Flashback

Moscow, Russia - My last day in Russia. Thank God I remembered to pay my shtraf - the fine that I got for making an illegal turn while driving in Vladimir. (If you missed that story, click here.) The officer promised me that I would not be allowed to leave the country if I tried to go through passport control without paying.
To pay a traffic ticket (or a gas bill, or a tax fine, or just about any official payment), you must go to an outlet of Sberbank, the largest bank in Russia, still owned and operated by the government. Frankly, it's nice that a few places like Sberbank still exist, to remind us of what Russia used to be (other places that can serve the same purpose include the train station and the post office). Here is what I mean.
I show up at the Sberbank on a Tuesday afternoon at about 2:50pm. The bank is closed for pereriv. The pereriv is the infamous "break" that the entire service sector used to take for an hour - usually from 1pm to 2pm, but maybe earlier, maybe later. Back in the day, all stores, banks, museums and offices would close for an hour (or two) so the staff could eat lunch. These days, the pereriv is rare indeed. Most places have figured out that the lunch hour is actually when people want to run errands and go shopping, so it's convenient for them to stay open. But not Sberbank.
Since the bank will re-open in ten minutes, I decide to wait. Of course, everybody else has the same idea, and slowly a crowd gathers on the sidewalk in front of Sberbank. Finally, when they unlock the doors, thirty people mob the door and push their way inside. I am right up there in the thick of it... There is no way I am going to get stuck behind thirty people filing their taxes.
Inside, there are six different windows, each doing some different function, spelled out very specifically on a sign above the window. I have no idea what these signs mean. I'm sure this is partly due to a shortcoming in my Russian language skills. But in my defense, I notice many people - Russians - wandering from window to window, asking the tellers if they can perform this function or that function, and being directed to one place or another. So it's not just me.
Anyway, I have no idea where to go, so I go immediately to the window where there are no people. This is a risky move - perhaps nobody is standing in line there because that window irrelevent or useless; perhaps I would be better off following the masses into a longer but more functional queue. But I decide to go for it - at the very least I can ask the teller where I need to go.
"Devushka, can I pay a traffic ticket here?" I ask her, showing her my ticket through the window. She very kindly informs me that I have to fill out a kvitantsia (receipt). When my reaction is confused, she even gives me the form I need. Clearly I made the right decision.
Filling out the form is excrutiating. There are about a hundred different bank codes, account numbers and addresses, all of which are abbreviated in a variety of different ways, all of which must be copied from my traffic ticket to the kvitantsia form. It takes me at least 20 minutes of painstaking examination of one piece of paper, then the other, and copying strings of numbers in careful succession. I make a few mistakes, so I have to cross things out, which I'm sure will invalidate this particular kvitantsia, but I try not to think about that.
In the meantime, a big line has formed at this window. The teller continues to serve other customers, but I refuse to the budge from my spot at the window, knowing that I will later need to reclaim her attention.
Finally, I have filled in almost every form on the blank. But there is one request that I just don't understand, and I can't find it anywhere on the traffic ticket I am copying. I expertly cut back into line. "Can you help me please? I don't understand what I am supposed to write here."
She looks at the documents for one second and then answers "I can fill this all for you but it will cost you 10 rubles. Do you want it?" This is clearly one of the best bargains in Russia. Of course I want it, devushka! Why didn't you tell me that 20 minutes ago? Unfortunately, all the people behind me then have to wait while she fills out my form on her computer. But honestly, that has happened to me thousands of times - what goes around comes around!
Finally, the nice teller completes all of my forms and gives me several very official looking documents to prove that I have paid. So now I can feel confident that they will let me leave the country. That's the last thing you want... to get thrown into jail for trying to skip out on a 100-ruble traffic fine.