Keying into Kiev

Before leaving Chernivtsi we took a bus to Kamenets-Podolsky, which we later determined to be a sad and decaying town.  Unfortunately, we hadn’t read the Wikitravel entry on it, nor ran a quick Google Image search of it because it’s actually quite beautiful and historic.  Next time, I guess.  From Chernivtsi, we hopped aboard the night train to Kiev, which to my pleasant surprise was going to be 15 hours.  As I have come to learn, no matter where you want to go in Ukraine, it will take you 14+ hours by train.  That is because the trains travel at 40km/hour, but the good news is that they are always on time.  In each of the trains there is a schedule letting you know when we will arrive in each of the stopover cities, and for exactly how long.  What a dream job railway administration must have been for type-A personalities in the old system. 

Something I probably have never bothered to express via the medium of Web 2.0 blog postings is that I am really into metro systems in post-socialist countries.  Like, really into them.  It’s my dream to travel on, or at least gaze at from within, each one currently in existence.   Kiev’s metro gets a 6.  Out of 100.  But trying to figure out how to transfer at key spots is pretty tough, and don’t even think about taking a picture.  Unless, of course, you enjoy the idea of having five security guards suddenly emerge from inside the wall, surround you, and physically delete it from your camera.  God forbid I replicate this poorly-conceived public transit experiment anywhere in the first world.

Actually, I’m a bit hard on the Kiev metro.  I mean, it works, and it has some great reach, and it’s actually in the ground and there are trains.  That earns it more than Budapest’s Metro 4.  However, the painfully slow escalators that sometimes didn’t work (which left me stranded in Suburban Kiev because meaty-armed babushkas working for the transit authority would not let anyone into the station) have left it sitting pretty low on the list. 

We poked around Kiev, which has its share of churches and museums.   Naturally, of course, we had to stop by one of the hundreds of open air markets and blend in with the locals, in hopes of scoring free pickles and anything else the babas were vending.  We also saw the large motherland statue, affectionately known as “Tin Tits” in tourist brochures.  Say what you will about the inefficiencies of central planning, but when the necessity arises to procure enough sheet metal to build one of these in each of the republican capitals, it gets the job done.  And judging by this Slavic maiden’s piercing gaze and command of the landscape, it was well worth it. 

Kiev was lacking in something but it took me a while to really figure it out.  At first I thought it was an alternative, underground hipster scene, but I discovered all Po-So countries have those in spades and I was foolishly looking in the Podil neighbourhood, which was sadly did not live up to its 19th century reputation.  Then I thought perhaps it was the bars that were lacking, because from the outsider’s perspective the Kiev bar scene consists of kiosks on the street that sell “live” beer.  You bring your own plastic 1L bottle, they fill it up, and then you go join the hoards or people—homeless, students, businesspersons—in the park and drink it.  However, I discovered that there were plenty of suitable pubs that were simply disguised as other things, like a 1940s hospital/laboratory where you can drink shots out of test tubes and wear old German war helmets from the Great Patriotic War.

Just like West Edmonton Mall,
you can get Ukrainian food in Kiev.

I finally realised what it was that Kiev was missing: Ukrainians.  Aside from the Ukrainian flags and the enormous Hotel Ukraina in the centre of the town, there wasn’t a Ukrainian to be seen, except in “ethnic” restaurants peppered around the town.  Everyone spoke Russian, and the food was decidedly more bland than in the west.  The thing about the Ukraine is that all roads do not lead to Kiev.  For the most part, I don’t think all people in the Ukraine know that they live in a country called “Ukraine.”  If you’re from L’viv, then you’re a national hero and you are a true Ukrainian.  If you’re from anywhere east of Kiev, you’re probably a Russian and are unaware that a border exits between the two countries.