Stories From My Life

Muggers and a broken window.

It was 1993. I was in Almaty, Kazakhstan. We had translated several Gospel brochures into the Uzbek, Kazakh, Kyrgyz, Tajik and Turkmen languages. We were rushing everything, assuming that soon we would be forced out of the area. The literature had been printed and shipped and was on its way to Central Asia by train.

Tajik is a dialect of Farsi, the primary language of Iran. One of our goals was to see if we could infiltrate Tajik and Turkmen Gospel literature into northern Iran across their border with Turkmenistan.

A word about Turkmenistan. It is today the third most repressive country in the world. It is “closed” to all outside Missionary activity and even somewhat hostile to tourists. They are rich in natural gas and do not seek outside investment, allowing them to seal off their country. They, along with the other Central Asian countries, gained independence in 1991. Their leader under Communism became their new president after independence. He became one of the harshest dictators in Central Asia.

In early 1993, however, the country was still in chaos. They had not yet closed their borders and did not yet have the organized Police State that they would have later. They checked everyone arriving at the airport but paid very little attention to people entering the country by train. The train crossed the infamous “Kara-Kum” (Black sand) desert and was mainly used by poor people travelling to Uzbekistan to buy things to sell on the street in Turkmenistan.

I wanted to travel to the border to see how tightly it was controlled, to “eyeball” it, so to speak. I needed to know if it was feasible to smuggle Bibles and literature across that border. I knew that most borders in Asia allowed locals to freely cross back and forth locally, kind of like we do on the Texas/Mexico border for day-workers. If such a thing existed and if believers could cross back and forth, we could trickle literature across like missionaries had done from Hong Kong to mainland China for 40 years.

I was in Almaty, Kazakhstan when one day a local Christian told me they remembered meeting a small group of Christians living in Ashgabat. Another explanation: Under the Communist/Soviet system, believers were often exiled far away from their home area. It was standard Soviet practice to exile believers to the periphery of the empire, preferably to a place where the languages and customs were alien. Because of this they exiled thousands of Russian Christians to Central Asia and dropped them among the Muslim nationalities. The goal was to isolate and insulate them. This is why when someone mentioned Christians in Ashgabat, my ears perked-up. It made sense that there would be. If there were, they may know how we could get literature across the border.

I jumped at the opportunity. I immediately packed up and hopped on a train. All the local Christian had was an address in Ashgabat and no phone number (common in those days). I needed to go and see if I could find them. This may be an answer to prayer!

The train from Almaty travels 24 hours to Tashkent, Uzbekistan, then another 24 hours to Ashgabat, Turkmenistan. It is a hot and crowded ride. Temperatures in the Kara-Kum desert routinely reach 120 degrees in the summer and the trains were not air-conditioned. Windows were often sealed so you just sat and suffered. Uzbek and Turkmen trains were famous in those days for packing people in to make extra money. I was travelling third-class (what we called “cattle-car”) which meant an open wagon with no dividers. A train wagon in this configuration is supposed to hold 60 people. These had almost 100 crowded in with people swapping between standing and sitting. the floors were a slimy mess by the first day and you had to keep an eagle eye on all your belongings. This wasn’t much of a problem since I was was “economically-challenged” and only had a small backpack, one half of which was books. Notice I did not say anything about the bathrooms because I figure your imagination can conjure a picture…oppressive heat, 100 people and a hole in the floor…

I was 20 years old and could sleep anywhere. I hopped the train for an uneventful 24 hours to Tashkent. Actually, I was excited. The question of the Iranian border nagged me every time I looked at a map. I was anxious to get an answer to the question.

The train pulled into Tashkent at night. Everyone got off, thrilled to breathe the merely 95 degree air after the “sauna” on the train. I headed into the train station to buy a ticket to Ashgabat. After fighting through the line and convincing the surly ticket agent that I did, indeed, wish, as a young, white foreigner, to travel to Ashgabat, I had my ticket and headed out to find my train in the dark. Something significant happened. As I was going out of the train station, a man was selling decorative daggers on a table by the door. They were cheap junk but shiny and sharp. They were designed in the Uzbek style with fancy filigree. I thought my brother would like to have one of those and spent a few of my small supply of dollars to buy one.

I found my train and found my seat. The train was empty so I sat down and waited. It was safe (Usually) to sit on the train. Train stations in those days were rife with crime. I relaxed and dozed off in the dark.

