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
Hahaha! But darn Auslander,I think I found some people that seem to be violating your rules. And “happily” too :
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PPaEYoPnA1k
Uncle Bob, did you really mean the “Hahaha”? Auslander is a very serious man with deeply felt sentiments, I for one, will never doubt that, but some people will always violate rules, (naturally no one at the vineyard…)
Your Video link provides propaganda of the worst kind. Assuredly, Auslander’s Travel Guide for the Perplexed is the way to go.
13 is considered an unlucky number, are you superstitious Auslander that you have not included it in your list of recommendations? In my experience this is a lucky number.
I will buy an ankle length skirt and fake tan lotion and see you happily in the summer.
Kind regards,
youareyou
I’m going to assume you were trying a bit of humor yourself. If I’m wrong,might I suggest a good English comprehension course to you.
Oh,yeah,PS. I think those propaganda videos (there are about a dozen of them) were sponsored by the Russian government. So if its propaganda,its pro-Russian propaganda.In this one they mention the Ministry sponsorship. I like this one too:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZZR9SdVN5I0
Young and full of life, laughter, fun and adventure. I well remember those times. Thanks for the video link. Made me think of some old memories. Reminds us all of that precious, yet fleeting, bloom of youthful life. Well done Crimea. Like the video, may you live in happiness.
Siotu
love this!
Has Ha Auslander
You forgot to mention these ‘rules’
1. no selfie photos allowed at the Avenue of Hero Towns
2. no trying to ring the Bell of Chersonesos
Auslander, my friend, you display such comedic talent that I had to cease sipping my brew in order to save my monitor screen from spray.
Like reading a John Cleese scene from his films. One laugh follows another.
Perfect gift from the stable of your writing skills. Thank you.
Folks need to get your book. It’s marvelously entertaining in many rich ways.
Never The Last One, Amazon http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00ZGCY8KK
Nice contrast between Aus’s mock and UB1’s rock.
Theater of the absurd in a theater of war.
No reason to get excited
The thief he kindly spoke
There are many here among us
Who feel that life is but a joke
BD
Comic relief on a Krimea sea-reef.
Oh what fools these mortals be.
WS
I laughed with the sexy krimeans
I cried for the hapless tragedians
Flashing for the refugees on the unarmed road of flight
An’ for each an’ ev’ry underdog soldier in the night
Tolling for the aching whose wounds cannot be nursed
For the countless confused, accused, misused, strung-out ones and worse
An’ for every hung-up person in the whole wide universe
An’ we gazed upon the chimes of freedom flashing
BD
Behind the face of a clown is a sad and lonely frown
Behind every beautiful face there’s some kind of pain
Thanks. I enjoyed the gladness. Strangely, it evoked a kind of joyful sadness.
Uncle Bob, we consider Feodosya a bit more rowdy than we would tolerate here, for instance our idea of a violent full contact sport is badminton at 15:00 on a soft June afternoon. The ladies are politely refused entrance to the badminton courts, such violence is not for their delicate and kind eyes. Please pay no attention to those ukropov screaming in the background at this statement, their pronouncements that we are extremely violent in our little bucolic village are untruths.
Babushka in Oz, please forgive me for not consulting you during the writing of my little posting. You are quite correct, ‘selfies’ are not allowed in this city mainly because of the inherent danger of such actions. Just yesterday some bright light in City Administration happened to be going through the rules, regulations and requirements in regards to our bus drivers in this humble berg. When doing so he was aghast to find there was no vision test listed for the aspirant drivers. This little foible certainly explains a great deal in regards to the generally wandering course of our public transit units and quite possibly explains the prohibition in regards to ‘selfies’.
The only time the Bell of Chersonesos is rung is when we catch the odd ukropov down here and on holding him up by his ankles 58 kilos of Kalashikovs, rubber gloves, slingshots, grenades and water balloons rain from his pockets. The punishment for such activities is having your head tied to the Chersonesos Bell and the 92 year old cleaning lady at Chersonesos Church then rings the bell. Repeat transgressions seem to be quite rare.
Sakerita-lia, please, when you purchase your skirt make sure the waistband is well above your bellybutton and kindly purchase a material that is subdued in color and print. A tasteful blouse would also be a wise addition to the skirt. If you are a gentleman and not a lady, I must mention that appearing in public attired thusly will rapidly enhance your swimming abilities but our harbor is relatively clean and there are no sharks in the Black Sea. I don’t know about sharks in our harbor, though.
While I am, indeed, a very serious man I have been known to be a bit mischievous from time to time. Shucks, as recently as summer 2006 I short sheeted our bed as a joke on my tolerant and saintly wife. She failed to see the humor in that act mainly because she is so short she did not notice.
13 is an unlucky number.
