We met another two young men in Moscow, B from Australia and D from Canada. D was a um… a bit reckless. B was a little annoying. Every night D and B were both keen to go to a bar called the Golden Duck or some such silliness. This was because there was a traveller rumour that at 11pm all the women in the bar would take off their clothes. Uh huh. I don’t know if they really believed it, or if they just wanted it to be true, but they kept going.
Moscow is a hard city. You’re a brave person to go out to a bar and get incredibly drunk and not know where you are or how to get home. Or maybe that’s called stupidity. D did it on a number of occasions, despite warnings from others. So it was shocking but not greatly surprising when he came back to the hostel at 3am one night after being severely beaten up. He couldn’t remember exactly what had happened, but he thought it was bouncers at a club. Tracey and I helped him clean himself up and tried to get back to sleep.
At 5am there was a knock at the door. I called out “who is it?” and thought that the guy was trying to say he was from security but after the night’s events I was unwilling to open the door to a strange man. (Note that I don’t recall ever having to lock the door to a hostel room before.)
The next day we found out that the strange man was from security and that he was trying to find D. Apparently, he had left his two cameras in the back of the cab on the way home. This seemed strange as D recalled that the cab driver had driven him home after the beating. He wasn’t in any state to be taking photos. Why would his cameras be out of his bag?
The cabbie had left his number and D called him. Apparently, the cab driver lived a long way away and would return the cameras to the hostel if D gave him US$30. He agreed. That night the guy turned up and D went down to meet him by himself, against Glen and Matthew’s advice. Apparently, the cab driver had forgotten the cameras, but would go and get them if D gave him half the money now. Apparently D is the biggest idiot on the planet since he gave him the money. Of course, the cabbie never came back.
Glen, a wise man and knowledgeable in scams of the world, thought that the whole thing was a set up from the start. The cabbie was probably a mate of the bouncers. He certainly must have gone through D’s bag when he wasn’t in any state to know better. He never had any intention of giving the cameras back, and thought he would attempt to get more money out of the stupid American (as I’m sure he thought D was). US$15 plus whatever the cameras would fetch =Â a successful night for the cabbie.
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