“Sit quiet, don’t say a word, and pretend we do not know that our visa into Russia does not start until tomorrow.” I whispered to Shap as a Russian border guard appeared at out door and demanded our passport and visa.

“You have broken the law, you cannot come into Russia until tomorrow, why you break the law? “ commanded the border guard as he leafed through our passport pointing to the date on our visa. We did not have much luck convincing him that it was a mistake. He kept repeating the same sentence, then on the telephone, then on the radio, while other border guards peered in on us.

“What should we do, can we buy a day visa?” I figured that this must have happened to others. “Nyet, you have broken the law, you go back to Mongolia.” Having been warned by the Mongolian border guard we were to be prepared to be kicked off the train, we had packed up our bags. Our new Australian friends are peeking out from their cabin wondering if we will be in never-never land unable to get back into Mongolia without a visa. They did not know a visa was not required for U.S. citizens. The guard keeps vigil outside our cabin, there is more communication in Russian to an unknown entity. Shap and I sit looking at each other, waiting. I keep rolling over questions in my mind such as: if there is a place to stay, if there is a train back to Mongolia today or will we sleep in the train station until tomorrow. We are ready for an adventure no matter which way it goes we are remaining calm and figuring there is nothing we can do.

Finally our guard states that we can pay a fine, 2000 roubles apiece. We offer to pay and he says no, bank. Where are we even near a bank? He leaves, then another guard tells us to move out of the cabin and he checks every corner of it. He leaves; next a woman comes in and wants to go through our luggage,that seems to be ok. Another guard tells us that we have to go outside with our entire luggage, so we start to get it together.

We had managed to break the ice with our original guard by mentioning we could not call Trump to get us a visa because we did not vote for him. But now he was gone and sense of security was lost.  A woman came,she spoke better English and told us to leave our luggage but to get off the train because we had to fill out paperwork.. Relief ! Paperwork was like a word from heaven, never in my life have I been so happy to do paperwork.

In the station sits “our friend” the border guard, I exclaim “Our friend” and everyone laughs. The woman has us write a statement that we do not speak Russian, we made a mistake and came too early to Russia on the train, and we do not need a lawyer. There is fingerprinting and mountains of paper work and questions. It takes so long that the female guard has seen pictures of my family, of Stowe, of the ski area, and our male friend types away. After it is all over, I say “thank you from the stupid Americans”, and they laugh. We have become friends.

We must go to a bank within 60 days and pay the fine and then send the receipt to an address printed in Russian. No one wanted to be paid. I was worried that we were holding up the train, but as we come out our train sits on the track by itself, no engine, no other cars, and this is where we stay for 5 more hours waiting for an engine. No wonder it takes two nights to get to Irkutsk.