Ukraine: Trip Five

Ukraine

Trip Five

A Travel Biography

By Frank Keith

Copyright © 2015 by Frank Keith

All rights reserved

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Table of Contents*

Foreword

Day 1: Arrival to Kyiv

Day 2: Georgian Cuisines

Day 3: Shooting & the Prom

Day 4: 4 Churches & 1 Flea Market

Day 5: Dacha Day

Day 6: A Pizzeria & a Stroll

Day 7: Maidan Sightseeing

Day 8: Trip to Mariupol: Kyiv to Dniprodzerzhinsk

Day 9: Dniprodzerzhinsk, Mariupol: & Roadblocks

Day 10: Mariupol & Self Defense Force

Day 11: Shyrokyne

Day 12: Mariupol to Kremenchuk

Day 13: Kremenchuk to Kyiv

Day 14: Rodina & the WWII Museum

Day 15: A GAZ Car

Day 16: A Night Out with the Girls

Day 17: Experimentanium Museum

Ukraine Crisis: Summary of Events and Final Thoughts

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*Click chapter headings to return to table of contents

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Foreword

Time period of travel: May, 28 to June 14, 2015

Cities visited: Kyiv, Boryspil, Kremenchuk, Dneprodzerzhinsk (now called Kamianske), Dnepropetrovsk (now called Dnipro), Zaporizhia, Mariupol, Shyrokyne and other towns and villages.

Throughout my third trip to Ukraine, in January and February of 2014, the country was dominated and shaken by the Euromaidan events. It was a trying time for the nation. Though the demonstrations provided nourishment for many predictions from experts and hopes and anticipations from the people, no one really knew where exactly they would ultimately lead to.

Upon my arrival for trip number four, during the summer of that same year, the nation was still undergoing a trying time, although in quite different ways. Now, the country was beleaguered by several exceptional events which had occurred during the past several months. In March it had been stripped of the Crimean peninsula by its giant neighbor, it’s fighting a war in the east, the Odessa fire had occurred in May, killing nearly forty people, also in May pro-Russian separatists in Donetsk and Lugansk declared independence after holding unrecognized referendums there, in June a military plane was downed, killing nearly fifty people on board, and a day before my arrival, July 17th, Flight MH17 was shot down, killing all of the nearly three hundred civilians on board. The only real bright spots were having gotten rid of a very corrupt president and some of his cronies and the election of a new president in May.

Although the Euromaidan was well over, the street barricades and tents had not yet been taken down. While the nation was in the midst of finding its way, those barricades remained standing and manned to serve as tangible warning to the recently elected president and the rest of the government. However, efforts of dismantling them had already begun while I was there.

Nearly a year on, amid my most recent journey—Trip Five in May and June, 2014— the situation in the Ukraine was still very precarious. It was now wholly overshadowed by the war, which had grown instead of shrinking due to Russia’s involvement, and a tumbling economy.

As usual when I’m in this country, I had gone on a road trip. This time I went to the southeast … to a city named Mariupol. The most extraordinary part was being taken to the village of Shyrokyne by members of the Azov Regiment, right on the frontlines.

However, my fifth stay in Ukraine was not only dominated by social and economic problems and warfare, but of everyday life, sightseeing and social interactions with friends and strangers. I attended a prom, went to museums and even worked in a dacha garden. It was a most eventful trip. I hope you will enjoy my little story.

Day 1: Arrival to Kyiv

The world on the other side of the little oval window was cloudy. Back home the weather had lately been rather unfriendly and I had hoped it’d be different here, much nicer. It was nicer, I was told by phone, but only until yesterday. Oh well, I thought, maybe it’ll be sunny and warm again in the coming days.

As usual when flying to the Ukraine, I landed in the country’s major airport and this airlines’ main hub at Boryspil. The flight on this May twenty-eighth had been very pleasant. It helped that it wasn’t fully booked and I had no one sitting directly to my left or to my right. The only bad thing was that the person sitting in the same row as me was sick. He sniffled and sneezed off and on and blew his nose. I was afraid to be infected. I was glad for having an empty seat between us, and especially to get away upon our landing.

Something out of the ordinary happened to me when I got to baggage claim. I arrived there just as the first pieces of luggage came out of the luggage outlet, or whatever you call the opening from where the suitcases get expelled and drop on the band. It just so happened that on this day my suitcase was the second one out! I got there, reached for my suitcase and pulled it right off the band and continued on my way and all this without having to change my stride in the least. It was absolute perfect timing. I’m usually the sort who’s like most everyone else that just got off a plane; the sort that must stand around for a long time waiting for my bag to show up. There were times when I had to wonder if it was even on board my plane at all, waiting for what seemed like far too long, and watching the baggage ejection hole not ejecting my luggage, or whatever you call the hole where the suitcases come out of, before it finally appears. Luckily, it happened to me only once that my luggage wasn’t on my plane, when I flew Russia’s Aeroflot.

Customs was easy too, as usual. I went through without being accosted by the officials. Oksana waited for me in a crowd of people, bunched-up outside the passenger exit of the customs section. We greeted each other warmly and left the airport terminal building.

The drive to Kyiv with Olesya behind the wheel was pleasant. It went nice and slow and easy. We talked a lot, naturally, telling one another a little about things that have happened since the nearly one year I’ve last been here.

My apartment building was located on Khoryva Street. To those who’ve read my other trips, this name might ring a bell. I lived on this street before, back in the winter of 2014 and once more in the summer of the same year. Today I even got the same apartment that I had last summer. The neighborhood around my place is nice, much quieter than at the other end of this street, where I stayed in the winter. There are no noisy street cars, nor do any busses run through here and the car traffic too is very light. The Spanish embassy sits right next door and the Dnepr River is merely a few hundred meters away.

