Stephen Rosenberg's favorite airport

Stephen Rosenberg is a BBC Reporter in Moscow and he had the occasion to spend some quality time in his favorite airport and lived to write about it. Some excerpts: It starts with his flight back to Moscow being delayed by weather:

All flights had suddenly been grounded. I felt like a prisoner who'd been promised his release, only to have the jail doors slammed back in my face. My worst nightmare was coming true. I was stranded at arguably Russia's worst airport.

The Airport itself:

At Mineralnye Vody airport it's so cold there is snow and ice INSIDE the terminal building. There are no trolleys, no porters - the check-in desks have been completely gutted - to register for your flight you have to lug your suitcases up steps, down corridors, and out into the airport's backyard.

Flight Security:

A security guard checks everyone who walks in. When I arrived he peered suspiciously at my British passport.

"You know," he said, "America's trying to destroy Russia," ramming home his point with an imaginative combination of gestures using his fingers and elbows.

"Sorry," I replied meekly, "I'm British".

"British!" he responded raising his eyebrows. "Then you must go and drink some tea!"

He manages to find the V.I.P. Restaurant:

Eventually I located the VIP restaurant. Unfortunately, though, it didn't have any tea, or food. In fact, it didn't even have any table or chairs, just a picture of a bottle of water on the wall. And a rusty sink full of cigarette butts.

He was there for a very long ten hours...