The Shipment Has Arrived!

Our furniture saga finally came to a close on Saturday, as the delivery arrived without much incident. Well, unless you count the ride that we had from the hotel to the new apartment. Olga ordered a 'taxi' for us on Saturday so we could lug our six suitcases with us over to the hotel. Given that most taxi cars here are fairly compact, her assistant asked if we would like a Gazel for the transport. Her assistant explained that this is similar to a minivan and everything sounded good. Fast-forward to Saturday morning when we walk outside to see that the Gazel is something akin to what you see in the MASH series used to transport supplies. Or as Olga described it 'what you would see transporting potatoes around the city'. At least the driver had a great sense of humor about it, as he asked if we were moving furniture from the hotel.

I had my doubts as to whether the movers could actually get some of our furniture into the lifts here, but they did. Five guys showed up and within four hours all of the furniture was in its rightful place and all but a few boxes were emptied. We threw a few extra Rubles in and they mounted our flat screen for us, which was quite nice. I joke a lot about the inefficiencies here in Russia, but Russians in general are quite resourceful. Example. The guys didn't have a drill to mount the TV...not a problem. They went down to the security guard and asked if anyone in the building was doing renovations. As luck would have it, they found someone who was and indeed had a drill in his possession. In they come with their new comrade and a few minutes later it's all over. Olga explained to me that it is very common here for people to not only borrow tools and such from their neighbors as well as to lend each other money. I can't say that I've had that many neighbors that I would be willing to lend money to. As a matter of fact, I didn't even really know our neighbors in NYC and we lived there for two years!

After two days of searching through things and finding the right place for each item, I can happily report that the move is complete. We both wondered aloud a few times as to why we brought certain items, such as the US power cords and the small radio for the kitchen...neither of which will work here and neither of which would have made the trip had it not been for the fact that someone else was doing the packing!