I woke up to two men standing over me in the darkness. They saw me move and spoke harshly to me in Uzbek. I shrugged that I did not understand and one of them put a large knife in my face. I understood that this was a mugging and sat quietly. The other one grabbed my backpack and began to dig through it. I was unconcerned since I knew they would not want my books and old ratty clothes. Then I remembered the camera…

I had borrowed my Dad’s camera. I had wanted to take some good photos and his was the only one available. He had entrusted me with it. I had put it in the bottom of the bag when I got on the train. With a gesture of what I assumed was excitement, one of them held it up to the other and they turned to leave. The knife guy pushed the knife toward my face and said something harsh in Uzbek (probably warning me not to follow) and they took off towards the exit door.

I ran through my options (short list) and remembered the dagger I had bought. I was not going to lose that camera! I grabbed the dagger from the side pocket of the backpack and tore out after them. I saw them jump from the door of the wagon onto the platform and jumped right after them. I came down behind them but with my outstretched arm coming down on the shoulder of the guy with my camera. I grabbed him and he spun around, his buddy already running. I shoved my dagger towards his face and was rewarded with a look of panic. He shoved the camera into my hands and, as I grabbed it, turned and took off to catch up with his buddy. I was thrilled. I turned around all smug and looked into the faces of four Uzbek Policemen standing on the platform about 15 feet away. I was hyped up on adrenaline and must have looked crazed. I held up the camera and the dagger in the air above my head and started jabbering in English about how they had robbed me. It took me a minute to notice that they were smiling. They didn’t move or say anything. Slowly it dawned on me why they were there. They were protecting their little side-hustle. They controlled the thieves (as often happens in Central Asia to this day). I have to give them credit, they could have given me a hard time and took the camara themselves (along with whatever money I had) but they just smiled and went back to talking. I climbed the steps and found my spot, definitely not sleepy anymore…

The train rolled into Ashgabat the next evening. I had a small piece of paper with an address. I was planning to show up at a stranger’s door and introduce myself. In those days people were very hospitable and especially so in Central Asia. I wasn’t worried about that. I walked out of the train station, exhausted but excited.

I found a taxi (private car, there were no official taxis in those days) and showed him the address. He nodded and off we went. It was about 11 pm. we drove and drove, with me soon realizing we were circling the outer part of the city. We ended up in a village on the outer edge and driving down dark, dirt alleyways. It was late and the “streets” were deserted. The houses were in the southern Central Asian style of walls around courtyards and the house a series of rooms around the small courtyard. It was obviously a poor area since the walls of the “compounds” were all of mud/clay/straw brick. No street lights, of course, so he struggled to see numbers. After asking a lot of people, we ended up in front of a low door to a very run-down house.

I knocked on the door and waited. I dawned on me what a sight I would be to the local people…a tall, ill-smelling, white guy in a village in Turkmenistan knocking on a door in the middle of the night for no easily explainable reason. Being conspicuous has never bothered me which is probably why the Lord said “Conservative Muslim cultures are the only place he will be of any use at all” when sending me to Central Asia.

The door opened and a short Turkmen lady looked out, nervously. I think she was surprised. I had the last name of the family that I was looking for so after greeting her I started saying the last name. She looked at me as if I had three heads for a while, but eventually she understood who I was looking for. She shook her head. “They are gone” she said, waving her hand towards somewhere far away. “They sold us this house and they all moved away.” She said. I asked her where but I already knew. “Russia!” she said. “They were Russian and they went back home to Russia right after independence.”

My trip was over. I had no other leads. It was back to Kazakhstan for me. I was beyond exhausted. I had slept maybe 5-6 hours in the last 48. I needed a place to sleep. That was going to be a problem. I had very little money with me, or to my name, for that matter. I told the taxi driver “Motel” and away we went. He eventually pulled up in front a a brightly lit motel with marble everywhere. I went inside and asked for a room. They asked for me my passport. When they saw it they were very surprised. In those days foreigner’s trips were booked in advance with the hotel getting a telex to warn them. It was often illegal for a foreigner to stay in a non-approved hotel. The Soviet system was still operating. They looked at my passport and argued with each other for a while. They went back into an office and called someone. They came back out and asked when I had flown in. I told them I had not, I arrived by train. You would have thought I had told them that I descended from heaven. They did not know what to do with that information. They talked more among themselves and then one of them asked me to show them my visa stamp. I did not have one. I shrugged.

