Inhumanity in the absolute state: the story of how Aeroflot evacuated Russian citizens from Bali

Recently, Novye Izvestia has repeatedly addressed to this sensitive topic - the evacuation of Russian citizens from the foreign countries, where they resided for the various reasons. And the conclusion has always been the same: this process is organized by Russian officials from different government agencies equally inhumanly and mediocre, and no changes are expected. Here is another glaring example. Mikhail Shamov writes:

Timeline of events :

15:41 - at the same time I receive an SMS to the Russian number and a letter to the mail from Aeroflot that my flight departs exactly after 5 hours 29 minutes! Prior to this, I did not receive ANY information, neither SMS, nor letters, nor calls, the phone was constantly turned on! Moreover, it is from Aeroflot, and not from the State Services, where I filled out the form and this is important, then you will understand why. My return ticket to Russia was Qatar Airlines on April 14th. After calling the parents, it was decided to fly. I don’t know how I did it, but in an hour and a half I managed to get together, rent a bike and arrange accommodation, that maybe I will return - I was already aware of HOW people flew from Bangkok ...

18:10 - I get out of the taxi at the airport, look at the clock and think - how great, I have exactly 3 hours, I’ll have time for everything! Immediately run to the scoreboard - yes, there is a flight, registration is ongoing. The airport is completely empty, there are only 2 active flights on the board - this is my Aeroflot SU-6296 and mine, but not held Qatar, at 18:45, last call. The thought flashed that if it were not for the decree of the Russian government to limit the number of citizens arriving in Russia, then in exactly 6 days I would have absolutely safely left for it ... But no.

18:15 - I'm at the registration. 7 or 8 racks are completely empty - they turned out to be intended for those who have confirmed, rebooked Aeroflot tickets, from there I am sent to the ONLY rack, where there is already a huge queue for re-issuing tickets from other airlines, including Qatar. Within 10 minutes from the neighbors in turn, I found out that, firstly, there is some LIST where your name should be and secondly, Aeroflot sent information to its passengers about the departure not 5 hours before departure, but the day before, on 8-9 hours in the evening, that is, 24 hours before departure and not 5, as they say, feel the difference! Next, I quickly found an employee of our Russian Consulate who checked with passports whether your last name was in that very cherished list or not. You probably think he had a list on his hands? NO!!! He called EACH passport somewhere, dictated his name and waited for an answer. Calls constantly dropped. The time for checking ONE passport took from one to 3 minutes, there was NO civilized queue for verification, there was a real stampede, where everyone was the first to try to hobble the Consulate employee his own passport, some had 4-5 passports on hand and such a "check "sometimes took 5 minutes or more. According to my observations, about 50% of those who arrived were on this treasured list, while the rest, who also received the same messages as me, were not there and they were immediately offered to GO HOME‼ That is, even for money, for 400 EUR by the way saying they refused to sell the ticket‼

Moreover, sometimes it came to the most complete absurdity - for example: the husband was on the list and the WIFE WAS NOT, and vice versa, that is, one of the spouses ISF flew this flight and the other NO. I saw the father of the family, who WAS on the list, and his whole family - his wife and two children WAS NOT !!! At the same time, an employee of the Consulate constantly mentioned GOSUSLU and sent anyone who was not on the cherished list to deal with them. People tried to reach them directly from the reception, but no one succeeded. Some simply turned around and left, many called their relatives in Russia for help, several girls cried, some people were literally on the verge of hysteria ... All this looked like a complete SUR !!!

19:15 - I find out that I'm on the list. Well, everything seemed to be relieved, before the departure another two hours, it remains only to buy a ticket. And then the fun begins! When checking, an employee of the Consulate twice asks everyone whether he is ready to BUY a ticket, but apparently this is not enough for Aeroflot. Therefore, at the ONLY counter where you can buy a ticket, there is already a large queue of “verified” ones, and at the counter, the ONLY employee who sells tickets is already an impressive pack of passports. Processing ONE passport takes at least 5 minutes. The passenger is checked once again for AEROFLOT already in the LIST, then payment is made, the data is sent again to Moscow and from there, after some time, the re-booked confirmation code is sent to this employee on the phone, the “lucky man” photographs it on his own and runs to one of SEVEN completely empty and unoccupied check-in desks to hand over luggage.

20:30 - tension rises. For the one and a half hours that I stood in line for the purchase of a ticket, the employee managed to make a maximum of 15-20 people happy. But he already has my passport, as well as the passports of another 15-20 people. Among them there are families with children and even a pregnant woman with a spouse.

20:45 - An employee of the Consulate declares that the plane will FLY ON TIME and WILL NOT WAIT anyone. For a second, this is the ONLY and last flight at the airport, according to the same Consulate employee, out of 450 seats on an airplane, 300 are Aeroflot confirmed tickets, 50 tickets were sold for the entire time of sale, that is, there are about 100 more seats on the plane‼ But the plane will fly away on time, apparently so as not to pay a penalty to the airport for DELAY of the flight. We, those who stand at the counter, whose passports are processed, are still promised that we will fly away. But then suddenly the Consulate Officer runs away to the place of boarding, as several people from those who just BUY a ticket for 400 euros AEROFLOT DOES NOT PLAN on the plane, motivating it with the fact that they are LATE FOR LANDING !!!

21:10 The plane flies to Moscow on a schedule. They all return passports to us. Everybody's Free. There is no information about the next "evacuation" flight. About 50 or maybe a hundred people (exactly how many empty seats on the plane), including myself, spat upon, humiliated and literally trampled by my own country, Aeroflot and State Services put together slowly go out ... Someone still crying, someone calls relatives and literally screams into the phone, and someone like me is exhausted so much that the only desire is to quickly get back to home and forget all this like a bad dream.

P.S. I’m still lucky, I live 15 minutes from the airport and in my Complex I agreed that I could return, at least I HERE WHERE to return to and the owner of my bike, a Balinese, a sweetheart soul, is also warned and tomorrow the sutra will bring my bike back to me . That is, I’m completely hurt everything, not counting the time and moral strength that I spent on this absolutely disgusting, mediocre and anti-humanly organized “evacuation” ... But those fragments of phrases that I heard at that moment were from people who arrived from Canggu, from Ubud and even more distant places from the airport - they just became ill from them. People, including the elderly, whole FAMILIES, with CHILDREN stood on the street, almost at night, and decided what to do and where to go now.

Well, the promised cherry - mass mailing was carried out by Aeroflot. For the sole purpose - MAKE A BUCK‼ The more people come, the more seats for 400 euros will be sold out. And they were not at all interested in that moment - are you on the list of State Services or are you not there.

Inhumanity elevated to the absolute ... "