Preparing for two months in Russia The Lonely Planet vs. the Russian KGB I dont know if it is true, but I was told this story by a guy who worked a bit for the Lonely Planet. So, once the Lonely Planet writer was going along the Trans-Siberian railway through Siberia writing the guide to Russia. He came out of his train at one of the smaller stops to take a picture of a weird Soviet style building he saw through the window of his compartment. He made a few shots and was just about to go back to his train (which was leaving) when two policemen suddendly appeared out of nowhere and asked him to stay with them. The train left with all his stuff, and he was brought to a local FSB (former KGB) headquaters, detained for a few hours, and asked a lot of questions. Basically the police thought he was a spy and the building he was taking the photos of was actually the local FSB building. Nobody knows what would have happened if the LP writer had not had the telephone number of some high rank Moscow tourism department minister. He gave this number to FSB to prove that he was not a spy. The officers contacted the minister, learned that the guy is quite an important person, and were told to be nice and to help him board his train . In the best Soviet traditions the FSB office contacted the train (which was already somewhere near Irkutsk) and ordered it to stop and wait as long as it takes to deliver this very important person (the LP writer) back to his compartment. At the same time, the local FSB offices in Irkutsk got in the stopped train, took everybody out of the LP guys compartment and very carefully checked if all his stuff were at place, cleaned the cabin, and prepared everything for his comfortable stay. It took a few days to get the guy delivered back to the train (well, were talking about a few thousand kilometers), and finally he got back to his compartment and the train was allowed to continue its way. So, the moral of the story is to never take photos in Russia if you are not sure about the consequences.
Posted on: Sun, 28 Dec 2014 09:12:29 +0000