I have often found it advantageous to play completely dumb in these situations. I am good this. It is practically my natural state (as I am sure you have already concluded if you have read my stories). I just kept looking at them and saying nothing, implying that the mistake was obviously on their end. They kept talking to each other and finally a guy stepped up to the counter and said “We had no warning of your arrival. We will of course give you a room but we have to ask the police to come and check everything. Surely there will be no problem.” Well, I knew that if the police came there would definitely be a problem. Not having a visa would give them the excuse to extract whatever money I had in “fines” and probably make me stay in the country for a few days while they issued a visa. Nope. “When will they come? I am very tired.” I asked, fishing for information. “In the morning, I think.” he answered. I could live with that. I could get up early, head to the train station and catch a train. No way they would get me.

I asked how much the room would cost and they said $120 (two times a month’s wages for a Turkmen citizen at that time).. That settled that. That was almost exactly how much money I had left. If I got the room I would have to walk back to Kazakhstan. “I have decided not to stay here” I announced, grabbed my backpack and started for the door. Suddenly, all the energy they had expended trying to figure out if I could stay at their hotel switched to the question of whether or not they could let me leave. They started calling my name and I knew they were worried of being held accountable for a foreigner running loose in the city.

I kept walking out the door, walked up to a taxi driver and said “Train station.” 15 minutes later I was in the almost deserted Train station. I bought a ticket from a sleepy dispatcher and was informed that the next train left in two hours. I hunkered down in a seat and started trying not to sleep. I did not want to miss my train since I did not want to stay longer. I figured that some calls were being made to the police about me by an anxious hotel staff.

The hall was deserted except for two men that wandered over and sat down near me. They looked like they were fresh out of prison. Shaved heads, soviet prison tattoos and all that. After I had sat a while I started noticing what they were saying to each other. My Russian was far from perfect but I picked up that they were discussing my shoes and my bag. They then went on to discuss the point of view that they should take them away from me. I started thinking about the dagger and how it was a wise purchase. I did not want to get in a knife fight since I was trying to avoid police scrutiny but it looked like things were headed that way. I started watching them for movements in my direction. I heard one of them laugh and they both shifted in their seats. My hand went down towards the side pocket of my bag when, miracle of miracles, a policeman walked into the hall. This caused mixed reactions in me. On the one hand it relieved my immediate predicament but maybe he was there looking for me. He walked through and stopped in front of the two guys. They conversed in low tones a while and he motioned them towards the door. They got up and left. He then looked over at me and stared for a bit, then he walked out. I was very relieved.

The terminal was giving me the willies so I decided to wait on the platform. I want to share a brief bit of information about deserts with you. They may be hot as a skillet in the daytime, but they get very cold at night. Its weird. I had noticed the air was very cool when I came to the train station. When I stepped out on the platform, it was downright cold. It went from 110 degrees in the daytime to about 35 degrees at night. I was wearing a t-shirt. I started shaking. All I could think about was those overheated train cars.

After a while my train rolled up and I was the first one on. The wagon was not full. It was really a welcome surprise. Maybe I would be able to actually lie down. Then I got to my seat and noticed…the entire window was busted out. There was no glass in the 3 foot by 3 foot window. My compartment was freezing. No problem, I would get a blanket. They gave everybody one. Eventually the train headed out and picked up speed. They max out at 80 kilometers an hour (54 miles per hour). At 54 miles per hour I was getting blasted by cold air. I had to take a moment and consider the irony of shaking and chattering from the cold while going through the second hottest desert in the world.

Correction: Instead of “Hydrofoil” I should have said “Hovercraft.”

January, 1993 – Blagoveshchensk, Siberia, Russia

I looked across the Amur River at the Chinese city of Heihe. It was shrouded in smoke from the many coal furnaces used in homes and factories. The pollution hung low to the ground in the subzero air. The river itself was sheet of ice, frozen to a depth of 15 feet.

The Amur River formed the border between Russia and China for over a thousand miles. This was one of the most sensitive borders in the world, the site of many military skirmishes and an all-out, though brief, war in 1969. Tensions were high and hatred was overt.

Blagoveshchensk was a border-city and a closed city to outsiders. The Soviet Government had forbidden any tourists from visiting since the 1960’s. When I had arrived “Under the radar,” (buying my ticket as a Russian citizen when I was not and not registering with the government since I was travelling to a city where foreigners were not allowed to go) it had caused a great ruckus with no one knowing what to do with me. I had exited the train and shown up at a motel asking for a room while holding an American passport. This set off a furious commotion as calls were made and one by one each motel in the city had refused to accommodate me. They were afraid.

