Snappage at 50,000 Feet Over Russia?

I am here, safe and dusty, in pastoral and quaint Ulan-Ude. I will post more on this soon, but wanted to transcribe some of my handwritten journal entries while flying the friendly skies with Siberia Airlines:
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With twenty or so Russian and Mongolian elbows nudged firmly in back, I approached the plane towards the Soviet-era Tupelov 154 jet, in that telescopic rolling tunnel that seems to have no name. Suddenly the chunnel heaves and drops five or six inches, causing half of us to fall to the floor and making the little man in the orange vest with the big whistle to raise his hand in the universal "Stop Comrades" gesture. After 10 minutes of one supervisor after anoth nodding and nyetting in bureaucratic pantomime, we are allowed in, silent apprehension transforming into, well, just normal apprehension. Not the most comforting sign to begin a five hour flight to the land of exiles.
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To fully understand the decor of the airplane, I think one would have to be alive during 1970s USA. The upholstery, a loose term at best, is a pseudoplaid orange on yellow on blue - the kind of patterning you see years afterwards and wonder, head scratching, how some design committee actually settled on THIS design? To complete the 70s feel, the little button overhead transliterates as "stewardess", a term that surely brings fond tingly memories to post-thirty men everywhere. The rickety arm rests are still fashioned with ashtrays, perfectly matching the antiquated smoking/no smoking flash-sign overhead.
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The take-off is delayed while the cabin reaches sweltering temperatures, these Russians don't seem to mind, as waiting and suffering duel it out for the official national pastime. By the sheer amount of window rubbernecking as the Moscow suburbs disappear below, this is apparently Flight #1 for many of my fellow passengers, and is admittedly more comfortable than the other forms of Russian transit. As the plane levels off, the pop pop pop sounds I hear throughout the plane herald the forty or so cans of cheap beer being opened, which every Russian man seems to have stashed on him somewhere at all times. Judging by the degree of close-talking that's going on, accompanied by wagging heads and spitting laughter, they filled up pre-flight as well. There is no leg room -- even my knees are cramped -- and I can feel those of the passenger in 25D knobbling through the soft back of my seat. Everyone (except,ahem, one idiot) has brought food onto this flight, and the odor of butter and meat, from animals I dare not guess, permeates the cabin, as does the unbearable sounds of finger and thumb slurping.
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The beverage service cart is nothing more than a tray of wheels with dixie cups and generic juice (to my Chemistry Department colleagues, think of the carts in the D-wing stockroom). You get three choices - orange, tomato or shut the hell up. I choose tomato [pomedoro sok, pa russkie] and the differences from ketchup are purely, and barely, one of texture. The service produces an atmosphere of lip smacking which constructively interfered with the aforementioned digit-licking to produce the sonic hell in which I exist now.
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Okay, I am starting to wonder, as this pen digs deeper into the page, if this is the event that finally makes me snap? I mean, I really hoped that I would be in front of a classroom or behind the wheel when the inevitable magic mental pixies came a-thumping with their wands.
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No snappage yet but "dinner" almost did the colorblind vegetarian in. (Really, should I be complaining?, since Siberia Airlines at least serves a meal, unlike flights in the USA where companies now charge for their boxed gruell, all in the name of saving a buck whilst the boards of directors continue to rake in big bonuses). As the eerily and perhaps inappropriately sexy stewardesses (miniskirts, high-heels, berets) make their way down the ailse, bashing every limp armrest in its path, I strain to hear the "hot food" choices so that I can dive into my phrasebook and translate. Just as Snedlana, wide-eyed, smiling toothily but five inches from my face, arrives, I've deciphered the unholy triumverate: chicken, fish or "meat". My brain whirrrs as it tries in vain to calculate the degree of spillage each option might have, in terms of odor, sauce viscosity, and particulates, just in case something salvagable like vegetables or rice might be trapped inside. "Chicken" I weakly respond, voice cracking.

Before me are placed five plastic open-faced minitrays, and one aluminum one apparently stored in the engine, as it is near fusion temperature. Half the tray contents are recognizable to me as some type of food: The vaguely Germanesque pastry shiny thingy, the tray of grapefruit slices laid atop pancake/blintzes, and the seven or eight leafy things surrounding some carrot threads. After testing the temperature of the solar block many times, I finally exhumed the hot dish: Four tendrilly, sinewy cuboids of something brown, ensauced and spread over a bed of gooey french fries. Complete disaster, but at least I've got that yummy fruit plate!

As I sniff the pink slice of grapefruit, out of habit as a quick check of freshness, the dreaded unmistakeable smell of death needles my olfactories. Knocked back in a fog of confusion, I realize that this, this, this grapefruit slice is, in fact, lukewarm fish. WTF?!?! Okay, who eats fish pancakes? Surely this is the twilight zone because, I *clearly* heard fish as one of the three options. Yes, Snedlana, along with my bread and mayonnaise, along with my limp romaine lettuce and my fish flapjacks, well I'd really like to have some more fish.

It's a madhouse! A madhouse! <-- said ala Charlton Heston-like in the Planet of the Apes for full effect.