Rocking and Rolling Across Ukraine

We had a great trip to Western Ukraine last week. Mel rented a full coupe for the trip up to Kiev. That means we had four bunks to ourselves. The good news is that the top bunks can be raised and latched into place against the wall and Mel can then sit up straight. Otherwise he sits bent over like he’s riding in a Lada. Not fun! The other good thing about renting the whole coupe is that we get four sleeping pads, four pillows and four wool blankets. Mel likes to use an extra pillow and I use all the extra pads and blankets to sleep on. Those train seats are hard, even if they are “padded.”

The first part of the trip – the Kherson to Kiev leg – was fairly uneventful. However, neither one of us slept very well, what with all of the rocking and occasional sudden jerks, the train speeding up and slowing down at seemingly random intervals, plus all of the train sounds and station sounds when we’d stop. To put it mildly, I was a grouch when we got off the train the next morning. After getting off the train we quickly walked down the platform, dodging taxi drivers and other travelers, pulling our suitcases behind us over the bricks. (The wheels make a really cool sound as they roll over hundreds of bricks and ‘cracks.’ When we first came to Ukraine very, very few people had pull-along suitcases and everyone always turned to watch us go by. Now they are common place and cause little, if any, interest at all – yea!) Mel quickly took the large suitcase down to the “kamera” while I stayed on the ground level outside with the smaller one. In the kamera we can store our bags for the day for just a few griven (less than two dollars). The kamera is one of those little secrets that we did not know about for several years, one of the things that are so common place to Ukrainians that they never think to tell you about them. Mel found out about the kamera while traveling with one of our guys one time and we use it quite often now. After depositing the bag and collecting his retrieval token, he met me outside and we headed for the metro (subway).

I’m not sure what was going on at the metro, but there must have been 150 men standing around outside of it. A few soldiers or militsia were scattered through the crowd. The only women were obviously headed inside the metro station. The funny-to-me thing was – Mel didn’t notice that the crowd was almost 100% men! We pushed and shoved our way along with the rest of the metro crowd through the two unlocked entrance doors (of a possible three), past the long lines at the token machines, through the token gates and onto the escalator. Down, down, down underground we went. Every time I’m on one of these escalators in the metro now I think of my sister, Heidie. She came to visit us a few years ago and we took her on a tourist trip through Kiev, including the metro. One of her questions: Why are all of the people on the escalators either leaning forward or leaning back? It was a joke – made from the optical illusion caused by the steepness of the descent/ascent of the escalators. Fortunately, the train we got was not very crowded. (I had a panic attack in the metro one time during rush hour. The trains were all packed and I could not force myself to get on one. Instead, I stood at the edge of the tracks, my face buried in the front of Mel’s coat, sobbing while he held and comforted me. I’ve discovered that if we are just patient, usually within 15 minutes a less crowded train will come along and I can get on.) The good news is that it’s a direct shot from the train station metro entrance to the station we needed to get to the home of one of our team mate families. From that metro station we walked the mile or so to their house. J was there and greeted us with breakfast and the offer of a bed, if we needed one. And yes – I needed one! After we ate, J left for work, Mel picked up a book on Norway to read and I went to bed and slept for about an hour. I felt much better then … actually not mad at the whole wide world any more!

Mel and I left soon after T got home. We knew she needed to pack for the family and we wanted to get to the city center again and get a cup of coffee. While in the mall under Independence Square (the square made famous during the Orange Revolution – where hundreds of thousands of people protested during the last elections and forced a change), we went into a bookstore and I browsed the books in English section. Bought The Wind in the Willows and King Solomon’s Mines, neither of which I had read before. As the afternoon grew late, we headed for the train station. We stopped at a big supermarket across the street from the station and bought food for the next two meals. Then – back to the station to wait for the rest of the Kiev team and the train to Western Ukraine!

The train trip to Western Ukraine was almost 15 hours long. I quickly discovered that the train tracks between Kiev and Kherson are actually in good shape. A lot of work has been done on them over the last 5 or 6 years and it shows when compared to other routes. The wagons themselves (including the state of the toilet rooms) are also a lot nicer on the Kiev-Kherson train. The trip from Kiev toward Mukachevo was loud and very rough in places, with a lot of ‘rockin’ and rolling’ down the tracks. The great thing however , was that we were with several of our teammates this time. Most of these people we see only two or three times a year at most, and sometimes we don’t see the kids at all. So it was great to be able to spend time talking and catching up a little while we sat and drank coffee or walked up and down the rocking train to the different coupes before bedtime. I had brought my tatting along and spent quite a bit of time tatting as well. Fortunately, both Mel and I slept better that night than we had the night before, even with the rougher ride.

As we were traveling, someone checked the schedule posted in the hall and discovered that we had a whole 2 minutes to get everyone off the train the next morning! All the luggage, all the kids, all the adults – through a very narrow hall, past an open very hot water heater, out one door, down 5 very steep steps and onto the platform – along with any other passengers in our wagon who might also be getting off the train at that stop! C was traveling in our coupe with us and he and Mel “made a plan.” We conferred with E and J and the next morning it worked great. Mel and C on the platform first with their baggage and me to watch everything, the kids and mothers off next, and finally all of the baggage handed off and passed from one person to another out of the way. Someone timed us and it took less than a minute to accomplish – about 58 seconds! Good teamwork, guys!

The bus to the sanitory was waiting for us, but we needed to wait for the train from Odessa to arrive, too, about an hour later. I had to laugh – everyone in the train station knew where the Americans were at, getting off the two trains. They were the only ones with piles of luggage and the only ones cheering because they made if off in time. We Americans tend to be a cheerful group and very self-congratulatory.



Train station where we got off in Western Ukraine.
Note: on top of pole to the right of the station is a stork's nest.