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Moscow, Russia. I had just landed on the airplane to a world of cold and ice. I didn't know the language and I didn't know a single soul in the entire country. I had no clue where to even go to find a place to stay.

I went through passport control and into the main airport after getting my luggage. I looked around and I was immediately surrounded by many men repeating the same word , "Taxi". I stood in awe at the crowd of people in the airport all running and scurrying along like ants looking for a drop of sugar. I had no clue what to do. I knew one thing , I didn't like the big city and I wanted to get to Kazan as fast as I could.

I looked to a man that spoke broken English , if that was considered English. I told him I wanted to get to the train station and I would pay one-hundred American dollars for safe passage. He grabbed my bags from me and I had to jog to keep up. Later i would come to find out that one-hundred American dollars was about twice what I should have paid.

We drove for a while in the Moscow traffic and that was an adventure in itself. There was snow and pot-holes all in the road so they just drove where they pleased. I was again amazed that we lived to make the train station ! I felt very uncomfortable and wanted to get back to America as fast as I could , but I was to stay in Russia for a month. I had the sensation in my soul that I had made a great mistake.

When we got to the train station the man jumped out of the car and tossed my bags onto the frozen and snowy ground. He held out his hand and I put the one-hundred dollar bill in his palm.

"Spaseeba", he said then jumped into the taxi and was gone.

I went down into the underground to the train station terminals and bought my ticket and then , since I had four hours before my train left, I found a place far in the back and secluded to sit. As I sat there wondering what I had gotten myself into, thats when I saw the strangest lady I have ever met up to that day.

She slowly came sliding down the hallway that was about thirty feet across and had pillars supporting the roof , and she was carrying a bag , like a big shopping bag. She appeared to be a beggar of sorts because she was in poor clothes and wrapped in pieces of cloth to keep her warm. She had a shawl but it was thread-bare and old.

She approached me but went to a pillar near me . She began to undress there in the hallway ! She took all of her clothes off and was standing in the hallway that was about forty degrees ; naked ! I tried to avert my eyes but there was something about her that caused me to look from the corner of my eyes. She took a cloth and some wipes out of her bag and began to clean herself off with the sanitary cloths and then she took nice clothing out of the bag and began to dress.

The whole ordeal took her about fifteen minutes but when she was done she had transformed into a nice-looking lady of about fifty years old. She looked elegant and was dressed like a middle-class business woman. I was shocked at the transformation from the old babushka beggar to the middle-class business woman !

Ill never forget that day and that lady. I do not know why she was dressed like that and I guess I never will. I can only guess that she made her living as a beggar in the street but hid it from her family and left her home as a middle-class lady. I have met many strange people since then, but she is definitely one that stands out in my mind , even today.

Learn more about this author, Ray Anderson.
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