This is (clockwise from the bottom left and in the order in which I used it): Canadian dollars, American dollars, British Sterling, Euros, and Roubles.
So I had to bring some order to this mess. If I got yelled at even one more time for trying to buy things with that 2 Pound coin, I was going to come home and live in my mother’s basement, paying for things in hugs for the rest of my life.
So after my first day at the office, I headed out with another expat and a rather surly Russian office helper who spoke zero English in an attempt to get Roubles.
Our first two stops were closed. At three in the afternoon. No real reason, except that this is Russia, and you can close anytime you feel the need to, because you are Russian and this is Russia, and what’s your problem for not getting that? (this same brilliantly lacksidaisical attitude can be found in bus drivers who just stop empty busses in the middle of the road to get out for their break. Why pull over? You’ll just need to get into the middle of the road again, eventually.)
We did find a third place. But it was hard not to spot it with lights blinking like a casino, offering exchange rates on it’s canary-yellow awning. From the street we descended down the worlds narrowest, darkest, creakiest staircase into a little bunker of a room, where a leather-jacketed man and his fur-clad wife were counting their received cash. It was (no joke) at least $10,000 American Dollars. I was beginning to wonder if we had stumbled on to the kind of place that would sneak into my apartment to remove a kidney if I didn’t pay back their “loan”, but when the other expat exchanged cash without broken kneecaps,I decided to give it a go.
I stepped forward and drop my British money into the drawer first:
Money Change Lady: "Shouted phrases that do not include “tea“ coffee“ “monkey“ or any of the other Russian words I currently know"
Me: “Uhhhhhhh”
Money Lady: (long stare) (shoves the metal drawer back at me with a thud)
Russian Office Helper: (absolutely nothing because she is not paying attention in the slightest)
Me: “uhhhhhhh”
So I drop in my American dollars which money lady promptly changes, but only after yelling at me some more for daring to put change in the drawer.
Me: (holding Canadian cash up to the glass and obviously glutton for punishment) “Kanadianski Dollar?”
Money Lady: (big sigh and eye roll, as though I‘m holding up Canadian Tire money) "Nyet."
Apparently “bitchy” is the same in every language.
Next top, Bank Moskva. A bank--perfect. Surely they can handle this.
I drop my British money in the drawer and she changes it like a pro (she is). No problem.
Next, the Canadian money.
I drop it in the slot, and the woman at the bank pulls it out. She stares at it. She stares closely. She giggles. She calls in another woman who examines at the cash and then stares at me as though I’ve handed her Monopoly money. I smile a big stupid smile and wave through the glass (I assume this to be the international sign for “I am not a counterfitter”) After a long Russian conversation and three--yes three--massive binders filled with comparative photographs, she changes my money and smiles at me, a look of intense curiosity on her face. Is she wondering what a Canadian is doing in Moscow? Is she wondering why she hasn’t seen our money before? Is she wondering how someone who waved through four-inch thick bulletproof glass like a lobotomised four-year-old managed to even get a visa? Who knows? Russians are such a mysterious people...
