Hello Everyone!
Well, I'm in Ukraine now. The word "Vitaemo" is Ukrainian for welcome ... and what a welcome it's been!
In fact, it started before I even got here. Last night I stayed in Przemysl, on the border – a place that you could almost call a 'frontier town' between the EU and the Badlands beyond.
I've done this border crossing many times, and my usual place to stay in Przemysl is called the Hotel Europejski. They generally give me a dingy room on the second floor, in which I smoke out the window until I fall asleep, and then they serve me a horrible wobbly-egg breakfast the next morning. I then head over to the bus station (about 200 metres away) and grab a bus over the border to Lviv.
This time the folks at Hotel Europejski went a step beyond: they gave me the room directly over their neon hotel sign. I went to the shops to grab a supermarket dinner, then settled in, ate, and opened the window to smoke. And ... yeow! It was a frikkin' spider's paradise up there!
Seriously, the whole sign was covered in webs, presumably to catch the many insects who are attracted to its neon glow. And in some of those webs, directly outside my window, were arachnids of a size that you'd normally expect to see on a trip to Asia or Australia.
Clearly, I was getting close to the Badlands*.
To be fair, they made up for it with a slightly better breakfast than usual. (Maybe they'd read the review I wrote a few years ago on booking.com, in which I suggested going to the local bakery instead.) But still ... ick!
Anyway, so I jump on the bus to Lviv. Sitting across from me are two English-speakers: the guy a Brit, the girl one of those whose accent is difficult to place. They spent much of the journey bickering about the pros and cons of hiring a car; the guy was obstinately refusing to entertain the idea and being a real ass about it, while the girl was using the opportunity to bring up all the sacrifices she'd made for him so far during their trip, and airing her theory that he was a bastard and didn't love her anymore.
This reminded me of one of the joys of travelling in places where you don't know the language; sometimes it's much better if you have no clue what people are saying ;-)
We got to the border and all the checks went smoothly, so then we crossed into Ukraine, with about 80kms ahead of us before we arrived in Lviv. So far, so good.
About 20 minutes later, the driver pulled into a bus stop in the middle of nowhere, and both he and the conductor got out. There was a problem; something to do with water levels and overheating and stuff like that (said the most mechanically ignorant man on the planet).
While the two men tried to work out what to do, three of the passengers – myself, the British guy and a smiling, gold-toothed Ukrainian man from somewhere east – jumped out of the sweltering metal tube for a cigarette and some fresh country air.
It was then the Brit and I noticed we hadn't stopped at just any bus stop. This was a work of art; an outlandishly designed thing, covered in mosaic tiles and depicting figures of almost mythic prowess, standing starkly against a horizon of fields and meadows.
My new British acquaintance was amazed because he'd never seen anything like this before. I was amazed too, but for kind of the opposite reason: I recognised this artwork as a genuine vintage Sovietskaya Ostanovka (Soviet Bus Stop).
TANGENT TIME!
At this point, I feel I need to say a few words about the Sovietskiye Ostanovki, because they're one of my absolute favourite things about ex-Soviet countries. There are thousands of these bus stops dotted throughout every republic, often in startlingly remote locations, and like the awesome avant garde monuments of Bulgaria (see here), they're a stunning reminder that we Westerners never fully comprehended the USSR.
The architects who designed these bus stops were given license to let their imaginations run wild. The authorities saw them as a way of bringing art to the masses, on a small, uncontroversial scale – and many designers took the reins with both hands, and really went for it.
The resulting range of designs is enormous. Some of them are ethnically themed, to emphasise the cultural and ethnic diversity of the USSR (something that Moscow was very keen to promote in later postwar years). Others feature playful, almost childhood nursery-like colour schemes, UFO/flying saucer motifs, or wild avant garde designs like the 'shell' pictured here.
You also see some brutalist ostanovki with sturdy stone figures and/or wonderful crisp angles, as well as some semi-monumental ones that celebrate Soviet achievements (like Yuri Gagarin's space flight). And there are others in the 'Islamic republics' that look like tiny roadside mosques, with majolica tiles and ornate domes and so on. In fact, pretty much any style you can think of has a bus stop to represent it.
On the way from Almaty to my partner's dacha, we're lucky enough to have about a dozen original Sovietskiye Ostanovki spaced out along the road at 2km intervals. As is often the case, ours are in pretty awful condition, and the locals don't seem to appreciate them much. But for me, passing them is by far the highlight of our journey.
Last thing I'll mention before getting back to the story: there's actually a book about this, called (astonishingly) 'Soviet Bus Stops'. It sold out almost instantaneously on its first printing, but Amazon is currently promising that the new edition will be in stock soon.
