Yay! Istanbul (:

Out of nowhere, a border guard at the Moscow exit decided to grill me: really wanted to know the purpose of my trip, asked me to show my return ticket. First time that's happened on the way out. Guess the combination of my name and destination seemed suspicious to them. Like I suddenly decided to move to Syria.

But on entry, they just stamped my passport in half a minute and let me through.

By the way, the Turks closed their old Atatürk Airport for civilian flights in April—the one you could reach the city from by metro. Now there's a huge new Istanbul Airport instead (one of the largest in the world by area), but it's a whole hour bus ride from there.