On buying real estate

After a serious adrenaline rush and a lot of action, we bought a new apartment today. We had been looking for some time, and while we tried to make up our minds about how serious we were about buying, the real estate prices in St. Petersburg doubled. So much for good timing.

Nonetheless we found a place that we are very excited about. Even better, it's now almost paid in full.

You may ask 'why adrenaline?'. Simply put, Russians still use cash -- even for real estate purchases. This means that you can't let people know when you are planning to buy a place, because it means that you may well be carrying hundreds of thousands of dollars -- either on you, or locked in your safe at home (Russia's 21st century version of under the mattress). Needless to say, there are plenty of willing thieves out there. You have to assume people will come after you if you give off even the slightest hint that you're ready to buy.

Without going into too much detail, we mustered up 80% of the cost of our new apartment in cash. Dollars and Rubles. On Sunday, we drove to a designated meeting place where he picked up a plastic bag filled with $150,000 in 100 dollar bills. We were both armed (me just with pepper spray), and I behind the wheel. It was like a scene from a movie. Vanya got out of the car and casually strolled to the pick up point. I stayed in the car with the engine running -- keeping my eye out for suspicious looking people. Thank goodness that suspicious white car parked nearby drove off without me having to use my spray. I breathed a sigh of relief when Vanya emerged from the apartment building carrying a plastic bag. He got into the car and told me to wait until another suspicious-looking guy walked away. I put on my sunglasses and scanned the environment for potential traps, feeling like I was playing a role in a gangster movie. We decided that the coast was clear, and I carefully pulled out of the apartment complex driving. Vanya kept a look out for cars tailing us, and dangerous looking drivers who might try to side swipe our car. My knuckles were white from gripping the steering wheel, and my heart pounded drowning out all other sounds. We made it home, walked calmly into our apartment building with our bag, up the stairs, and then collapsed from the adrenaline drain.

That night we sat and counted money. Piles of cash totaling a few hundred thousand dollars. I've never seen so much money in my life. At least not piled on my floor.

Yesterday, we stuffed the carefully counted money back into a plastic bag and casually walked to the car - again me with my pepper spray, Vanya with his gun - and drove to the bank. Did you know that you can walk into a bank with a gun in Russia? Even though we thought we looked like regular bank customers, I think the bank security was trained to spot bags of cash (and perhaps concealed weapons?). He took one look at us and the bag I was carrying, and quickly waved us through the security point. Ahhhh. Safe and sound. We walked into a small room, locked the door behind us, and handed two sets of bank tellers our stacks of cash to count. It took a total of three hours for them to inspect each bill (each dollar need to be checked 6 different ways), then count and re-count the total amount. The money was then deposited into an account over night and transferred to the seller today and documents signed.

I'm very excited about our new apartment ... but I do miss the sight of those stacks of money on our floor.