I finally found a room in a student hostel where cash spoke volumes (though I had precious little cash to speak of). The room was not bad, though the toilets were communal with about 150 students. I immediately noticed that, unlike other cities in the former Soviet Union, no one seemed to want to talk to me. Everyone acted as if I was invisible.

I had come to this city, 9 time zones away from Moscow, from Kazakhstan. The purpose of my visit was to investigate the possibility of moving Bibles, New Testaments, doctrinal books and evangelistic literature across the border into China. This was the “Backdoor” into what was the greatest remaining Communist country in the world and, in the 90’s, one of the most aggressive anti-Christian countries. Missionaries were smuggling Bibles in by the dozen from Hong Kong and taking great risks to do so. If the Russian-Chinese border could be used, might it not be unexpected by the Chinese authorities? Might we be able to move not dozens, but thousands of Bibles at a time, carefully hidden in shipments of other goods?

Across the border a veteran “Long-term” American Missionary waited for me. He had travelled a long distance to likewise test the viability of the “Backdoor to China” theory. I was to meet up with him if I made it across. He had established networks of underground Christians that would put to good use any literature we could smuggle across.

In those days there were no smartphones, Google or even internet to make use of. I was flying blind. I was ignorant of the fact that Blagoveshchensk was a river crossing (using small boats in the summer and Hydrofoils on the ice in the winter). I was also ignorant of the fact that “Third-country” passport holders were not allowed to cross., only Russian and Chinese citizens.

I felt I must get across. I had to see if the Chinese were vigilant and organized in their processing of people entering the country. Our hope was that they were careless or corrupt. If they paid little attention to who or what was coming in, we could make use of that.

I had met Vitaliy on the train. He was a soldier in the “Po-Granichniy” Army unit that guarded that stretch of the Russian-Chinese border. They were easily identified by their forest-green shoulder boards and hat fringes. He was bringing a platoon of soldiers to their post. He was a lieutenant. He had noticed that I was not eating (my food had run out and the restaurant car had frozen-up in the -40 degree weather) and he had invited me to come sit with him and his soldiers. They were opening cans of something and eating it cold. He gestured for me to take one and opened it for me. It was boiled barley with mutton fat. To this day I have trouble eating boiled barley.

He was kind and curious. We began a friendship. Later he invited me to his home to meet his wife and had others officers there to meet me. They were all curious about America. They were also very curious about what I was doing in the closed city! They treated me as if I was family and answered my questions about the border.

He told me the name of a man that could maybe help me get across. He was vague about what the man did. When I later found the man I was to discover the man was the local top officer in the KGB. This man told me to call him “Victor.”

Victor told me the border was closed and that I should not be here. He said “You can be arrested for simply coming here.” I apologized, pled ignorance and told him that I needed to cross to meet my friend on the other side. Victor said he would make inquiries. A week later he called me back to his office.

“I can help you but it will cost $100. Do you have this?” He told me. I told him I did and he reached into his desk drawer and pulled out a piece of paper. “This is a Chinese approved one-entry Visa invitation.” He told me. I looked at the paper and it had someone’s name on it. He waved off my concerns and opened a bottle of white-out. He whited-out the name written and wrote in my name. He handed it to me and told me “Take this to the Chinese Embassy, and they will give you a visa.” I travelled to the Chinese consulate 18 hours away in Khabarovsk and was given a visa with no problem.

When I got back to Blagoveshchensk I went to Victor and asked him “Can I cross here with this visa? I’ve been told that they will not let me enter.” He waved off my concerns again and said “Don’t worry! I have called my Chinese Intelligence counterpart. We know each other very well. He says they will let you in. He will take care of it.”

I left and went back to my room and called Vitaliy to share the good news. Vitaliy’s wife answered. She sounded as if she was crying. “Please do not call here again. Vitaliy is in great trouble for fraternizing with you. The authorities are questioning everybody who has had contact with you. Please forget our number!”

I knew I needed to get across the river fast or I was going to be detained. I had to acknowledge that I looked and acted like a spy, albeit an inept one. I packed and went down to the river-crossing port. They told me to come back tomorrow since the Hydrofoil had already made its daily trip. I was there at 10am the next morning. A camera-crew from Reuters News was filming. I asked them why they were filming me and they said I was the first outsider to ever cross that border and they wanted to document it for news purposes.

