Last Lap

Now, I know what you’re wondering! What am I doing in this Russian Court and how did I end up here in the first place? Well, it’s a long and demented story, and not a very pleasant one. Let me rewind back to the beginning of the story. Nope, not that beginning where I get arrested, the very beginning where we arrived in Moscow.

 

It was on an early Friday morning, three days ago here in Russia, when me and my traveling class of Augsburg had finally arrived in the Sheremetyevo International Airport. We were traveling to Russia for a cultural understanding of the country and its people. We were exploring such marvelous sites that day like Red Square, and the St Basil’s Cathedral. Then the next day we went to State Historical museum, which held some of the country’s valuable items, such as relics from prehistoric tribes, as well as the country’s largest coin collection and artwork collected by the Romanov dynasty among other treasures. After a group picture outside the museum, the security alarm went off in the building, leaving all of us to wonder what was happening? When the tour of the museum was over, my group and I walked around Gorky Park. 

When the tour of the places was done, we returned to the Hilton Moscow Leningradskaya hotel to prepare for that night’s dinner reservation at the Sabor de la Vida Restaurant, where I ordered the Chicken Torta. And I must say, it was one of the best meals I ever had, little did I know that it would probably be the last pleasant meal I would eat. For the very next, things went downhill fast.

As my group and I woke up and went down for Breakfast, a frightening surprise came to our hotel. The Investigative Committee of Russia (the Russian form of the F.B.I.), stormed right in and began asking us questions about the missing coin of Catherine the first, since it was reported stolen the very day my group toured the place. The authorities started questioning each of us, while other officers entered each of our rooms. After two minutes of interrogating, one of the agents found the coin and much to the surprise of us all, it was found in my backpack.

 

Everybody was staring at me with disappointment and confusion. I then said “I did not steal the coin.” The one of the officers asked, “Really, then why was it in your backpack, and why does it have your fingerprints on it?” There was a sudden silence among the group nobody could overlook the facts pointed out. Even I did not have a clear answer as to how the coin got in my backpack in the first place. I tried to explain myself to the inspector, but as I walked forward, one of the officers knocked me unconscious with a baton.

I woke up the next day handcuffed to an interrogation chair in the district police station. On the other end of the table, I saw two detectives facing me. One was speaking in Russian, while the other one served as the translator. They kept asking me how the Catherine the first coin ended up in my backpack, but all I answered was “I don’t know” and “I have no recollection of it ever slipping into my hands in the first place.” As I continued to serve them helplessly with answers, their patients was getting thin, so thin in fact that one of them started slapping me across the face with his glove.

As the interrogation went on, a man entered the room. It was a Lawyer and I thought, “I’m saved.” But when he told me that very few people he has defended have been found innocent, I then thought “I am so dead meat.” And that is how I ended up in this Russian Court right now.