A little while later, after I got unpacked and took a well deserved shower, I got ready to meet Olesya. We went to eat at a pizzeria, located on Nizhny Val Street, the same one I visited before, nearly one year ago.

We had a pleasant evening. I expected nothing else. We continued our talk from where we left off earlier, in the car, telling each other things of the recent past. We even had live music playing. The solo musician was only a few feet away. Yet, despite the closeness to him, it still wasn’t too loud.

I ended this day comparatively early. The trip and the time change do not allow for anything else.

Day 2: Georgian Cuisines

Half of this day was spent sleeping. I didn’t know why, but I was overcome with extreme tiredness. It was almost noon by the time I rolled out of bed.

I made brunch and drank lots of coffee to help me become fully conscience. I wrote in my journal and wanted to do some work on my laptop, but the internet didn’t work. That is, it didn’t work on my laptop. I got both my smartphones connected, so I knew the trouble couldn’t be with the Wi-Fi unit or the provider.

It was frustrating. I needed to do some work, but I needed an internet connection to do so. I had already wasted half the day sleeping, and now I was wasting more time troubleshooting. Try as I might, the laptop refused to link up with the network.

To make a long and exasperating story short, I eventually found the problem. I fixed it by deleting the computer’s memory of this apartment’s Wi-Fi password. The connection was the same but the code had changed. After I did this simple step, everything worked just fine. Oh, simple step … sure, when you know what it is, it’s a simple step, but when not, it can cause a headache on a long and drawn-out path.

I hadn’t done anything else the entire day (what was left of it after getting up late and troubleshooting the Wi-Fi) except work. The only change of pace to my day was when I met Olesya in the evening. We went out for dinner to a restaurant. It’s not that far away, located at the far end of my street, maybe a distance of one kilometer, so we easily walked there.

It started to rain as we went. Olesya had an umbrella with her, but the gusty winds ruined it. We laughed as she tried to stay underneath the half-opened canopy, which was small to begin with. She decided to veer off from our route and stop by her workplace. She has another umbrella there, she told me.

We got there minutes later. I greeted her work colleagues and they greeted me back with warm smiles. They are a great bunch. Although Olesya is their boss, they act like friends. I told Olesya how fortunate she and the girls are to be working under such warm and jovial conditions. She agreed.

We got on our way again minutes later. This umbrella was more robust than the other one, which found its way into the next trash bin.

We finally got to our restaurant. It’s the same place we ate before, in the winter of 2014. We had a pleasant conversation while we waited for our dinner. The only thing that disturbed Olesya after a short while was the solo musician. Truth be told, I didn’t even realize there was one until she mentioned him. His music was low-keyed and he wasn’t easily visible from my vantage point. I thought the music came from a radio station or CD. It sounded like your typical restaurant music and as long as it’s played in a low volume it doesn’t bother me at all.

The food was finally served. It was very good, as expected, and it helped to completely forget the musician. The one thing about Georgian food that makes it unique is the amount of meat you get; lots. I’m not a great meat eater, but when I’m here I do enjoy it. It’s perfectly seasoned and so far it’s been tender and juicy.

Olesya had fish. It’s her favorite, regardless what kind it is and as long as it’s done right. Although I’m no fish eater, I must say I was surprised by its good taste after she talked me into trying it.

The bad economic period the Ukraine is currently going through is no secret. For me it’s more obvious than most others in the west. I’ve not only read and heard it in the news countless times, but have been told about it by my Ukrainian friends. Of course I can also see it while visiting this nation. That said it’s no surprise to see the people’s consumption habits reflect a bad economic period. Restaurants are no different in this regard and they perhaps suffer more than any other commercial branch during an economic crisis. I’ve seen it happen elsewhere too. People would rather forego on eating in a restaurant than buying food at a supermarket. All this together, it was all the more astonishing to see that this restaurant wasn’t affected very much by this. It was pretty full here on this evening. As comparison, the pizzeria yesterday was nearly empty. Although this was only my second visit to a restaurant on this trip, I would see the phenomenon of empty or almost empty restaurants throughout my stay. That this establishment is still so well-visited is evidence to the quality of its cuisine and the size of its portions.

Day 3: Shooting & the Prom

I was glad to see that the weather had cleared up on this day. At least there were large gaps in the cloud cover, allowing the sun to peer through once in a while.

Today is May thirtieth, and I’m invited for a special occasion. It was to Olesya’s son’s graduation gala, or prom, if you will. But that will be later on in the evening.

Olesya came over some time after breakfast. She wanted to take me to a special place, she said. During the many times we had spent together, we naturally learned a lot about each other. Thus she knows that I enjoy shooting. And today, she said, she wants to take me to a shooting range in Kyiv.

I was surprised by this. I know of the strict guns laws in virtually all of Europe, so I asked her if the law doesn’t require a membership in a shooting club, or to be in possession of a firearms license or something like that, in order to be allowed to shoot, but she said no. Okay, I told her, then let’s go!

It’s called Tir in Russian—shooting range. Now there’s a word easy to remember, I thought as we entered the place. Ironically, the sound of this Russian word is exactly the same as animal in German (tier).

The front door is a heavy steel contraption without a window, sporting heavy deadbolts and locks. This was of no surprise to me. What did surprise me, though, was the guard sitting inside, right by the entrance. He had on a uniform and was armed.

I saw immediately that this place has an indoor range.