A Cossack in Qazak*

I really wish I had just gotten over my distaste for humidity and really just got ‘er done in Azerbaijan, but unfortunately I didn’t and I have had to live with the consequences ever since.  I got so little done there!  After I got back to Baku from Quba, the next morning I went to the bus depot and bought a ticket to Ganja, thinking I might enjoy myself there.  Upon entering the bus depot, I discovered that it was highly unlikely that I would enjoy myself there.  I think it was raining or something made me not want to exit the bus so I paid for an extension to the end of the line, which I think was Tovuz.

The Tovuz terminus was actually quite a run down affair and I was actually a little regretful I had decided to take the bus there.  I kept walking out of town in the direction of the Georgian border and I stopped in at an internet café to make sure I was on track.  The kids in the internet café (as usual playing some sort of war game) loved me and would not let me leave (Azerbaijan.  They didn’t want me to leave the country at all) and I promised them I would return.  I’d still like to, because as I have mentioned there is a lot I seem to have missed. 

So I walked towards Qazak and I hadn’t made it too far out of town when a marshrutka stopped for me.  It was empty so I was a bit hesitant, but for days now I had been practicing how to scream “No!  That is NOT the price!  It costs X manat to go from (blank) to (blank) and this is the not the accepted fare!  I will NOT pay that!” in Russian and I was just itching to use it.  I was so trigger-happy.  So as we inched towards Qazak I was getting so pent up ready for the impending scream-fest that when the marshrutka stopped and I handed him 50 kopek, he smiled, and swatted his hand in a gesture to indicate it was on the house.  Of course, this gesture also knocked the money out of my hand and I never did get back 25 kopek and I presume it’s lost forever somewhere in the woolen blankets covering the bolted in seats of that orange Mercedes van.  

Qazak is, as the name suggests, full of Kazakhs.  Or at least it was.  No one can really be certain any more where anyone is in the former Soviet Union.  A popular past time has been to take people from the Caucasus and other troublesome regions and ship them to Central Asia.  I believe some Kazakhs were shipped to Azerbaijan.**  In any case, the town was really nice and the entire centre seemed to be composed of huge parks with outdoor seating and people sitting around drinking tea, or playing pool, or having shashlik.  In fact, I kind of wish I had stayed the night there but sometimes when I have my mind set on something I will achieve it come hell or high water. 

Both Hell and high waters seem to have manifested themselves in the form of a TWO KILOMETRE long truck lineup at the border to Georgia.  Or it was more like 5km.  It was friggin’ long is what it was.  After leaving Qazak on foot, I caught a ride with a great truck driver who took me to a gas station where we hung out for like 30 minutes while he smoked and did whatever, and then we got on the road for 5 minutes and hit this enormous lineup.  He also tried to get me to throw his old Coke bottle out the window but I refused and carried it all the way with me to the border where I could find a garbage can.  

He apologized for not being able to take me to the border, and I apologized for how his day was going to be wasted in this traffic jam, and I continued to walk towards the border.  I passed all sorts, doing all sorts of activities, and there were trucks from everywhere trying to get through.  I made it to the border but was totally disoriented on as to where I was supposed to go because the crossing was being completely overhauled and I foolishly went into the building that had absolutely no personnel working in it and I came out the other side and realized that I was entirely in the wrong place.  No sooner had someone started screaming at me and soldiers rushed at me with guns that I used that ol’ western charm, flashed a white and toothy grin and said in about as clueless-American-tourist as one can get, “Sorry, where is the crossing?”  They took my passport, passed it around, took me to various offices, and then a young soldier personally escorted me to where I was supposed to go, which was a corralled section down the hill.  

Down the hill by the river was a temporary crossing, made up of a portable and some wire fencing.  The soldier, probably 18 years old, asked me if I had an iPod.  Instead of saying, “B****, please, I have two” I coyly hinted that I might.  He told me to give it to him.  I upped the coy factor and said, “No.”  He said okay.  My main take-away from this experience is that being coy always wins the day.  And while no one else finds it funny, you can write about in your travel diary later and then post it to a blog three years later and still find it extremely funny.  

*I've frequently been referred to as being a cossack in the past.  Partly due to my steely blue eyes and striking features, and partly (mainly) due to the way I can devour an entire loaf of bread in one sitting with my bare hands.  
**Or it's actually full of cossacks.  I have no idea.  Very little research went into this one.

Harking on Kharkov

Look at these attractive,
young Ukrainians!

