The now-classic walk to the trolleybus stop. No crabs this morning, my host promises a more special place. After the now-classic trolleybus ride, we find ourselves in front of a small place bearing the name TV Kitchen. MacRua presses the handle – nothing. Remembering his fiasco with my hotel room door, I step in to save the situation... and fail. Quick analysis of facts: The opening hours are from 9 a.m. It’s almost half past nine. No special sign on the door. Logic insists that it should be open. But grey is theory and green is the tree of life. The door is firmly closed. At least the name of the place doesn’t lie – there IS a TV inside. And a guy watching it. Further shaking of the handle succeeds in attracting his attention. He reluctantly raises his stocky frame and unlocks the door. Brief exchange of words with my host. Then the door slams shut right in our faces. Even the best laid schemes of tour managers sometimes go awry...
But if the managers are effective, they have alternate solutions close at hand. We end up in a self-service bistro with merry paintings on the walls ("See the jug? It looks like an arse," nods MacRua towards one of the pics.), with crappy pop music spilling from two running TVs and with delicious food on our plates. Then back to the boulevard, passing a ritzy hotel equipped with a casino.
A propos casinos. The density of these establishments in Kiev is stunning. Need a grocery store? Well, lucky searching. Need to get rid of your hard-earned cash over a roulette table? Go to the nearest corner. And if your legs cannot carry you so far, you’ll surely find a gambling machine even closer, just at the edge of the pavement. [MacRua: Las Vegas of Eastern Europe.]
Short walk down Kiev main boulevard Khreschatik. Almost a surreal scene – wide six line street, traffic signs... but no signs of traffic. Somewhere else such an unnatural calm might mean that the police has just received a bomb threatening call from a whacko. In Kiev it means that it’s weekend. Main traffic artery of the city is turned into a huge pedestrian zone, here and there bored rickshaw drivers doze. Turn to the right, walk uphill... and we run into a row of tents blocking half of the pavement. Between them, blankets are spread and on them elder people sit, sleep, stretch, munch on rolls, surrounded by a tangled mess of bags, clothing, dishes and old newspapers. Eccentric camping place right in the heart of the capital? Grand council of the Kiev homeless? No, just a protest. Protesting seems to be a favourite pastime of Kievites – no matter against what and perhaps no matter the result. Fun über alles. [MacRua: Exactly. President’s secretaries and protesters share the same toilets. And once I saw one of them (protesters) leaving the building with an electric kettle full of water...]
But the most peculiar sight of the day is yet to come. It’s a house. It’s is grey, whole made of concrete. It’s huge, but in the immediate neighbourhood of the majestic presidential palace it cringes like a dwarf. Nevertheless, it’s impossible to miss. Monstrosity par excellence. Mad dream of a mad visionary. Or maybe the outcome of a particularly long and inspiring booze-up... [MacRua: Yes! As a legend says, it was the architect’s birthday party when he bet that he would build a very special house in two years...] Mermaids soar to the sky, frogs smile their silly grins in the merry company of rhinoceroses and elephants.Catfish look down their noses at the spread wings of an eagle taking flight. No one would be able to create a better setting for a loony bin. Just imagine the brilliant ideas which are born in the head of a president who watches a thing like that from the windows of his office every day. Dissolution of the traffic police was the first of them. And the plan to turn the House with Chimeras into representative presidential premises was another one...
Having refreshed our bodies with the brown drink and our spirits with an exhibition of paintings, we head to uknown (for me) corners of the city to meet other natives and enlarge our party. First we raise our number to three, picking up a female participant going by the name Aliona. Having passed another bunch of protesters, our small company walks into a park above the river, sidestepping a jauntily decorated car which has just dropped a beaming bride. As we continue down the paved expanse of nothing between the cover of greenery and the seat of parliament, another couple of just-marrieds crosses our path. One more, and it will start to seem queer... Well, it’s not one more – it’s two more. And another white-dressed naive thing poses to a photographer in the distance. Immediate result of the population-explosion-encouraging billboard campaign? When the number of couples reaches ten, I give up and stop counting. But even after leaving the park I’m suspicious whenever a person dressed in white enters my field of vision.
After feasting on two pizzas – called Budapest and Madrid, no Prague available, sorry – we meet with a guy called Denis and our ranks raise to the final number of four. Having picked up some fuel (Isn’t it cool to sell glass bottles with in-built openers at the bottom? That you have to buy two to be able to make use of the gadget? Who cares – nobody would buy only one bottle anyway...), we set on a journey to the harbour to enjoy a boat trip on the broad majestic Dnieper. Denis and I try to have a conversation. One of the first things Denis says is that he learnt English for two months. Great, so I’m better – I learnt Russian for a year... when I was nine. My biggest achievement being that I mastered a four-line nursery rhyme about the hardships of hares and hunters. But human beings should be able to get the message across – and waving our hands and (mis)using MacRua as an interpreter, we somehow do. Boarding a ship. MacRua promises to perform a tango on the table, but it’s just words, words, words. In fact, the whole trip is nothing wilder than a few pints of beer (and cola number no-idea-how-many for me), watching the sunset over the golden-domed towers of churches, and half-English half-Russian gab about everything and nothing in particular.
