We went to Kiev for a weekend getaway. Monday was Victory in Europe day so we had a little time off to travel back. The trip marked a lot of firsts for us. We had never been to the city that all North Americans here seem to love. We hadn’t done any traveling before (except to Zaporozhye, which doesn’t really count). We had never been on the train before. I will write a little about the train experience.
We arrived at the Donetsk train station around 6 p.m., an hour before the scheduled departure. We have found that most Ukrainian trains that travel any extended distance travel at night. We were able to board the train 30 minutes before departure. We spent the next 13 hours in our compartment in “kupay,” which is the middle class. It has 2 sets of bunk beds in a small compartment. With 5 minutes until departure, we were still alone and, I must admit that I was a little torn about the situation. I thought that it would be fun to have some Ukrainian companions to talk to, yet I did not want to have to think so hard to comprehend every sentence I heard and tried to speak. Two men in their 50’s showed up just in time and, as it turns out, it may have been better alone (although a few days later it seems like it may have been a little fun).
Both were track and field coaches, in Donetsk for a competition. One coach specialized in hammer and the other in javelin. As you can probably guess from their profession, both looked like the stereotypical Russians that dominated American movies of the cold war era (at least the small part that I am familiar with): broad men, over six feet tall with short cropped hair and little to no neck. They got to know each other 30 years ago, when they were athletes in the sports they dedicated their lives to coaching. They must be quite distinguished coaches as one (hammer coach) was in Athens with one of his athletes last summer. It would have been interesting to talk to him more about that, but they were not in a very coherent state of mind.
They had been celebrating the holiday weekend quite heavily. In the past 6 months, I have found the Russian language very difficult to understand, but it is much easier to understand sober Russian than slurred Russian. One coach had been working in Iran for the past year and, in his stupor, was constantly shifting to that language (Farsi). It was quite an experience. These two men seemed like different people (possibly a bit sheepish) in the morning.
We spent our 1.5 days in Kiev mentally preparing for who our companions would be on the train to Donetsk. Our tickets were in the lowest class and everyone that we talked to informed us that that would be a “necessary, cultural experience” for us. We were a bit concerned, but thoroughly enjoyed our time in Kiev.
“Plotzcar” is a bit different from “kupay” in that there are no real compartments. Even though there are bunks, the car is open so they are able to squeeze 50% more bunks per car. Although we had several more neighbors, the ones directly across from us were far more pleasant (and sober) than we expected. Although the one really wanted to talk and especially wanted us to answer the question: “How is life in America?” both allowed us to sit quietly and read our magazines. It was another long trip back and we are still recovering from our night traveling. We look forward to more, hopefully less eventful trips.
-Dave
