Locked Up Abroad: Part 3 - Escape from Irkutsk in Magical Realism

After testing positive for COVID, I was a bit shellshocked. A lot of the others were in disbelief too, but it made a weird kind of sense to me. I don’t think we even knew at the time that you could get it if you were fully vaccinated, but it made sense as to why I was feeling so poorly (other than the lack of sleep, 30 hours of alternating extreme heat and brutal cold, and/or the massive purple contusions covering most of my torso.)

The organizers told us it was obviously a mistake and we would be re-tested the next day, when we would of course receive a negative test result and be able to fly home. Still not sure if this was optimism or something not-quite-above-board was in the works. At any rate, I couldn’t fly the next day so I pushed back my flight a few days. This was kind of a challenge in itself as I couldn’t do it online, my phone wasn’t working well, and I spent way too much time on hold with Aeroflot before they let me rebook. I extended my hotel reservation, not knowing how much longer we would need to be there. I had some time before I was expected back from holiday with my team, so I tabled the conversation with my manager until later, when I’d hopefully know more. I broke the news to A as well.

Adrian, Paolo and I were freaking out the most as we were hoping to leave the next day, but now everyone was on high alert. Steve and Fred actually decided to take their early morning flight the next day as they did not need a negative test for the domestic leg of their flight and had a long connection in Moscow, where they hoped to get retested and continue on to France. Hassan still had a couple of days and so did Colin and Irina. Hassan actually started to feel really ill, which made sense because it turned out he was not vaccinated, which was quite a surprise to the rest of us. (In his defense, the vaccine was not readily available yet in his country, so they allowed him to provide a negative test to join the trip instead.)

Long story short, we all popped positive again and Fred/Steve got stuck in Moscow where the authorities descended upon them immediately. Some diplomacy by the organizers got them permission to self-quarantine at Katya and Alain’s apartment rather than be locked up in the government hospital. No one had come for us yet, but I was dreading what was about to happen. I started googling and learned that people could test positive for weeks afterwards.

While I fortunately had my laptop and VPN with me, I wasn’t sure if it was permissible to work from home from Russia. Partly because it was generally not allowed to work remotely from another country, and partly because, the country was Russia. (If you’ve ever used a laptop as a visitor in certain countries, you may notice that the device does not run the same as in other places, which sometimes indicates you are not alone.)

I sucked it up and texted my manager asking to chat. No one ever wants to get that text. I broke the news and she was honestly pretty calm about it. She escalated to the CHRO and CIO and they gave me the green light to work remotely. So I worked through the night each night, slept as much as I could during the day, punctuated by quarantine meal delivery 3x a day. Other than the situation/timing, I can’t complain - the workers were so sweet, they gave us a variety of nice meals including fresh fruit and veg, and clean towels/TP, everything we would need. The hotel was actually a quarantine site already, for workers coming on/off the oil fields so they had a package where you could have all your meals delivered, I think it was like 10 or 20 USD a day extra, and the rooms were not expensive. It was a nice hotel and they were very kind to us.

At some point the government seemed to have been made aware of our status, as a group of female doctors wearing full protective gear started to visit once a day to check pulse ox, our breathing, and temperature. I was feeling okay, might have had a slight fever but it was also possible that was due to my not operating the air-conditioning properly until my last day.

After about 10 days after my first positive, I was still not testing negative and I started to panic it might be a month or more before I could go home. Working through the night and being woken every couple of hours during the day was really wearing on me too. My hotel room looked out to a courtyard with a residential building across the way. The apartments had these glass enclosed patios on my side of the building. One floor above me a large light colored dog, possibly a husky/lab sort of mix. The dog would pace back and forth, doing loops on the patio multiple times a day. I felt a strange kinship with that dog.

At some point I lost hope that I would test negative again and started to scramble for other options. It turned out that the CDC in the US would also accept a “certificate of recovery” in lieu of a negative test for travel/entry into the US. Russia and the airline did not seem to have any requirement so theoretically if I met the criteria to return to the US, I should be able to fly. Or so we thought. I decided to take a leap of faith and try and get a certificate through telehealth from a US based firm. I got an appointment for the next day and it was the wildest thing. The guy basically asked me when I first tested positive, I gave him the date, and he said I would receive a certificate via email. Cost $75 USD all in and I’ve included the link in case it’s ever helpful to anyone. Went to bed and when I woke up, the certificate was in my inbox. It was almost too simple.

Once I had the certificate in hand I asked the hotel to print it for me, cleared my calendar, rebooked my flights, closed out my tab at the hotel, and ordered a yandex car to the airport at the crack of dawn. Aeroflot would not let me check in online or at the airport, so I had to go to a special customer service center. Waited in line there for what seemed like forever, as people seemed to be going insane all over the airport. After explaining my situation and showing my paperwork multiple times, a very patient representative finally secured a seat/boarding pass for my Irkutsk to Moscow leg, but told me I would have to appeal at SVO to be allowed to fly from Moscow to NYC. I would have bitten all my fingernails off, except of course I couldn’t bite my nails wearing a mask.

First flight was uneventful, then when I arrived in SVO I went to the regular transfers desk where magically they immediately understood the situation and gave me a boarding pass with no issue at all. I thanked them profusely and continued on to my next flight, but not before witnessing a pair of travelers berating the same reps that had been so helpful to me. Crazy times!

Changed terminals and had my bags examined. TSA had to hand check my luggage and they got so excited when they saw my certificates and gorgeous medal (designed by Ilya the photographer), asking “Baikal?” I was able to show them a newspaper article in Russian about the swim, and they seemed more thrilled than I’d seen anyone in a long time. The magic of the legendary Baikal! I smiled with them because 1) BAIKAL and 2) I was finally on my way HOME.