The not-so-friendly skies
One of the most challenging itineraries I managed as a tour manager was the journey from Bucharest, Romania, to Kaliningrad, Russia. It was 2003, and the trip required three flights on three different airlines: from Bucharest via Vienna and St. Petersburg to Kaliningrad, a Russian enclave that was once the historic city of Königsberg.
After a successful performance at the renowned Bucharest Athenaeum, we faced an early morning departure from Bucharest´s Otopeni Airport. Despite the hour, spirits were high among the musicians; the Romanian promoters had provided Business Class tickets for most of the orchestra, including seats for our four cellos. We carried paper tickets—e-tickets were not yet in use—and our only concern was that boarding passes hadn’t been issued for the four cellos on their connecting flights. Still, with hard-copy tickets from Austrian Airlines—a reputable carrier operating out of Vienna’s major airport—what could possibly go wrong?
When we landed in Vienna with a slight delay, our connecting flight to St. Petersburg was already boarding. At first, everything seemed routine as we joined a line at the Austrian Airlines counter. However, when our four cellists approached to request the extra seats for their instruments, confusion set in—the transfer agent in her bright red uniform looked utterly baffled. Despite holding four valid tickets marked “Status: OK”, there was no record of any reservations in her system. With boarding about to close and no seats left on the fully booked flight, checking in these valuable instruments as baggage was not an option. Thinking about the concert already looming the next day,
I made a quick decision: two musicians would continue to St. Petersburg and Kaliningrad with their instruments, while two had to stay behind. As there were no other connections that day, I arranged for them to fly not to Kaliningrad but
to Gdańsk—200 kilometres away across the Russian border in Poland.
Before World War II, Kaliningrad was a thriving cultural hub with an extraordinarily beautiful old town. Immanuel Kant, the great German philosopher, was born here and famously remarked: “You don’t have to travel anywhere, you can get to know the world right here!” However, our arrival painted a starkly different picture: it felt like stepping onto another planet. The plane stopped in the middle of a huge, empty airfield, and our baggage was unceremoniously tossed onto an open truck. Instead of a terminal building, there stood only a small structure devoid of any facilities. Inside, an elderly Russian woman meticulously copied passport details by hand into an enormous ledger, while outside, passengers pushed an ancient airport bus stuck in mud. Were we really still in Europe?
By the time we arrived at our hotel, it was already dark. Concerned about the two missing cellists, I spoke to our promoter and asked him to pick them up in Gdańsk later that evening. Everything seemed in order, and I finally allowed myself to relax.
Everything was not alright, however, when the two cellists landed in Gdańsk a few hours later. The promoter had made a mistake and there was no car waiting for them at the airport. No problem, I was told: they could simply take a taxi to the border, where a driver from the Russian side would pick them up once they crossed into Russia.
What I didn’t know was that the Polish and the Russian border posts were two kilometres apart, and most Polish taxis had neither the license nor the visa to enter Russia. When the two cellists reached the border at midnight, they discovered it wasn’t possible to simply walk to the other side. To make matters worse, their mobile phones had run out of battery, leaving them with no way of communicating.
Thankfully, an elderly Russian woman on her way home took pity on them and offered them a lift—cellos and all. At the Russian border, however, they ran into further complications: their instruments needed to be inspected and stamped. Luckily, they arrived at the hotel in Kaliningrad at 5 am. The car they travelled in was barely heated, and the driver had fortified himself with a fair amount of vodka to endure the freezing Baltic night—but in the end, they made it. A happy end to a nerve-wracking day.
Florian Riem