If the phenomenon of the Sovietskiye Ostanovki is new to you, I highly recommend that you take a break from my blah-blahing and check out the video links below, which relate to the book. Whether you're an 'ex-Sovs person' like me or not, I promise you'll be impressed.
1: Soviet Bus Stops (Vimeo)
2: Soviet Bus Stops (Youtube)
That's it: tangent over :-)
SO WHERE WERE WE?
Oh yeah ... Ukraine. Broken down on a roadside, taking photos of a Soviet Bus Stop while the driver and conductor tried to work out why our bus didn't want to take us any closer to Lviv.
While we were doing this, the gold-toothed Ukrainian guy came over to the Brit and started trying to tell him something. I could see the language barrier was pretty much insurmountable, so I strolled over, hoping that my nowhere-near-as-good-as-they-should-be-by-now Russian skills might help a little.
The Ukrainian guy was offering a theory about the bus stop: it had probably been built, he conjectured, to commemorate the 1980 Moscow Olympics.
This was an awesome thought, because if true, it dramatically signified how much has changed in this area over the last few decades. We were standing in a region where anti-Russian sentiment probably runs higher than almost anywhere else in the world, and yet here was this thing from less than two generations ago, celebrating Moscow's Olympic triumph. Incredible.
The bus eventually got back on its feet somehow, so the three of us boarded, and we took off through the picturesque western-Ukrainian countryside. However, this particular bus seemed to have an MUOR (an acronym I've just made up – it stands for 'Maximum Uninterrupted Operation Range') of about 30kms. It broke down twice more on the way to Lviv, seemingly from a different problem each time.
There was also a foul smell on board, clearly coming from the air conditioning. For the first half of the journey, the driver didn't turn it on. However, someone must have complained, because later there was conditioning ... but it was causing some very odd things to happen. Most worryingly, the TV was drenched in water that was leaking from the conditioning unit – not a comfortable sight at all!
I just hoped at this point that we'd get there eventually, and not have to call taxis out to the wilderness.
On our third break-down stop, the driver disappeared with a small petrol drum; it appeared we'd actually run out of gas, about 5kms short of Lviv's central railway station! This was incredibly inconvenient, because I'd booked an apartment, and the custom in Lviv is to meet the landlord/lady at the apartment at an agreed time. That time was now approaching.
I had a SIM card, but there was no balance on it. All I could do was wait for the landlord to call, and explain why I wasn't there yet.
In the end I was about an hour late, and I had to wait in the street for the landlord to return, with passers-by eyeing me suspiciously. At one point, a neighbour came out and asked "What are you standing here for?". I replied that I was waiting for the owner of a rental apartment, and she said "There are no rental apartments here."
Had this been my first visit to Lviv, that would've worried me. But this woman was from the 'older generation', and I knew what she was really saying was "I don't actually know if there are any apartments here, and I don't want to appear ignorant, so I'll say there aren't." This is just one of those cultural quirks that you get used to as you go along: older Ukrainians must seem authoritative at all times on all subjects, and it means you sometimes have to take what they say with a grain of salt.
Btw, if you're planning to visit Ukraine (and you should – at least Lviv and Kyiv), this will probably happen to you at some point. People will confidently tell you that things don't exist when in fact they do, and that things do exist when in fact they don't. It's part of the fun ... adds a bit of mystery to your holiday :-)
Anyway, I've officially arrived now, and I'm looking forward to more (mis)adventures over the weeks to come. Of course I'll keep you updated as always.
Bye!
(*Btw, if citizens of Ukraine or any other ex-Soviet country are reading this, I'm using the words "Badlands" a bit sarcastically here. It's mainly a comment on how some people in Europe see Ukraine, not about how Ukraine actually is. So please don't be offended.)
Well, I'm in Ukraine now. The word "Vitaemo" is Ukrainian for welcome ... and what a welcome it's been!
In fact, it started before I even got here. Last night I stayed in Przemysl, on the border – a place that you could almost call a 'frontier town' between the EU and the Badlands beyond.
I've done this border crossing many times, and my usual place to stay in Przemysl is called the Hotel Europejski. They generally give me a dingy room on the second floor, in which I smoke out the window until I fall asleep, and then they serve me a horrible wobbly-egg breakfast the next morning. I then head over to the bus station (about 200 metres away) and grab a bus over the border to Lviv.
This time the folks at Hotel Europejski went a step beyond: they gave me the room directly over their neon hotel sign. I went to the shops to grab a supermarket dinner, then settled in, ate, and opened the window to smoke. And ... yeow! It was a frikkin' spider's paradise up there!
Seriously, the whole sign was covered in webs, presumably to catch the many insects who are attracted to its neon glow. And in some of those webs, directly outside my window, were arachnids of a size that you'd normally expect to see on a trip to Asia or Australia.
