L'viv - Part Eleven - Crossing Over, Second Part

Please read the next post, Part One, before this one.

We had arrived at the border. We paid the driver of the marshutka two griven, climbed off and started walking toward the checkpoints.

If you have never crossed an international border, you are missing out on an interesting experience. Soldiers and guards, fences, big lights, lots of cars and trucks (where had they come from??? They hadn't all passed us while we were walking, that I know! Had they been waiting there for 3 or more hours?? Yes!).

Mel and I walked into the fenced area. Get a picture in your mind, because I did not dare take any photos of this area. Think: cattle. Think: branding time. Think: herd control. Think: drab olive green fences and railings and cattle(people) sheds, cement walks going though tunnels made of fences. Yep - we are on our way to cross the border.

We had been warned that there would be a huge crowd of babushkas, pushing and shoving their way across the border. Well, it turned out to be a crowd of younger people pushing and shoving their way across the border. There are reasons that these people are there, reasons that will soon be evident as I write.

Mel and I walked down to the Ukrainian side of passport control. There was a little building there ahead of us. A middle aged woman in a gray coat was walking down near us. She kept stopping to readjust her coat, and her rain boots and this and that, looking through the chain link fence at people walking up the hill after coming in from Poland. She was very annoying because we had to keep stepping around her.

We arrived at the little passport control hut, walked in and found about 20 people inside. A guard shut the door behind us. We waited our turn - very pleasantly surprised that we were not being shoved from behind every step of the way. The officers looked over our passports, went through them page by page, checking all of the stamps very carefully, then typed in some stuff on the computer, swiped them through some kind of reader, stamped them (ker-CHUNK) with our exit stamp and our the door we went.

The walk down the next corridor was a lot longer. This is the actual crossing of no-man's land, between the two countries. Looking out of the chain link fence tunnel we could see how all of the trees had been cut down and the earth had actually been plowed up and was extremely muddy, an area several meters wide where somewhere you magically go from being in Ukraine to being in Poland. At this point on the border it is all downhill into Poland, and all uphill into Ukraine. The sidewalk was interrupted every so many meters (maybe 100 meters) by a Z gate, the kind you have to walk around like a big U to get past. I think we went past 4 or 5 of them.

At the very end is the human cattle shed where our real experience of the evening started. Three lanes to chose from, each divided from the other by a cattle shoot kind of fence, the bars just wide enough that someone can slip between them easily. We looked at the signs on top of the shed. Far left - Nothing to Declare. Middle - EU, EEA Passports. Far right - All Passports. Ok, the Nothing to Declare lane was locked shut, so we went and got in the All Passports line. Way back at the back of this long mass of people. No way could you call it a line. It was a mass of men and women, probably a couple hundred or so, standing there, laughing and talking and having what looked to be a nice party as they waited. Both of the open chutes were full of people.

We stood and some more people came in behind us. And grrr - that's when I realized I have been in Ukraine too long. The bloom has rubbed off. I don't take it any more. I have - oh no! I can't believe this! I have become - a Babushka!! A woman behind us was actually leaning on my back, looking over my shoulder, trying to push between Mel and me. I stood firmer, rooted to my place. I pushed back with my elbow. She tried to go around me and I stopped her.

"What are you doing? Hey!" I called out loudly. "Does anyone here speak English?" And about 30 people turned around and looked at me as I continued to push back at that woman who was still trying to get around me.

One of the men in front of me laughed and said, in German, "No English. Spreken zie Deutch?" "No. Russian?" And he laughed again. Then he said - this was all in German-Polish-Ukrainian, "You don't belong in this line, you belond over there, Nothing to Declare."

We actually understood exactly what he said. Then he took hold of Mel's arm and started pulling him back up the chute to the end. I followed!! He told us to stay there in front of that gate and he disappeared. Two minutes later, a guard showed up way down there at the end of the shed where it turned into a building. He was frowning, but he started up the hill toward us, the little man who had gone to get him was right behind him.

