Well, I’m in Kiev. The trip here was a long one…just over 24 hours. The schedule in the train station in St. Petersburg had said 23…but they are taking into account that the train crosses over a time zone.
I had no problems leaving- I had gone out the night before and I bought apples, bread, crackers, bottled water, eggs, cucumbers, and some chicken. Everyone I asked told me that on a long train ride you do three things: eat, read, and sleep. I asked Olga the night before what the best way to prepare the chicken was, and she said to fry it. I didn’t really want to fry it, because I figured if I’m going to be sitting in one place for that long I don’t really want to sit around eating fried food, so I figured I would boil it. Well…when I got up yesterday morning, Olga was in the kitchen grinding the last bit of my chicken and putting it in flour. When she saw me walk in, she said “You slept and slept and I didn’t want you to forget! I thought you would get up early and do it (this was at about 10:30, and I had a 4pm train). At that point I didn’t really have any other option, so I just said ‘thank you’ and got my things together.
I really liked the set-up of the train-car, and I don’t understand why we don’t have such set-ups. it was one big open wagon with partitions (with door-less entries) every three meters or so, and in each section slept six people. The three lower beds acted as seats during the day (one even had a reversible middle that turned into a table) and there were three elevated beds that folded down against the wall when not in use. While it wasn’t uncomfortable per say…but I did feel exceptionally tall when my head was touching the wall and my feet came over the opposite end of the bed at my ankles.
From the start, a few of us exchanged names, and then it seemed like everyone wanted to go to sleep. It was very strange for me that everyone was climbing into bed at about 6:30pm, but I had nowhere to sit with the beds all made, so I had to climb into mine as well. When the conductor came around to check tickets, she asked citizenship as well and when I said “United States” everyone in the vicinity turned to look. The conductor gave me a uncomfortable smile, and whispered to the other conductor ‘doesn’t he need a visa for Belarus?’ so I took out my passport and showed her my transit visa…my very expensive transit visa.
In the room with me were two other guys around my age; both Ukrainian, and three Russian women. The two Ukrainians and I exchanged names, but other than that no one spoke to each other at all. One of them, Misha, laughed and showed me a quote in his magazine he was reading that read “…this crisis is awful! I’m forced to eat hard cheeses, drink old wine, and drive a car with no roof!”
The other Ukrainian was a little strange. For the first three or four hours, he sat listening to loud techno music on his mp3 player and staring at the wall alternating beer and sprite, and then went to sleep and didn’t get up until about 10 this morning. After getting up, he put in his hands free on his cell phone and took naps while waking up intermittently to talk to someone, who I’m pretty sure was on the phone while he was sleeping as well because I never heard him give any kind of salutation.
Olga had given me two things to read- a small autobiographical text written by a man who spent some time in a Kolyma prison camp in Siberia, and a novel. I read the shorter one, but after that I really wasn’t in the mood to read (plus they started turning out the lights) so I tried to sleep. I woke up around midnight fully rested, and had a lot of trouble getting back to sleep. I kept having dreams about being awoken by Belorussian policemen who were looking for some form of documentation I didn’t have.
In the morning, we all became acquainted. We sat together and had breakfast and all talked for a while. Going through the Belorussian border turned out to be no problem- a few policemen walked through the car, and the conductor pointed at me and said “him. That’s the one!” and he checked my passport and visas and said everything was in order. At the next border leaving Belarus, we had to go through security checkpoints where police came through and checked everyone’s passport and registered everyone on a computer they were carrying around. After that, a dog went through searching for narcotics, and then two men came through and checked random luggage. I had no problem, but the older woman on the bed beneath mine had to empty out her bags.
I spent the last few hours talking with Misha, and upon arrival he went with me into the station, helped me put money onto my phone (Irina gave me her Ukrainian sim-card from her trip to Kiev a few weeks ago) and took me into the metro. Without my even asking him, he also called the hotel and the testing center and got the names of the nearest metro stops and wrote out the names of the streets in Ukrainian for me.
We were going in separate directions in the metro, but I gave him my phone number and he said he’ll give me a call this weekend. The metro here is impressive- there are only three lines with about 45 seconds between stops, and there are televisions facing each direction in each car showing the time and next stop.
At the stop right before mine, a guy got on with a guitar and I couldn’t believe my ears when he started playing a song by Dr. Lehrman! I knew it from the first note, because it was one of the ones I downloaded when the Slavic Club hosted an event where he spoke about his musical career in the Soviet Union. That definitely tops hearing him on the radio!
The hotel room is a lot nicer than I was expecting. It’s about 50 meters from the metro, and despite a slightly worn down appearance from the outside, its hard to believe how inexpensive it is once you walk in. My room, which was the (second) cheapest one in the city that I was able to find has a queen-sized bed and a good view of the city (thirteenth floor). The only downside is that I’m here by myself and I am still not quite sure what to do…but I bought a map on the street that has all the museums, theaters, and tourist attractions listed. I think tonight I am going to find out how far it is to the testing center, walk around a bit, get some dinner, and come back to study and relax a bit before my exam tomorrow.
I tried to use the sim-card from my phone to access the internet, and I got some kind of error message. I guess I won’t be posting updates this week…
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