Saying good-bye, I press the handle of the hotel door. It won’t budge. Light spills from the lobby, but it seems deserted and the door is locked. Eventually a night in a park for me? Too bad I haven’t explored the nearest one yet. But as I fix my host with a murderous glare and consider the possibility of my first sleep under the open-sky in the middle of a city, the figure of a guard looms behind the glass door, holding the most pleasing object there could be – a key. Looks like I’ll spend Sunday morning in my bed after all – change IS the spice of life but not neccessarily in all cases.
Before we get to the bus stop, the clouds turn ghastly shade of grey and all in a sudden heavy rain pours down. The umbrella of the ever-optimistic city visitor rests in a bag in the hotel room. The umbrella of the ever-effective tour manager is ready at hand. Cowering underneath, we hunt for breakfast. In a grocery store at the corner, I confidently approach the counter and examine baked goods behind the plexiglass. No signs with names of the products. How am I to order something if I don’t have the slightest idea how it’s called in here? Okay, let’s go for a foolish game. I step to the counter with a silly smile on my face, greet the shop assistant in fluent Czech and then go for an elaborate theatre of pointing my fingers, shaking my head and nodding. Welcome back to prehistoric times when the human race wasn’t yet blessed with the gift of articulate speech...
Trolleybus ride to the centre, and MacRua disappears in a church to hear the Mass. I’m left on my own. The sky is still clouded over, but no more water falls down, so it’s a perfect opportunity to mess around a bit. I return to Maidan Nezalezhnosti, the main Kiev square, the place where all things happen. I sneak around with my camera, spying on the swirl of street life. More protesters with petitions (Ecologists this time! No idea what’s their aim – hard to judge from the combination of big bulging sacks, flags with rainbows and a life-sized paper skeleton – but the heart of an old Greenpeacer leaps for joy), children with monkeys on their shoulders catching tourists to offer them an unforgettable photo (and relieve their wallets of some cash), column with reminders of the orange revolution (authentic signs from the glorious times, proudly displayed behind glass – skilful amateur portrait of the president Yuschenko next to a passionate cry "punk is not dead!"). Powerful cocktail of impressions.
Back with my host, we take a bus ride out of the city, to an open-air museum of folk architecture. It’s Sunday, you’d expect crowds of people everywhere, "happy" families with yelling kids. But we have the place almost for ourselves. Maybe visitors are just scattered around – the size of the grounds is imposing. One would need at least two days to explore all corners, peep into all windows and be reproached by all the attendants (petite old ladies with scarves on their heads, imperious like military officers) for stepping onto the precious stone thresholds. Big country...
We move from open green meadows straight to a tiny windowless pub, to dimness where it’s amost impossible to see the floor. Almost – but not completely, and that’s good. Because the floor is a masterpiece of its own, unswept, covered with drifts of peanut shells. Welcome to the Peanut Pub. We sit at a raised table at the head of the small room, MacRua orders drinks (beer for himself, cherry juice for me). Bowl overflowing with peanuts goes freely with them. Invitation to eat, to throw a handful of shells into the air and magnify the mess on the floor. And to create... Artful figures made of peanuts, toothpicks and pieces of silver foil from cigarette packs hover below the ceiling. It’s tempting to throw one’s two cents in. Reaching for a toothpick, I notice a thick red candle on the table. I push it to MacRua, who stands up to steal a bit of fire from the neighbouring table. When he returns with the trophy, I unwrap the toothpick from its hygienic packing. Wooden stick... Flame of the candle... I’ve always had a soft spot for playing with fire. Images of setting the place ablaze (do peanut shells burn easily?) float through my head and I cannot resist sticking the toothpick into the flame, watching it turn black. MacRua takes the hint, turning another pick into charcoal. Charcoal... tool for artists. Soon the calligraphic sign "The Pogues" adorns his part of the rough-hewn wooden table. Once creative process starts, it’s hard to stop. MacRua adds "where the streams of whiskey are flowing", I counter with "lend me 10 pounds and I’ll buy you a drink". But it’s MacRua buying another round of drinks to strengthen us for further additions to the masterpiece. The (in)famous figure of Shane MacGowan’s manager materializes on the rough wood. In two renditions. Nobody notices, nobody cares, the barmaid being fully occupied with intimate forays of a male colleague. Only the suspicion that our opus magnum is unlikely to survive till morning spoils the feeling of satisfaction when we are leaving the place.
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