THE THIRD WAY

I was my birthday last week. When we've gone out recently it has been as a massive group of teachers and interns, most of whom are Americans and (perhaps unsurprisingly) very loud, so for my birthday I decided I wanted to do something a little less... conspicous.

So only seven of us went out; first for some food - to the now famous pie place - and then to a club. The seven of us were myself, strange bearded flatmates past and present, two other teacher friends, and two Russian friends from Obninsk, Sasha and Uri. These last guys had got the train down especially and were staying at my flat that night.

Halfway through the evening, everything was going smoothly. Always a bad sign. We left the pie cafe and made our way to the metro station nearest the club. The club itself, I should tell you, was an alternative/rock club called 'The Third Way'. The place came highly recommended but only one of us had ever been there before and wasn't sure of the way. So, outside the metro, we asked a couple of likely-looking alternative types for directions. They were also going to the club so we followed them.

It was a little farther from the metro than we had expected, so pretty soon my two small-bladdered Russian friends had ducked into an alley to relieved themselves. My friend Rich stayed behind to wait for them, and the other four of us made our way to the club. We got to the club okay, and waited for the others to catch us up. There was no sign of them.

Five minutes passed, and we were starting to get a little concerned. Suddenly an out-of-breath Rich came puffing up the road.

"Your friends! They've been arrested!" he gasped.
"Bloody hell, not again! What for this time?"
"Pissing in an alleyway!"
"But everybody does that..."
"Not when there are two policemen standing six feet away..."
"So where are they now?" I asked. Every other time someone has been 'arrested', they have had to pay a bribe (sorry, fine) and then are let off.
"I don't know," puffed Rich. "They were taken off in a police van..."

Of course, it probably didn't help that my friends had Obninsk, not Moscow papers, and that one of them was originally from the Caucasus.

What could we do? My friends were staying at my flat, but didn't have a key. I wasn't sure they had my mobile number either. We could have gone back to the flat to wait for them, but then decided that they would either 1) be released, and make their way to the club, if they could find it, or (more likely) 2) be stuck in a cell overnight.

So we did what all self-respecting friends would do when their guests had been arrested. We went into the club.

And we did actually had a good, if slightly guilty, time, until about 4am when I got a call on my mobile.

"We've been released!"
"Great. Where are you?"
"Outside your flat. Where the hell are you?"
"Bugger... we'll see you in about an hour..."

To cut a long story short, Sasha and Uri had been taken to the police station, where they had had to pay a fine of 100R each, all they could afford. After some time, they had been released. Only they'd been released at a police station nowhere near where I live or where the club was, at 3am, with no money. Which was very considerate.

Another successful night out then. God knows what would have happened had we been conspicous.