The guard led us down the hill, past the customs officers and into passport control. We got in line behind the last person and started to wait. And watch. And wonder. It was amazing. It was funny. It was pathetic.

Five or 6 women took turns leaving and coming back, pushing us out of the way each time to get back into their original spot. They climbed through the fence that separated the two lines. One gal changed her shoes, resting her rear end on Mel's pack as she did so. One young woman shoved past me and then stood right in front of me - I was touching her back. I was not going to move backwards ever again!!! She glanced up, saw Mel, and her whole attitude changed. She kind of smiled and 'twinkled' at him with her eyes, and I very loudly cleared my throat. She kind of jumped and stopped smiling and twinkling. Then she started flipping her hair up and over her collar - over and over and over again, right in my fact. After the 3 or 4 time she hit me in the mouth and eyes with it, I'd had enough. "Deyvoushka! Watch it!" I said in a very, very grouchy voice. About that time, the cigarettes she was smuggling across the border popped up out of the back of her shirt and the woman next to her shoved them back down, and she flipped her hair one last time over them into my face again.

Oh yes. That's what this was all about. We were learning first hand about the smuggling trade that goes on between Ukraine and EU countries.

Another woman came up behind me and tried to shove past me. I didn't even look around. I just put my elbow back and practically yelled, "NYET!!! She stopped shoving and didn't try again. I think I actually shocked her by my response. Maybe she thought I really was a Ukrainian or Russian babushka! hahaha

I wasn't angry, I'd just had enough. I wanted through the border as badly as she did and I wasn't going to be shoved around any more. The difference is - I wasn't doing anything illegal - and she was.

Finally it was my turn and I got through passport control and then was stopped at the customs table. I had to open my purse. The woman asked me if I had any cigarettes and I told her I don't smoke. She waved me on through. Mel's passport was examined literally by a magnifying glass of some sort, to make sure it was real and legit. He had to open his backpack, but again we were waved right through after that.

Finally, we were in Poland! We walked out the door, into a group of women who were taking their packs of cigarettes off of their bodies and giving them to their contacts. Right there in front of the door. Oh, what strange shapes those women had - fatish women became slender, puffy legs in jeans became attractively slim. I know know how many packs of ciggies fit around the ankles of a young woman wearing pantyhose under her jeans. Money was exchanging hands. It was all quite interesting.

We just wanted back in Ukraine.

So, we went down the steps, around the end of the fence there and went back in the other door. There was no one there but us and the passport control officials. They looked our passports over, stamped them and sent us back up the hill toward Ukraine.

Along the way we saw the woman in the gray coat and rain boots, talking to people and helping with the exchange of goods through a hole in the fence. We just kept walking until we got back to the Ukraine side. Through passport control. We had to stop to fill out the paperwork Ukraine requires. Three young Polish guys were in there trying to fill theirs out. One of them asked me what he was supposed to write in the section that asks for address and name of contact. He understood no English, I knew no Polish, he knew no Russian. I pantomimed sleeping and told him to write that. And he said in very broken English, we are only going to street such and such and will be here just a couple hours. Ah - gotcha. You guys are new recruits. Go ask that official over there what to write - which is what he did.

Somewhere during this time Mel had called our friends here in L'viv and asked for a ride back to L'viv. They called a driver they know and he came to get us. The only problem was, it took him a long time to get there. I had to stand for almost 2 hours in basically one place after we got back into Ukraine and he arrived. I was in so much leg and foot pain that I was almost in tears.

However, we did get back to L'viv around 11 pm.

We know know what to do about taking or not taking the train to the border if we ever do this again. And we know what to expect. We will go to the correct line (nothing to declare) and I will say "NYET" loud and clear, and maybe "NO!!!" as often as I want to.

There is more to the story, this is the bare bones, but I'm too tired this afternoon to write more.

I love my life. Really, I do. I wouldn't trade it with any one. Who else do I know who has these kinds of adventures! {Big Smile!}