Crime and Punishment

Rather ironic, I suppose, that the day I ‘get arrested’ is the day I started reading Dostoevsky’s book. While in Rome and all that…..

The corruptness of the Kazakhstan police is well known among people who travel here; particularly to those that are driving here. And so it was our time eventually came to have a run in with them.

After miles and miles of hideous pot-holed roads we hit a lovely new road 100 miles or so north of the old capital Almaty. We were being really diligent with the speed limits that varied between 90km and 50km…that is until I decided to overtake a very slow moving car. With a violent shake of his baton a policeman waved me over to the side of the road. It turned out that there was a police car parked in the central reservation with 5 policemen milling around all waving people over. It was my bad luck.

Well, to be fair, when he showed me the image of Totty in the speed gun I was doing 69km. It’s a fair cop Gov…..

Having asked for my license, he then beaconed me over to the car in the central reservation; which entailed crossing a three-lane road; albeit with traffic slowing down to a crawl. He passed my license around ‘the guys’ and then asked for Totty’s registration document. So after two more treacherous crossings I returned with that. We then adjourned to his car: being a well brought up girl I kept one foot out of the door on the road.

A clipboard and some official looking forms were then pulled out and promptly turned over to the blank back. He then scribbled on the back that my fine would be 150 American dollars: I laughed and said no way. It was then gestured that I was to write on the back how much I think my fine should be: I again laughed and told him he was a policeman and that anyway I had no dollars (a lie). He then started off the next round with 40,000 Tenge (£89.02) so I tried my luck with 1000 T (£2.23)……that didn’t go down too well 😉 Several rounds played out like this; but then, in a well timed moment of gambling bravado, I played my ace: I wrote 5,000 T (£11.13) and promptly threw the pen down – my final offer.

Bribe accepted he returned my documents and I risked life and limb crossing the road again to get the money; which I had to then surreptitiously place under the now defunct official forms. And we were off – with Captain behind the wheel: doing a steady 47 km/h, just to be on the safe side.

“The man who has a conscience suffers whilst acknowledging his sin. That is his punishment.” Fyodor Dostoevsky