The Wild East

"A crowd of around 8 had started to gather to observe the new foreigner..."

A slow start. We decide to order breakfast from the hotel café. Bad idea. Next stop- history museum. This was the first of many encounters with staff, who realised we were foreigners. There was only one solution- we must be Polish! “ah….ah….Polska? Da?”
The only tourists around here were Poles.

Museums are very cheap, but to take photos means that you have to buy another ticket (10 times the price). Near the market there was a man trying to speak Russian- with a thick Australian accent. We didn’t speak to him- he had already acquired a fair share of probing hands, not surprising with his straw hat, huge camera and terrible accent. he was the only westerner we saw in days. Maybe there were lots around, but never heard or saw any.

At lunchtime we went back to the main street, Prospect Svobodny (free avenue). There were dozens of old men playing chess. One old man, in battered Nike trainers, shuffled over towards us and challenged us to a game. I accepted.
The stakes were high, $1 winner-takes-all.
The first 15 move were uneventful. A crowd of around 8 had started to gather to observe the new foreigner and began to feel the pressure of expectation. Then, I made a horrendous blunder and checkmated the next move. I heard a collective groan and everyone lost interest- the new player was no good. Another game, another defeat.

In the Opera theatre me and Taylor acquired a new friend. Tamara, our guide, was in her 60s, a retired English teacher. Her English was quite reasonable, she obviously had learned from very old books- some of her phrases came straight out of the 19th century. “My dear boys” she would begin.
The other people on our tour were four old ladies from Israel with Ukrainian roots. The theatre was magnificent. At the end we were given postcards, on condition that we would write to Tamara. I am ashamed to admit that, 15months later, a letter has not yet been written. Sorry Tamara.

There are no supermarkets of any description in Ukraine (unlike the Baltics, Poland, Hungary etc where there are supermarkets that dwarf those in Britain) so buying anything from meat to razor blades to washing-up powder occurs at these stalls. Mark discovered some very tasty hot sandwiches late that evening after returning from a bar.

Sunday
The national flags were out everywhere. I thought it must be a holiday, but it turned out that there had been a plane crash at a local airfield during an exhibition. The local papers were showing some pretty gruesome scenes. Around 5 people died.
That evening we did what most of the locals did- sat on the benches on prospect Svobodny. Taylor named the evening “deaf forum”- a collection of deaf people would meet and communicate in sign-language. It seemed a good social event for participants to meet and/or develop friendships.

Unfortunately, one character 'Romeo' was being disruptive. He only wanted to ‘talk’ with women, and nobody seemed interested in him.
He started using mean tricks to gain their attention- stealing glasses, handbags, pulling a skirt up. Romeo was being continually reprimanded by the organisers, and eventually after one woman left in tears, was expelled from the group.
A serious of increasing frantic gestures took place between Romeo and the organisers.

Monday
There were dozens of pensioners begging at the bus station. I’m pretty tight when giving to beggars, but with the average pension being $20/month, and most of them are owed back pay of several months it seemed a fair contribution. Even MT started giving (I’ve not seen this before). I don’t know how they survive in winter, many of them probably don’t.

Destination: Chernivtsi.

The bus rolled eastwards through the ‘breadbasket of Europe’ except there was nothing growing in the fields. The farms, nearly all loss-making and the bankrupt govt. can’t afford to keep them going (and their huge Swiss banks accounts at the same time). Unsurprisngly there was no laughing or smiling on the bus.
Each little village seemed poorer than the last. We stopped at some toilets, 2 black stinking- and I mean stinking!- holes in the ground. We arrived at Chernitsi at 8pm. The sky was black, there was going to be an almighty storm...

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