Our steamboat stood on the St. Petersburg-Hamburg-London line and we returned home every two or three weeks. That trip to Peter was unusual: first, it happened at the end of December, and second, we had a crew shift.
Almost everyone in the team, on the last trip to England, bought the right-handed Lades and now counted on them to leave the steam boat home on their way.
But it was not here. Useful customs officers wanted corruption and, after finishing the dismantling of newly acquired cars, told us that they would only issue passes for leaving the port after the New Year holidays. Unlisted cargo cannot leave the port.
The senior customs officer proposed the option: if we give them $500 from Santa from the car, the brave customs will find the strength to overcome the "increased pre-New Year burden" and complete all the passes somewhere in ten minutes. The announced price was overwhelming. The Russian car that was intercepted by the sailors at the gate of the English barracks cost a maximum of £1,000. But the customary greed of the customs, apparently, has been aggravated by the coming New Year's holidays. On January 2, the steam boat with the new crew was going to the sea and the cars left on the shore will cause a tumultuous joy in the port docks, who will immediately unlock the homeless cars to the screw and take everything out of the port by various routes.
The satisfied customsmen carnivorously stumbled, looking at our shallow faces and realized that we could not go anywhere. But I did not want to pay. Guarding the car in the next two weeks was also not possible. Having traded with the customs officers a day "to think about", the crew had done a brain attack that same evening. The decision came in the style of the blockade of Leningrad. The entire purchased fleet was dropped by a ship crane overboard, right on the ice of the port and, under the cover of the night, went to Vasilievsky Island.
The shift captain, shocked to astonishment, told us only one thing: “Switch the lanterns, or suppress the port trailers!”