Moscow SVO: The “Ordering Lady”

I am waiting around for our transfer to Delhi, and can’t help noticing that some things seem to be the same as when I was visiting Moscow a couple of years ago. At the largest airport restaurant, there are at least three different persons you interact with during your restaurant visit rather than one (or two).

You sit down, and get a menu from the waiter. Then when you call on the waiter to order, you are told to go to the Ordering Lady, who seems to be the establishment’s senior primadonna. You go to the “Ordering Lady”, to place your order. The waiter brings out your meal. And when you tell the waiter to get another beer, he points you towards whom? Correct, the ordering lady.

Now to the really weird part: You finish up your meal, and want to pay. You tell the waiter, who gives you a receipt and points you towards the Ordering Lady. Just as you think you’re starting to understand Russian bureaucracy, and walk up to the Ordering Lady... WHAM! She points you on to the Payment Lady.