Mystery Train

Return journey back to Kiev. I dare to call myself an experienced train goer by now, yet life is full of surprises. Shortly after 11 p.m., when I’ve made up my bunk, am listening to the Dubliners and considering going to bed, the light in the corridor suddenly goes out. Some problem? I continue roaming the green fields of Ireland with the help of the CD. Minutes pass by. The train rumbles through the dark countryside, sparsely interspersed with distant sparks of lights. More minutes pass by. I really wouldn’t mind a bit of sleep. But I wouldn’t mind using a toilet before going to bed either. And how to accomplish such a mission in pitch darkness? More and more time passes by and nothing happens. Finally, I reach into my bumbag and fish out a tiny torch – not more than two inches long, slim as a pencil, with a button which has to be constantly pushed to make it shine. I climb down from the bunk, blindly groping for my sandals as not to wake up the people on the lower bunks, and slip into the corridor. It’s shrouded in darkness, only here and there broken by the light of small torches in the hands of other well-equipped passengers. Dark, mystery train hurtling through the dark sleeping countryside... How romantic – as long as you know that the torch will save you from using the toilet blindly.

Bed time. The window is partly open, blowing a steady flow of air on my feet. I try to close it – no luck. MacRua tries – no luck. We try together – still the same result, or rather a lack of it. Our rustle wakes up one of our co-travellers, and he comes to lend a helping hand. Although he is no fragile creature, the stuck window wins a smashing victory over him too. I get the bright idea to pull the window blind over it at least – an idea which seems bright only until I discover that the blind is broken and wouldn’t stay in one place. So the window wins another round of the battle. I give up, telling myself that the night is hot anyway. When I wake up at 3:30, cold to my bones, my feet feeling like pieces of ice, I bitterly regret having given up so easily. I pull the lower end of my mattress up to shield my feet a bit from the persistent stream of cold wind, and I tell to myself that going through a storm in the Himalayas must surely be tougher. Although my thoughts are occupied with how to survive till morning without getting covered with frost, I don’t fail to notice that the corridor still remains cloaked in darkness.

Morning. Going to the toilet to wash my face and hands, I find the door locked. Maybe somebody else is inside? I try the other toilet in our car – locked too. In the following minutes, I try three or four times again, with the same result. The corridor gets crowded with people, wandering here and there aimlessly with their towels, obviously craving for the same place and failing in the same way. After an hour or so, the toilets are still locked, so I go on a reconnaissance mission to another car where everything seems to be working fine. When another hour passes, a conductor walks past our door and MacRua uses the opportunity to stop him and ask what’s wrong. What, the toilets are locked? Guilelessly innocent look on the man’s face. Cannot be, you must be wrong! Well, whatever, but in five minutes the toilets are operating again. Maybe next time they’ll forget not only to unlock the place of crucial importance, but also to reach the final destination. And on top of everything, it’s the first overnight train when they don’t serve tea and coffee as a consolation for all the trials and tribulations – or maybe they have just forgotten about it as well.

Warm Welcome

It was hot the last days in Crimea, but without the cool sea breeze, Kiev is even hotter. Like an oven. The entrance to the metro stop at the main train station is more crowded than I’ve ever seen it. A sea of people moving towards the glass doors inch by inch. Getting inside would mean being swallowed by the human waves and slowly, so slowly being carried by them to the coveted destination; a real test of patience. So we agree on going by a tram instead. It’s hot inside, sure, but what else would you expect on an oven-like day. Still, after sitting on the seat for a few minutes, my feet start to burn with unexpected intensity. T-shirt gets drenched with sweat. The burning grows stronger and stronger. I reach down and locate the source of the torture. The heater is working on a full blast, it’s impossible to hold one’s palm on the metal monster. MacRua assures me that it’s nothing unusual – they do turn on the heating in trams on the hottest days of the year. The reason? Maybe it helps the engine somehow. Maybe it’s the drivers’ crooked sense of humour. Maybe it’s a special project of „sauna in the streets“ (the only thing that remains to be done is installing a pool with icy cold water at every tram stop, so the happy visitors of the almost-free, moving sauna could take a cooling dip). Or maybe the city just wants to give us a really warm welcome...




Closing Time!

It’s too early to stay at home, so MacRua – like an ever-effective tour manager – proposes a plan: a visit to the Lavra belltower, peeping into an internet café and finally sweetening up our busy day with the best apple cake in the whole city of Kiev. Sounds tempting. Before we set off, MacRua – like an ever-careful tour manager – picks up the telephone and calls to Lavra to make sure the belltower is open. Well, it is not. It is still under reconstruction, like two years ago when I first visited the far-famed monastery. Either the construction workers do a really thorough job, or they spend their working days by tending to their thirst instead of tending to the architectural masterpiece.

But who cares? Browsing the internet is a tempting prospect for an internet addict as well. We head to our favourite place, an internet club where one can surf the vast virtual ocean for mere 4 hrivnas per hour in a cozy dim underground room. (From my previous year’s visit, I remember sitting next to a decent looking middle-aged guy with headphones, who was watching a porn movie with the facial expression of an attentive accounter filling-in a super-important summary in Excel.) We reach the place, approach it... only to find it closed. And not only closed – closed down, in fact. Sighing a sigh of woe over the loss of such a cozy hangout, we cross the street to reach a post office where one can surf the vast virtual ocean for the same price only in a less cozy, more aseptic environment. We approach the place only to find it... yes, closed, closed down, non-operating. No more post office. MacRua grinds his teeth not only over the loss of another cheap internet place, but also over the ongoing failure of clever managerial plans. OK, another attempt. MacRua leads the way to one of the oldest internet clubs in Kiev. Walk down a flight of stairs promises another pleasant underground place. But only until we bump into a door with the simple and yet telling sign scrawled on a sheet of paper: „No internet“. So that’s it. Looks like the days of nice cheap internet places are over. Kiev has lost a tiny bit of its charm. By now, we have reduced our demands on cheapness and coziness, yet MacRua firmly refuses to pay 12 hrivnas per hour in the central post office („that’s an immoral price“), so we roam and roam around until sitting down and paying 8 hrivnas in a totally sterile, totally aseptic computer club in a posh (and similarly aseptic) shopping centre. But who cares about the real world after delving deep into the virtual one...

Having satisfied our browsing needs, we go to satisfy our more earthly needs – there’s still the tastiest apple cake in Kiev to be tried. MacRua confidently leads the way, painting vivid pictures of the delicacy as we go. We approach the pub and... no, not again, it’s getting repetitive, it’s getting boring, it defies probability! But life obviously doesn’t care about probability. And the pub looks like it has only been closed down recently – and perhaps it’s only temporary, and one day the smell of the most delicious apple cake will waft from its windows again, who knows. Furious with the total failure of the best-laid plans, MacRua heads to another pub, the good old Sunduk, tried and tested hundred times before. As we approach it, we are greeted by the sight of contruction workers messing around the doorway. The windows look suspiciously dark. Time to break down in helpless fury or burst into uncontrollable laughter. But no – the pub is not closed, it’s only partly closed due to reconstruction. A part of the place is still open to visitors bold enough to sneak inside around the workers blocking the doorway. What a surprise. But it’s no surprise that the pub is empty, not counting a few bored waitresses. Finally, at the end of the long searching-full day, we are treated to a tasty apple-cake (although MacRua cannot stop grumbling about its lacking qualities in comparison with the coveted one) and as a bonus we withstand an attempt to be cheated of enough hrivnas to pay us another hour of internet browsing. But who could blame the poor sad waitresses working in the lonely, almost-closed pub...