I cleared passport control where they took my Russian visa (the visa was in two parts, one part was taken upon entry to Russia and the second part was taken upon exit. I walked toward the hydrofoil and stood in line. A Russian soldier was there whom I recognized as a sergeant. He looked at me and seemed curious, so I struck up a conversation. In true xenophobic fashion (many Russians in that area are racist towards Chinese) he began to warn me about the Chinese. “They are brutal. Don’t break the rules or you will find out!” along with other less-savory descriptions, most of them unprintable. I thanked him for his “advice” and for some reason gave him a keychain I kept in my pocket that was from Rainbow City, Alabama. He waved and nodded as I climbed up the ramp to the Hydrofoil

The Hydrofoil air-boat cranked up and inflated its large air bladder. It began to move across the ice for the 5 minute trip across the river. We arrived on the Chinese side and walked up the bank to the Chinese Passport control. I got in line and showed my passport at the little window when it was my turn.

The reaction was immediate and dramatic. He snatched up my passport and looked closely, then opened it an looked at the photo page, a stunned look on his face. He began waving his hand back an forth and shaking his head saying (what I assumed was) “Not allowed! Not allowed!” He came out of the booth and waved me along with him while speaking loudly in Chinese. I was taken into an office where a man sat behind a desk. This man took my passport and merely glanced at the front. He also began shaking his head and waving back towards Russia while saying something very loudly. I tried to speak while also reaching for my passport to show him the valid visa. He snatched my passport up and threw it at me and began shouting. He motioned to two soldiers who had come in and pointed towards me and gesturing back to the boat. I realized that someone hadn’t gotten the memo, if there ever had even been a memo….

As the solders took my arms, the man behind the desk stopped them. He took my passport back and opened it. “Finally!” I thought “He is going to investigate” but, no. He opened my passport to a blank page and reached into his desk for a large stamp. He stamped my passport with a large red block and then added another smaller one another page (I later found out this was a PERSONA NON GRATA stamp which said I had broken the laws and was not to be allowed back into China, etc.). He handed it back to me and told the soldiers to get me moving. They took me by the arms and walked me briskly back towards the hydrofoil.

I did not like being manhandled. I resisted, trying to slow them down. That was a mistake. They screamed something and tried to lift me off my feet, propelling towards the boat. I wish I had been spiritual enough to accept it all “As God’s will” and “In everything give thanks” but I was mad. Anyway, in spite of my hurt feelings, we shortly arrived back at the boat. They marched me up the ramp and told the captain to take me back. He refused. “I have no empty places!” They got in his face and informed him that it was his problem and marched off the boat. The captain looked at me and pointed to the floor near the door. “Sit there.”

We arrived back on the Russian side of the river and everyone exited the boat, filing up to the gate into passport control. I suddenly realized that I had a new problem. I had no visa! They had cancelled mine when I left the country, albeit for 30 minutes. How was I going to get back into Russia. I stood on the bank of the Amur River looking up at the fence with one little gate and finally prayed. I was stuck in no man’s land in Siberia with no visa, in a city I was not allowed to be in, in a country that took visa’s and foreigners very seriously.

I stood there for several minutes until all the boat passengers had filed through the gate. I tried explaining to the guard but he pushed me back and closed the gate in my face. I hoped he was going to go get a superior to decide what to do. He disappeared. As I stood there, thinking hard, the door opened to the little passport control building and out stepped the sergeant! The one I had given the key chain to. He looked at me quizzically.

“What happened?” He asked. I told him. He started nodding his head knowingly. “I told you! They are barbarians! Didn’t I tell you.” I acknowledged that he had, in fact, warned me about the Chinese authorities. He said “What are you going to do?” I shrugged. “What do you want to do?” He asked. I answered “If I can get through that gate, I’m going to ride a bus to the train station, buy a ticket to Kazakhstan and leave the country. “Why Kazakhstan?” he asked. “Because they do not have visa control on the trains yet. I can arrive in Almaty, Kazakhstan and worry about a Kazakh visa later.”

He thought for a minute, looked around and pulled a key out of his pocket. He opened the gate and motioned me through. “Go, quickly!” He said, “You didn’t see me and I didn’t see you.” I took off and two hours later my train pulled out on the station on a four-day trip to Kazakhstan.

Part 2 of this story to follow….