by Auslander

Tourist season seems to start earlier every year. This year most hotels and hostels are already booked through the end of May, many visitors are coming down for the Victory Day Parade. This year it seems season will start around the middle of April. Time to lighten things up a bit with the new rules and regulations concerning our summer plague, aka tourists.

You may come for a visit any time, just please follow the rules:

1. The ladies must be in proper attire including ankle length skirts, blouses with long sleeves and high collars. Ladies must have hair longer than 50 cm. Gentlemen must have hair shorter than 50 cm. and should not wear skirts and blouses.

2. No spitting, swearing or body noises in public and this prohibition includes when walking past City Administration Building and any of the local constabulary and dignitaries.

3. When a black S Klasse with darkened windows passes you on the streets you will doff your hat and bow humbly.

4. No disruption of vehicular traffic is allowed. This means you will be fined if you are clumsy enough to trip and fall in our sainted street pot holes, some of which are so old they have names and honorary plaques proudly listing the number and dates of axles they have broken.

5. Please do not pick your nose or your bumm when listening to our politicians pontificate in regards to how great they are and the extent of their vast accomplishments.

6. You will see many soldiers and sailors on our streets. Do not attempt to remove and try on those handsome blue or dark red berets. These are Desantniki and Spetznaz and any attempt to do the aforementioned may lead to some problems with your dentistry, what used to be your nose and so forth. Ditto for the sailors with those two neat ribbons hanging down their backs from their service caps although the sailors are marginally more kind than Desantniki and Spetznaz, operative term being ‘marginally’.

7. The vast quantities of rebuilt and repaved roads listed for the Sevastopol Region do exist and do, indeed, count all the new and repaved roads in the new mansion communities around the reservoirs on our side of the mountains but shucks, they’re people too and they did manage to repave the almost two kilometers of road on Hero of Sevastopol Street down to train station and the kilometer of road from that street up towards City Gates Monument. The plans are afoot to have the sewer covers on Hero of Sevastopol Street repaired and of proper height to blend in with the new paving, this is to be accomplished by late fall of 2037 barring adverse weather conditions.

8. It is considered to be bad form to void one’s bladder on the hood of the odd seven ton SUV parked on our sidewalks. These people are important and do not have the time to find a parking place so try to feel some brotherly compassion for them.

9. It is not allowed to denigrate in any way our honored guests from up north. All 30,000 of those military age young men with the AH (AN) and BB (VV) tags on their cars are fulfilling important coordination and support tasks for their honored and revered brothers fighting in the lines of Novorossiya. The majority of them have been relieved from duty by our local babushki who regularly kick the mortal pig snot out of the ukropov wandering around up there.

10. It is not allowed to denigrate in any way our honored guests from Kiev. Those worthy and valiant men with the AA tags on their cars are important resistance members struggling against the coup d’etat in Kiev for two years. After all, these poor people have left hearth and home to carry on the struggle while roughing it in the wilds of Sevastopol with our hideous weather.

11. Please do not make fun of other tourists. I know it is an annoyance to see them blocking traffic whilst waddling down the middle of the streets with their gaggle of children and 150 kilo wives in their micro bikinis and spandex tops but be patient with them. After all, most have never seen a paved, after a fashion, street and heavy traffic to them means two cows and a tractor on their local village street at the same time. Please kindly pick up the trash they accidentally drop on our streets. It is quite difficult for them to drop their half eaten sandwich in that trash container 10 cm away from their hand.

12. When driving on our streets please remember that those pretty red, green and yellow lights that change colors in seemingly random fashion are not Christmas lights. If the light is for instance red try to slow down to a maximum of 110 kph as you pass the light.

14. Do not go to our beaches from April to October without taking your heart medications with you. The two roads going down to our fine beaches on North Side will give a T 72 pause, in other words the tank will take one look at that rocky morass and automatically shut down, ergo an emergency vehicle might take an hour or three to go the almost full kilometer down the roads to assist you when you’ve seen one too many of the local lovelies in what little they consider to be proper beach attire.

15. Do not try to blend in with the locals. We can spot you at a range of roughly 300 kilometers, it’s your nasal pronunciations of Russian, that and your pasty white hide as opposed to the locals who are generally well tanned by late March if not before. Two days of roasting on our beaches in July does not produce a tan, you look like a well done lobster in a thong fresh from the pot. Your screams are interesting in a primal beast sort of way, though.

16. Speaking of blending in with the locals, please be advised that we owe you nothing for ‘saving’ us in February and March of 2014. You were not on the barricades in the cold, wet and gloom, we were. You did not face down the ukropov at the Krimu borders, we did. You did not take the Simferopol Aerodrome and blockade Belbek Aerodrome, we did. Please remember that and please take your pontifications of how much we owe you and kindly shove them up your nether regions, preferably sideways and with a fifteen kilo maul used to pound them in to place.

17. While at our beaches please remember proper attire. If you are over 70 years it is recommended that ladies wear both pieces of their bathing suits and ladies and gentlemen should kindly refrain from wearing thongs. Industrial size Depends does not count as attire at and below the waist on our beaches and does little to enhance your manly physique.

18. If you see us in City Center Park please do not touch our dogs. Trust me, Aleksandr and Yekatarina do not like you and what you may mistake for white golf tees in Aleksandr’s mouth are in fact his dental suite.

19. When walking your dogs and children in our parks, streets and byways please carry small baggies with you to pick up their droppings. As an aside we do not find it humorous or quaint when you remove your two year old’s clothing and let the child swim in our fountains, defecating and urinating at will.

20. Did you notice there is no #13?

21. We are quite conservative in our quiet little village and we are also quite tolerant. That being said, please do not try to convince us that your dinner plate sized earlobe plugs are some kind of ‘avant guarde’ statement. You look foolish with them as you look foolish with your South Seas Islander hair in a top knot. It is quite possible we will tell you so but please be kind and consider our comments and laughter as simply a local cultural aberration. Concerning your extensive body art covering your entire upper torso and shoulders, buying a local Spetznaz blue and white striped shirt to hang on your scrawny shoulders and display your expensive art work may also subject you to comments from the locals. Please remember, we are a backwater here and do not appreciate the finer imported western art forms. Call us cultural cretins, we will not be offended.

22. Please feel welcome to visit our peninsula and our little city. We will welcome you, your foibles and ours notwithstanding. We don’t like you, we have never liked you, but we will tolerate you for the good of our city. By the by, next time you get a tattoo in Chinese you would be well advised to consult a native Chinese speaker beforehand. The one you so proudly display now means ‘Ha ha, round eyes, you think this say you strong man, it say you girly man. Up yours, round eyes.”

Please remember these basic rules for proper behavior and enjoy your visit to our pleasant little city.

Auslander, author Never The Last One, Amazon http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00ZGCY8KK