As we were planning this vacation, I received the prospect
of flying to Russia on Aeroflot with a 90:10 blend of excitement and
nervousness. On the one hand, I was
pretty pumped to check out a new airline I’d never flown before, and having
been an air show geek as a kid, I remember Aeroflot as a cold war equivalent of
Air Canada. Only I remember thinking
that Aeroflot’s stewardesses, while highly skilled and coached to work as a
highly coordinated unit, just didn’t have the same intangibles that our Canadian
stewardesses had <translation note: that’s a Canadian hockey joke
for you non-Canadian readers…>.
But on the other hand, Aeroflot doesn’t exactly get the same
kind of positive press that, say, Singapore Airlines, or Emirates does. There was another itinerary on SAS that
wasn’t very different in terms of scheduling or price, and seeing as how I love
all things Scandinavian, I was tempted to go with the Swedes. In the end however, Aeroflot got the nod, so
away we went.
One of the first things you notice with Aeroflot is the
retention of their Soviet-era logo: A winged hammer-and-sickle.
It’s there on the sign behind their check-out
desk. It’s on the left breast of all the outfits. It’s even embroidered around the cuffs of the
sleeves of their blazers. I enjoyed
that. The winged hammer-and-sickle is a
great piece of graphic design, and, quite frankly, it just fits somehow. I’ll grant that this may mark me out as an
aging relic of a time when communism still seemed like it might actually be a good
idea, but seeing that symbol of good-ol’ Soviet technological might, and the looming
threat that it used to represent helped set my mind at ease regarding the
thought of flying with an airline regulated by a government that is just a tad
on the corrupt side. If there is one
area where autocratic control might still be a good idea, airline regulation
might be it.
The throwback feel continues at boarding, as the 767 we flew
the transatlantic leg on seemed to have missed a skipped a few upgrade
cycles. CRT monitors in the aisles for
entertainment. Overhead bins that
weren’t really capable of handling the jumbo-rollerbags that many people travel
with these days. Weathered blue &
orange leather, reminiscent of the old CP Air colour scheme.
Keeping with the cold war theme, Aeroflot dresses their
stewardesses in brilliant red-orange, with the winged hammer-and-sickle
embroidered in gold, leaving you with the idea that they wrap their flight
crews up in leftover USSR flags that they didn’t have any other use for
anymore. All of the stewardesses we saw
were tall, leggy, blond women, with one exception, who I assume must have been
the affirmative action brunette hire.
 |
| Sorry Angelina, blondes only... |
The flight was actually quite smooth, and I slept for the
first couple of hours, waking up just as the in-flight programming really hit
its stride. And the in-flight
programming lineup was interesting to say the least:
The first film they put on was an amazing Russian film from
the 1960s called “A Lively Voyage.”
The description in the in-flight magazine is as follows:
"A comedy about Lions and Tigers running around a cruise ship full of passengers"
It’s like “Bedtime for Bonzo” had an ecstasy-fueled
threesome with “The Love Boat” and “Life of Pi.” Seriously, I can’t recommend this movie
highly enough. It’s amazing. The title has to be a mistranslation though, as for the life of me, I can't find it anywhere on IMDB...
The next film up was “Singing in the Rain,” dubbed into
Russian, because apparently the media procurement budget for Aeroflot got cut
to zero sometime in the early 70s.
After that, it was cartoon time – Soviet cartoon time.
There is something about Eastern European children’s stories
that really speak to me. They tend to
have a touch of darkness about them that is often missing from the too-pleasant
and too-sunny Western versions.
The best of the bunch was called “Geese and Swans.” It’s a Hansel & Gretel kind of story,
where two parents leave their children at their farm as they go to the market,
telling the older daughter to watch out for her younger brother. The older daughter, still being a young girl,
predictably leaves her brother on the lawn so that she can go play with her
friends. While the daughter, Maria,
frolics with her friends, a flock of evil geese and swans swoops down and
kidnaps her brother, carrying him off into the dark woods. Seeing her brother carried off, Maria’s exact
quote is “This is all my doing, so it is up to me to put it right.” Look at those Soviets, teaching their kids
personal accountability!
Suffice to say, the evil waterfowl are in the employ of an
evil forest witch who eats little boys (Baba Yaga perhaps?), and as Maria travels through the
forest, she helps other forest denizens she meets along the way, earning their
help as allies and in the end, she retrieves her brother and gets him home before
her parents return from the market (hey, even Soviet fairy tales aren't that dark).
After getting to Moscow and missing our connection, Liz and
I both got upgraded to business class for our flight to St Petersburg. Business class is always sweet, but flying
business class on a formerly Soviet airline is especially sweet because of all
the Orwell one-liners you suddenly have at your disposal. We decided that we weren’t quite flying
Oligarch Class, since oligarchs probably own their own planes, but despite our
shlubby tourist clothes, we did our best to soak in the baleful stares of the
hapless serfs, boarding miserably into coach while we enjoyed our pre-takeoff
glasses of champagne.
I don’t think anybody is ever going to mistake Aeroflot for
Etihad, or Cathay Pacific, but one flight delay aside, I’ve got to give them a
lot of credit for getting us to St Petersburg in comfort, style, and leaving us
with a new appreciation for Russian cinema, and social challenges faced by
Russia’s brunette community.
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