedonia, we left Kazan for Turkey. While I remain a streetclothes-wearing spectator, at least I’m getting my money’s worth on the exotic-travel front.
A second trip to Istanbul confirmed what I thought after my first visit there—that Istanbul is a fantastic city. It is dirty and the people generally smell like gym socks, but I like its personality. My first journey to the city was with the Greek team for which I was playing at the time. Because of the eons-long dispute between the Greeks and Turks, I was kept insulated from most of the Muslim historical sites. Instead, my tour guides confined me to ancient Greek churches and the like, so I did not see what is probably the most famous site in historic Constantinople (as my still-bitter compatriots called it for the duration of our visit), the Blue Mosque. Now, one would think that a learned person like me would remedy that gap in his touristic adventures when he had the chance. Instead, though, I chose to while away my hours in Turkey with the most American of pastimes—shopping. I cannot say that my adventures in consumerism were without their share of culture, however, as they occurred at the Grand Bazaar.
The Grand Bazaar was not what I expected. I had envisioned some sort of dusty, Indiana Jones–like city square, with giant pots, monkeys, and men wearing turbans, brandishing scimitars, and yelling things in Arabic (or Turkish, I suppose). From an economic standpoint, my vision of the bazaar has a couple of flaws. First, the open-air arrangement I had dreamed up would allow inclement weather to wreak havoc on the proceedings, and second, the burly Turks with swords wandering around in my fantasy would most definitely scare away gullible tourists and their bulging wallets. In fact, the bazaar is not all that different from the standard mall in Suburbia, USA. The décor is different, and the food court is not as easy to find, but the theory behind both is similar.
When our cabdriver dropped several of my teammates and me at the entrance, it did not take long for us to be initiated into the customs of the bazaar. Leading to the entryway was a short, brick-lined street like something out of a Harry Potter book. Before we cleared that street in order to enter the bazaar proper, we were whisked away by a man selling leather jackets who had ingratiated himself to Ivo, my Croatian teammate, by calling to him in his native language. Ivo was in fact shopping for leather coats, so it did not take much to convince him to follow. We followed and were led into a dead-end alleyway, where we found ourselves in a miniature mecca of leather shops. I was fairly confident that we were about to be mugged but was comforted by my earlier decision to carry a sword of my own—kind of like the one Morgan Freeman’s character in Robin Hood used. Unfortunately, it was tucked down the right side of my pants, so I knew I was going to have a devil of a time getting it out if…(Okay, that was retarded and I made it up. It seemed to fit into the story though, so I went with it.) Anyway, when we got into the shop, our newfound friends began assaulting us with entreaties to buy leather jackets. They actually had two coats with long enough sleeves for Ivo. Unfortunately, they were more offensive-lineman big and not basketball-player big. No matter, though—the shop owner simply sent his runner off to who knows where to secure another option. While he was gone, there was a commotion outside in the shopping cul-de-sac. Our shopkeeper quickly shut the door to his store at the first sign of trouble, so we were insulated from the situation. As near as I could tell from all the yelling—more from the harsh tones and the rather high volume than any knowledge of the language being used—a man felt he had been cheated by another store owner and was going to retrieve his dignity using the footstool he was waving about. We watched through the glass as some fellow Turks (they had darkish skin and black hair, so I assumed) calmed their companion. Crisis averted. As the situation was being resolved, our courier returned with two new options and sauntered in as if nothing had happened outside. My teammate declined to make a purchase, and we moved on.
The bazaar itself is almost entirely underground, or at least seems to be. (There were no pamphlets and everyone there was peddling something, so I was not able to get any facts.) It contains something like three thousand different shops, each the size of an average bed-room. The shops’ level of formality ranges from, at the top end, places that accept credit cards to, at the bottom end, a man standing at the crossroads of two paths, offering, “You wanna buy a carpet? Come with me.” Everyone I saw spoke some level of English, along with several other languages—it makes good business sense to have such ability. The walkways are clean, and the ceilings are very high and well lit, so the place is relatively welcoming. But because the complex is constructed like a maze (for obvious reasons) one can become disoriented quickly. I have no doubt that I could have wandered for hours without understanding which way I was going.
Having acquainted myself with the setup, I dove in and started looking around
to see if there was anything that interested me. I found some potential Christmas gifts and made a few purchases. I then followed my teammates around for a while and watched Ivo participate in some disastrous negotiations. He was again looking at two leather jackets—one for him, one for his wife. After some back-and-forth, the shop owner told him that the best he could do was $700 for the two. Ivo then made his first mistake and started acting wishy-washy, saying he did not know what he wanted to do, that he wanted to think about it, instead of furrowing his brow incredulously and threatening to leave—the method I found to be most effective. The seller then proposed $680. The small discount threw off my teammate and he said, “How about $500?” To which the owner’s eyes lit up. He raced over and said, “You got it!” His enthusiasm betrayed him, though, as my friend knew he had been had. We beat a hasty retreat, and Ivo lived to bargain another day.
I write as if I am some sort of master at bargaining. The truth is that, by purchasing something, I was probably raped on the price. For example, I returned to the bazaar the day after our first there because, miraculously, I had located some shoes for myself and wanted to drink that well dry. I inquired at several shoe shops to no real success before finding a store that had a pair I liked. I tried them on and considered what I might pay for them. I looked up at the salesman from the cushions on which I was sitting and asked what he wanted for the shoes. (For background, I am talking about some semi-athletic shoes that I would wear casually. They would probably cost $65–75 in a store—if that store carried shoes for gigantic humans.) He said $120, which was ridiculously high. But I think his strategy worked. If he had said $80, then I could have countered with $25. As it was, I came back with a $40 offer. He said $100. I said, “No, thanks,” and got up to leave. He quickly came down to $75, and I thought I had him where I wanted him. I again told him no and began unlacing. He asked what the most I would pay was. I said $45. He said, “$60, and that’s as low as I can go.” But it wasn’t. Eventually, he came down to $45 and I had a new pair of shoes. The beauty of this exchange is that we both came away happy. I felt like I had gotten a pretty good deal on some shoes I liked. On the other hand, he knew that he had paid $8 for the shoes because they were either knock-offs of the real thing or had been pushed off the back of a delivery truck. Whichever it was, he had made a gigantic profit by getting $45 out of me. So in the end, I’m a sucker, no matter what the price.
