A trip on the wild side...

A few words about my trip to Kyiv last week… for starters, Kyiv is a beautiful city, full of grand boulevards, imposing buildings, and onion-domed churches.

After entering the airport and being greeted by questionable taxi drivers that were out to make a big buck, I wasn’t quite what to expect. We actually decided upon taking an ‘unofficial’ taxi. Well, I should say it was an unmarked car with tinted windows, but the price was right (20 USD). Not often do I follow a guy who says quietly behind my back, “lady, follow me”, but together with Beth, we somehow decided to follow and take this driver up on his offer to take us to Hotel Ukraine. Outside the airport doors, I realized the adventure was only beginning. To the right of the entrance/exit stood a group of Hasidic Jews who had arrived to celebrate Jewish New Year at the grave of their spiritual leader, Rabbi Nachman of Bratslav. We passed this group of men with long curls and dressed in black with top hats and made our way to the car. Our driver seemed to take after the famous German Formula One star, Michael Schumacher. For some reason, we were the fastest car on the road. Funny how that works sometimes! He also had figured out some unorthodox ways of getting to downtown Kyiv. This caused my colleague Beth some consternation, but I somehow sat back and let the driver do his driving. We were in Ukraine, and this was pretty much the Wild West for us.

Our drive to the city center took us through a ‘suburb’ or two (if you can call it that). We passed row after row of ugly socialist apartment blocks, pretty similar to what I first saw in Wroclaw, Poland when I was an exchange student in 1993, but these blocks seemed even more immense and went on forever. Seeing these blocks, feeling pretty depressed at the sight, I became very, very grateful for the blessing of my family home, backyard, and woods. Also, looking out the car window, I noticed old cars pulling crates filled with potatoes on the back. The differences between the capital city and the rural outlying districts seemed pretty stark to say the least.

On the whole, I was very impressed by the quality of Kyiv’s infrastructure. The city had highways free of potholes and we were able to get to the city in relative ease. Once at our hotel, a grand monument of former Soviet hotels perched on a hill above Maidan Independence Square where protesters in October 2004 created a ‘tent city’ in support of Victor Yuschenko, the now President of Ukraine, we were greeted by a HUGE outdoor concert. There were literally thousands of people running around with alcoholic beverages and dancing the night away. The site was admittedly overwhelming, but we soon warmed up to the party environment and enjoyed a few pop performances before taking a stroll. One of the highlights of Sunday night was seeing the 2004 Eurovision winner Ruslana perform her hit, “Wild Dances”. I’d say she’s pretty much the Ukrainian version of Shakira.

Ukraine was really quite a fascinating place. On the one hand, there were beautiful people (especially long-legged, blond-haired women) out and about in 60s retro fashion, a lot of fancy cafes and high end shopping, but on the other hand, there were many elderly women selling their humble wares on random street corners. Of course, there were also security guards at every establishment, whether at a restaurant, cafeteria, café, hotel, or store. There was always a man in a suit paying attention to whatever was happening. And, there were seemingly hundreds of men parked in cars with tinted windows on sidewalks, waiting for Ukrainian businessmen and politicians to finish their business.

Our hotel was quite an experience in itself. Get this: on every floor stood a desk with a woman who controlled room keys. Supposedly, back in the day this function was performed by the KGB. In addition to controlling access to guest rooms, these individuals also helped procure women for party officials and the like. (This is according to my Hungarian colleague). In my opinion there was absolutely no need for this job; can’t you pick up your key at the main desk when you check in? But, a job is important that is for sure. Probably one of the most disturbing sites was the presence of prostitutes in our hotel lobby every night. It seemed to be accepted practice. We also had police in the lobby keeping watch. The women simply sat on the lobby couches, drinking vodka and waiting to be approached. It was eye-opening for sure.

In these short two plus days, I only scratched the surface of Kyiv. If at all possible, I’d definitely like to go back and do some further exploration. In terms of tourist sites, we only got to visit the Sofia of Kyiv, a large church and monastery modeled after Istanbul’s Sofia, the outside of the Kyiv Dynamo Soccer Stadium (where the famous player Shevchenko started out), and had a look at the colossal Monument to the Motherland commemorating WW II (a woman probably twice the size of our Statue of Liberty – at least that’s the feeling she gave me; she could have been even larger if you can imagine) from our taxi window on our drive to the airport upon leaving. So, if anyone wants to join me for a Ukrainian adventure let me know. There’s always Odessa and boats rides to be had, too!