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Russian Man Stuck In An Indonesian Airport Terminal For Three Weeks

Russian Man Stuck In An Indonesian Airport Terminal For Three Weeks

He can't leave, but he can't stay either.

Tom Wood

Tom Wood

In a series of events that are pretty similar to the Tom Hanks film The Terminal, a Russian man has been living in an Indonesian airport for the past few weeks because he has had his passport confiscated.

Denis Saltanov has been stuck in Jakarta's Soekarno-Hatta Airport in Indonesia for the last three weeks after a diplomatic mix-up left him stranded.

CEN

He is actually married to an Indonesian woman, and was travelling from Malaysia to her home island of Java when he was detained at the airport.

Malaysian customs seemed to think that he didn't have sufficient funds to stay in the country, so they deported him back to Indonesia.

Once he arrived in the Indonesian capital of Jakarta, the Indonesia customs said that as a result of his deportation, he couldn't get back in there either. Reports suggest that this is pretty standard procedure for the Indonesian customs agency.

CEN

Standard procedure or not, this leaves Denis in somewhat of a pickle. Unable to get into either country, he has been forced to live in the airport - air side - until this whole mess is sorted out.

His wife has been allowed to leave as she holds a passport, but Denis' documents have been taken from him. Sadly, this means that not only can he not go to Indonesia or Malaysia, he can't even get back to his homeland, Russia.

Exactly like Tom Hanks' character in The Terminal, Viktor Navorski, he has no money or documentation and can't leave the airport terminal.

CEN

There are people fighting his corner though. The no- governmental organisation CST Command are trying to help him get out of his predicament.

Worryingly, they also say that he has been beaten and humiliated by staff including Jakarta's Airport Security.

Photos have also shown that the conditions in the airport terminal don't look that great either. He seems to sleep on the floor and spend a lot of time sitting in pretty sterile-looking white rooms.

A spokesperson said: "He would be happy to be deported, but neither Indonesian authorities nor the Russian Consulate are willing to oblige him this way.

"His wife cannot visit him. Thankfully he is still getting food at least."

This sort of thing is not uncommon - often displaced people find themselves stuck in airports due to diplomatic problems or document issues.

In fact, The Terminal is partly based on the story of Mehran Karimi Nasseri, who lived in Paris' Charles De Gaulle Airport from 1988 until 2006.

Featured Image Credit: CEN

Topics: indonesia, World News, Airport, News, Interesting, Malaysia, Russia