Larchmonter445, it pleases me that I brought a modicum of mirth to your day. As you know things have been a bit unsettling in the last few weeks and I reasoned that a little subdued humor might raise some spirits. The good thing is they yesterday fixed the main health problem, that extremely small and old wound on my face is no longer an irritant. Unfortunately I am housebound for the next few days, the result of the repair is my not handsome face looks like it lost a fight with a truckload of ax handles. It is so bad we were stopped twice on the way home from Hospital, the second time was actually of concern for me with the bandages and such. The first time was to assure the Gaishnik that it was not a ten year old child driving our family transport device. She is that short and small.
“Uncle Bob, we consider Feodosya a bit more rowdy than we would tolerate here”
Those ruffians over there. I can well understand how behavior like that on the video would shock the tender feelings of people from a navy and naval infantry based town.
We are, indeed, shocked at such goings on, Uncle Bob, truly shocked. Perish the very thought that any of our kind, gentle and polite young men in service would act in such a manner, they are too busy assisting little old ladies, kittens and puppies across our quiet streets. The fact that the little old ladies generally have a flame thrower of medium range built in to their umbrellas and spend their afternoons in City Center Park knitting a barbed wire fence is an entirely different subject.
Ummm. Please ignore those heavily armed young teenaged boys and girls at Guard Post #1 at the Eternal Flame in City Center.
very funny Auslander
Greetings from hot and sunny down under
Auslander, regarding item #2 -is this an inflexible law or can some accomodation be expected for those with unrelenting duodenums -those that suffer from DFS (Debilitating Flatulence Syndrome), bouts of which are often triggered when encountering pompous officialdom?
Sublime irony
This really entices me to come in Sevastopol. Sorry, Auslander !
I do hope that Aleksandr and Yekatarina have the same, finely developed sense of humour, as yours, Auslander, and don’t need English Comprehension courses, to understand ours? (btw, I will visit Crimea with my husband, visiting Professor of English Language and Literature at Oxford – we also like to give our dogs names from English history).
I write this, just in case we will meet in the park, and we address dear, adorable Aleksandr and Yekatarina, in the English language, we do so love dogs…
However, perhaps they will have been sleeping at home when you decided to take the fresh morning air Auslander, and you felt it best “to let sleeping dogs lie” so to say, and go without them on your walk…
In which case, we trust that they are not the Pavlovian breed, who will of course have awoken and raced after you at sounds of your departure, causing mayhem amongst traffic and tourists on the way…
We trust also, that although it is best to let sleeping dogs lie, yours are not of the kind who lie, even when awake, Auslander?
With kind regards,
youareyou
Sakerita-lia, our dogs are actually very well trained. They all speak Russian, English and some German. Sophia, our blue girl, Aleesya, a yellow, and Eloise, a mahogany like her brother Aleksandr, are very kind and gentle. The other five including Aleksandr and his father Melik can not be trusted outside our property. The three clowns are Aleksander, Sophia and Aleesya, you never know what they will do but they are quite resourceful in pulling a laugh, Aleesya in particular.
We breed old style collies, we breed very rarely and selectively, keeping the old blood lines going. Our two boys, I am 180 and both can put their front paws on my shoulders and look me in the eye. We do not breed the currently popular divan pillows, we breed and keep big and strong collies.
If we do perchance meet in City Center Park you will meet either Ekatarina or her half sister Sophia, Sophia being the blue, Ekatarina being a black. Both are quite kind and gentle although we generally take Sophia to the park. Ekatarina is a bit skittish and since we live on north side it is a bit of a drive to get to City Center Park. When Sofik is in the park she does love children and she is quite the crowd pleaser.
When are you coming to Krim and where will you be staying? We don’t get out much beyond our duties although in summer we do take Sofik to park every two weeks or so.
There is a way to contact me, just open my novel here:
http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00ZGCY8KK
You will understand.
Auslander
Thank you Auslander, I do of course remember hearing of your interesting, nay colourful, menagerie of dogs from your previous articles.
We will be visiting Krim (hopefully) in May, for a couple of weeks and will make accommodation plans shortly. It will be very pleasant to meet you, and I am sure we will all run into each other in the park.
My husband has no interest in Saker’s website, and is condescending, (to put it nicely) towards my own writing activities. Awfully stuffy, British and outdated, I know, but he’s a real gem of knowledge and advice if I approach him carefully. So, we will act as if we are unacquainted, if and when we meet.
As well as caring for our dogs, he also has the dosh – scuse the slang – so invaluable for winter breaks, can’t wait to get away from the January’s doom and gloom for a couple of weeks.
Thank you for the invitation to “open your novel”. Please do not overestimate my computer literacy skills; they are woeful and I am afraid I will understand nothing.
Kind regards
youareyou
Two unacquainted foreigners meeting in a city park is no problem, such can be arranged.
