Drugged, abducted, robbed in Russia

Everyone around the tables was friendly. I remember having 3 shots with them and that’s it … until I remember stumbling and falling from weakness on gravel somewhere in the countryside amid early morning sunlight. Didn’t know where the fuck I was but it certainly wasn’t in the city. It dawned on me that I had been drugged, robbed, abducted and ditched on a road in the countryside.

Yeah, yesterday was surreal and today I am still analyzing what little I remember …  I’m here in Irkutsk, Siberia, near lake Baikal.

Yesterday I had gone to a kiosk cum beer garden a block from where I was staying to get a shish kebab – grilled meat – and had a beer while I waited and was intending to return to the hostel to watch a DVD and have a quiet night. It was around 10pm and still light. Busy streets. A group of student-looking guys (4) and three girlfriends got talking to me and offered some vodka.

That morning as I stumbled to my feet I really wondered where the fuck I was ??? Trees, fields, and a country road and thank god it wasn’t cold or raining but I had all my clothes on from the night before – gore-tex jacket, fleece and soaked boots – how had these had gotten wet and had far had I already walked I have no memory – not even of awaking into this scene. Just stumbling like a waster in an unbelievable acid trip. I thought I was in a dream.

But my hands were cut and bruised from falling and my head above my eye a little banged from falling. AND while I had all my clothes and Swiss knife and money belt with passport and credit cards and traveler cheques intact. My cash dollars and rubles were all gone. And I had no idea where I was. I was something out of a movie – starring MRP as lead idiot. All the time I felt really wasted. Not alcoholic wasted-ness – but a euphoric swirling light dizziness. Blanket headache not searing pain. No vomit; no hang-over feeling so I guessed I hadn’t drunk too much but had had my drink spiked.

The doctor later confirmed that. Back at the hostel many hours later the manager called his friend and he checked me over and stated that there’s this drug – for lowering blood pressure that mixed with vodka to knock you out within 20 minutes and wipe your memory and that I was showing these signs as he checked my pulse and suggested that I drink alot of coffee to get back on the planet.

Anyway, to continue with the story. I don’t know how long I walked for but let’s assume hours. And I don’t know how my boots were soaked but my body dry. Did I walk thru wet grass, jump a creek, dumped in a farm house or on the roadside I don’t know ???

I tried hitching but no one stopped and besides there were few cars. I stumbled and fell and walked until – somehow in the right direction – towards asphalt roads and then the odd house and then over a hill and into suburbia and what must have been the outer limits of the city. I must have looked like  madmen and felt like a crazy.

I was still feeling sedated but strong enough to break through the feeling – maybe because of numerous experiences of altered realities over the years – but anyway the few people in the streets were frightened by me and shouted and hurried in the other direction when I tried to ask which way to the city.

I kept walking. Then a decent young Russian guy asked me what had happened as I was trying to communicate to another frightened local at a bus stop. He spoke English. He paid 100 rubles ($3) to a taxi driver to take me into the city center.

But when I went to the ATM for more cash – the driver left me there.

Having walked around the city yesterday I eventually found my way back to the hostel (actually an apartment with a few beds free). The receptionist was blown by my story and I crashed out.

The owner was called along with his doctor friend who said this is the kind of thing police know and do. Two police cadets had been caught robbing a taxi driver the other day. I had some flashback of a big building, wide corridors and uniforms (but here even firemen have camouflage uniforms) and I can’t be sure if this was dream.

Maybe I was lifted from the streets, searched in a station – money found and to cover there tracks dumped way out of town as nothing was gone except my receipts for cash dollars withdraws in Mongolia. I lost $372 US dollars and about $300 in rubles. But nothing else. Thankfully they didn’t find my hidden supply of an extra $600. True thieves surely would have taken everything including passport (normally, if I plan to go drinking only $20 or so is on me for this exact possibility).

Much of this last paragraph is assumption and there are a few more details but the real story seems forever lost.

I was unlucky and lucky – the damage could have been way worse. In fact it was a bit of a laugh because it’s so fuckin’ bizarre. Interesting experience but I’m not sure if it was value for money.

Anyway, that was day one in Russia. 30 to go …

Love, flowers & watch who you drink vodka with – MRP

EXPLORE

1. Insane first day – Saddam’s Iraq #1
2. Tobolsk – Siberia, Russia
3. Rostav Veliky – Russia