While Kiev may be the political heart of Ukraine, and the west the cultural heart, there were still vast tracts of land left to cover before I could justifiably claim that I had “done” the Ukraine. Of course, I’m talking about the industrial heartland east of the great ribbon of commerce/toxicity the Dniepr River. The secret to any Russian Imperial, Soviet, and subsequent Ukrainian success has always lain in the rich coal seams of the Donbass and the enterprising, hardy spirit of the Steppes-peoples. Mammoth planned communities of equally gargantuan industrial capacity were thickly spread before me with such tantalizing and alluring names like Dnipropetrovs’k, Donetsk and Zaporizhe and Kryvyi Rih—well-known to any aspiring steel magnate. But before I was able to eagerly pounce, I had my heart and sights first set on the nerve centre of this industrial magnate, Kharkov.

Actually, it was just as much a surprise to me as it no doubt is to you that it is no longer called Kharkov, but Kharkiv. This is a name change I refuse to ratify for various reasons. First of all, why are cities changing their names? I have never accepted the legitimacy of Mumbai over Bombay, Istanbul over Constantinople and I am certainly not about to make concessions for Jakarta over the much more illustrious Batavia. While I’ve been known to be torn over whether or not to refer to the capital of the Slovak Republic as Pressburg, Pozsony, or Istropolis, I cannot in good conscious worry about minor changes such as an ‘o’ to an ‘i.’ The second reason for objection, of course, is the most important and Civ II enthusiasts the world over will bellow a chorus of assent: when you play as the Russians, the name is Kharkov. Until Sid Meier retroactively releases an updated version of Civilization II with a special note alerting us to these apparently sensitive and politically-motivated name changes, I will continue to use the 1996 edition as my benchmark gold standard in history, geography and diplomacy.

Fun facts about Kharkov that you’re free to share with your friends at dinner parties: 

1. It’s the second largest city in the Ukraine.
2. It has the largest 6th largest public square in the world Europe.
3. It was almost entirely rebuilt after the Second World War because whatever the Germans didn’t destroy on their push through, the Soviets surely did on their push back, hoping to make a nice, blank slate for centrally-planned urban space.
4. It’s really, really close to Russia. I could see Russia if I squinted.

I know, right—wow!  When I first saw this picture (in Wikipedia, obviously, which has been magnanimous in its supply of pictures) I thought “omfg I have to go there!"  But when you’re in the middle of this 119,000m² mass of concrete in late March and the winds are blowing in from the Urals, it’s actually quite cold and disappointing. 

I was greeted in Karkov by Maksim, a young entrepreneur who was my couchsurfing host. He lived in a flat with his girlfriend Nastia, a journalist, with another couple, Igor and his girlfriend. Igor was a graphic designer specialising in Adobe Photoshop. I told him I played around with a bit of graphic design too. He showed me his work, which was amazing and clearly required what I think people mean by “skill” when they list it on their CVs. I was a bit bashful when he asked me to produce an example of my work, which can be seen here. 



You had better believe this was in a square named after Taras Shevchenko.

I was charged with the tall task of preparing dinner for everyone. For every guest they have, they ask them to cook a meal that no one there has ever eaten. I naturally thought of sushi, but evidently it’s the Ukraine’s most popular dish these days. They had never eaten Mexican and while as a Canadian I am no authority on Mexican cuisine and how to properly make it, lest we forget that Ukrainians have no idea about a Canadian’s capacity to accurately prepare Mexican food, and thus my secret was safe.

We went to the supermarket for supplies, and fasten a Mexican meal out of Ukrainian victuals. Highlights included:

• Talking to an old man who asked why I was in Ukraine. I explained to him I liked the people, the history, and then a word which, to me, was “food” in Russian but ended up being a very unsavoury curse word in Ukrainian. Of course, with my bellowing and obvious Anglo-Saxon accent, the whole store heard me holler in their native tongue, “I LOVE UKRAINIAN _____” which sent them all—especially the old man—into convulsive peals of laughter and Nastia into a bright red orb of embarrassment.
• Discovering that you can’t buy bags of ice in the Ukraine. For a people who I was under the impression invented ice, it seemed to be in short supply. After I stared at Maksym in disbelief he shook my shoulders and said, “I KNOW! We can’t buy ice! How do we live in Ukraine!?” We settled on the fish department and to assuage the concerns of the fishmonger Maksym explained, “It’s for an American”—the universal catch-all to account for strange behaviour.
• Using shwarma wraps to make my own tortilla chips, and winning.

The old gang, back together again.

The surprise of the evening was that I wasn’t simply going to be cooking for the four of them, but in fact for a whole Cossack hoard—11 in total. Two were business colleagues from Russia, and other friends and relatives had showed up for the spicy fiesta. I enlisted the help of the younger brother and sister of Nastia by issuing imperatives such as “перемешайте!” (mix) and “сокращение!” (cut) after holding up different items to the obedient and extremely polite young sous-chefs. It was a fantastic success in every sense of the word. We had chicken fajitas, margaritas, tortillas and salsa and then we played mafia, which any former residence advisor is very familiar with. In all, a landslide success in Ostpolitik.