Please be advised, after several years of politely refusing invitations to participate in the Victory Day Parade last year we were not invited, we were ordered to participate. It is possible the same order will come this year and since said order will come from someone with more brass on their shoulder boards than I have on mine we will have no recourse but to salute and comply. That effectively shoots 08 through 10 May squarely in the foot. We will be at 35th Battery Museum in the afternoon after the 09 May parade, that is one of our main bases of operations in this city.
My invitation to open my book was a simple way to give you contact information that I will not post here, I am certainly not urging you to purchase the tome. Please do so and you will very rapidly see what I mean. It is simple and requires but minimal computer skills to address. If I can write it and do it, surely you can also. My knowledge of computers is not much beyond ‘where does the key go and how do you start this thing’.
I doubt my novel will be of interest to you but one never knows. Babushka from Oz enjoyed the book as have several other Sakers and wrote a glowing review of which I was quite pleased and thankful. However it does have graphic combat and hospital scenes in addition to a certain amount of emotional writings. It took me almost a month to write the final quarter of the last chapter, 17. My charming bride of over a decade has not read the entire tome but did read the end after I finished it. It reduced her to tears which I must admit was my intention.
Auslander
why soo strict? gives me flash backs to the first grade with sister Francis and her long cane.
Too Funny, Auslander! I empathize having lived and now retired at tourist destinations most of my life. Although I doubt you’ll visit the Oregon coast after your last visit to the Metropole, if you know of someone contemplating such a venture, please remind them to bring or rent a wetsuit to swim in our cold ocean. Oh, and with the drought now broken, an umbrella and rain gear need to be packed next to the sun screen. But do plan on taking a chartered fishing trip!
Happy Trails!!
be prepared for gaining a much wider understanding what “beach means on the south coast-there is some sand hidden by rocks.If you use local minibus, do not keep any money handed to you from behind, it is meant to be passed onto the driver and any change returned backwards; hence though it helps to learn russian, it is critical to accurately imitate what is said to you to person in front so driver knows how much to charge.An hours minibus ride from Sevastopol to Yalta has amazing coastal scenery be be prepared for very uncomfortable seating and no air conditioning, take a towel to sit on and wipe sweat from you. Absolutely concur with advice becoming a red lobster, hire a large beach umbrella to create shade. away from the beach, and in Sevastopol summer in the park, are exhibitions by local artists , some ok, a few actually very good, historically the Crimea was fameous for a local genre of maritime art. Regional museum in Simferopol is fascinating, there might be one day more Scythian gold that might have returned from Netherlands when it was lent by Kiev for an exhibition museum, but no ukr wants to keep it to pay back russian debt-moral-only lawyers and oligarchs earn money.
Like wise museums in Sevastopol are incredible too especially the crimean war painting in a circle theatre type thing, which clearly shows one of the first nurses and doctors trying to help the wounded a la Nightingale style in the face of turkish, french and British imperialism. This is a kind of sacred spot adjacent and the attendant military are military not the ordinary museum caretaker, no misbehaving. If you like steam engines, maybe the one with the big gun “death to faschism” is still by Sevastopol harbour, or has been sent to Novorossiya to join the steam engine museum at Donetsk if that is still standing, or the engines there have been used. My mrs says the one used as a boiler at Simferopol is actually being used to pull trains.
If you fly to Simferopol airport, it is quite exciting nay terrifying to be driven at nearly 100mph if your plane is late and driver wants to get home, but they are experts as you’ll see by the many beaten up cars on the road. Only cross same road with a crowd of people at pedestrian crossings, the number of bodies provides cushioning and reduces injuries.seriously there can be some young drivers with high powered cars who only have a driving license through bribery, and I am not sure if still anyone has car or personal or domestic insurance, or hotels have insurance policies, so ensure you are well insured for anything. Medical phrase book would be handy, but my mrs seems to tell me that actually medical services-for locals-are very good.Especially for gold teeth, much cheaper over there on western salaries.
But Crimea is a fascinating place..I also encourage anyone to go…..admire the new electricity lines, maybe new ship yards, piles of cruise missiles being loaded into the “Moskva”(do not photograph anything military, even trains nor officials of any level), remember most western credit cards will not work as Crimea is sanctioned from western money systems,new Kherch bridge being built, recommend read in advance Neal Aschersons books re The Black Sea , by the time you get there perhaps Auslander can personally introduce you to the new Ministers that have replaced the previous ones that had to resign over their dismal generous Russian budget management……..which VP has kindly extended to end of 2016 to compensate.
There are probably other “touchy” subjects best not to talk about, the locals will but they don’t want outsiders to know I would suspect.Just carry a copy of a dvd Crimea the Way Home openly glued to the front of any shopping bags.