Clearly, I was getting close to the Badlands*.
To be fair, they made up for it with a slightly better breakfast than usual. (Maybe they'd read the review I wrote a few years ago on booking.com, in which I suggested going to the local bakery instead.) But still ... ick!
Anyway, so I jump on the bus to Lviv. Sitting across from me are two English-speakers: the guy a Brit, the girl one of those whose accent is difficult to place. They spent much of the journey bickering about the pros and cons of hiring a car; the guy was obstinately refusing to entertain the idea and being a real ass about it, while the girl was using the opportunity to bring up all the sacrifices she'd made for him so far during their trip, and airing her theory that he was a bastard and didn't love her anymore.
This reminded me of one of the joys of travelling in places where you don't know the language; sometimes it's much better if you have no clue what people are saying ;-)
We got to the border and all the checks went smoothly, so then we crossed into Ukraine, with about 80kms ahead of us before we arrived in Lviv. So far, so good.
About 20 minutes later, the driver pulled into a bus stop in the middle of nowhere, and both he and the conductor got out. There was a problem; something to do with water levels and overheating and stuff like that (said the most mechanically ignorant man on the planet).
While the two men tried to work out what to do, three of the passengers – myself, the British guy and a smiling, gold-toothed Ukrainian man from somewhere east – jumped out of the sweltering metal tube for a cigarette and some fresh country air.
It was then the Brit and I noticed we hadn't stopped at just any bus stop. This was a work of art; an outlandishly designed thing, covered in mosaic tiles and depicting figures of almost mythic prowess, standing starkly against a horizon of fields and meadows.
 |
Bus Shelter Olympians
Road to Lviv, Ukraine, 12.07.16
|
My new British acquaintance was amazed because he'd never seen anything like this before. I was amazed too, but for kind of the opposite reason: I recognised this artwork as a genuine vintage Sovietskaya Ostanovka (Soviet Bus Stop).
TANGENT TIME!
At this point, I feel I need to say a few words about the Sovietskiye Ostanovki, because they're one of my absolute favourite things about ex-Soviet countries. There are thousands of these bus stops dotted throughout every republic, often in startlingly remote locations, and like the awesome avant garde monuments of Bulgaria (see here), they're a stunning reminder that we Westerners never fully comprehended the USSR.
The resulting range of designs is enormous. Some of them are ethnically themed, to emphasise the cultural and ethnic diversity of the USSR (something that Moscow was very keen to promote in later postwar years). Others feature playful, almost childhood nursery-like colour schemes, UFO/flying saucer motifs, or wild avant garde designs like the 'shell' pictured here.
You also see some brutalist ostanovki with sturdy stone figures and/or wonderful crisp angles, as well as some semi-monumental ones that celebrate Soviet achievements (like Yuri Gagarin's space flight). And there are others in the 'Islamic republics' that look like tiny roadside mosques, with majolica tiles and ornate domes and so on. In fact, pretty much any style you can think of has a bus stop to represent it.
On the way from Almaty to my partner's dacha, we're lucky enough to have about a dozen original Sovietskiye Ostanovki spaced out along the road at 2km intervals. As is often the case, ours are in pretty awful condition, and the locals don't seem to appreciate them much. But for me, passing them is by far the highlight of our journey.
Last thing I'll mention before getting back to the story: there's actually a book about this, called (astonishingly) 'Soviet Bus Stops'. It sold out almost instantaneously on its first printing, but Amazon is currently promising that the new edition will be in stock soon. If the phenomenon of the Sovietskiye Ostanovki is new to you, I highly recommend that you take a break from my blah-blahing and check out the video links below, which relate to the book. Whether you're an 'ex-Sovs person' like me or not, I promise you'll be impressed.
1: Soviet Bus Stops (Vimeo)
2: Soviet Bus Stops (Youtube)
That's it: tangent over :-)
SO WHERE WERE WE?
Oh yeah ... Ukraine. Broken down on a roadside, taking photos of a Soviet Bus Stop while the driver and conductor tried to work out why our bus didn't want to take us any closer to Lviv.
While we were doing this, the gold-toothed Ukrainian guy came over to the Brit and started trying to tell him something. I could see the language barrier was pretty much insurmountable, so I strolled over, hoping that my nowhere-near-as-good-as-they-should-be-by-now Russian skills might help a little.
 |
Amazonian Archer Babe
Road to Lviv, Ukraine, 12.07.16
|
The Ukrainian guy was offering a theory about the bus stop: it had probably been built, he conjectured, to commemorate the 1980 Moscow Olympics.
This was an awesome thought, because if true, it dramatically signified how much has changed in this area over the last few decades. We were standing in a region where anti-Russian sentiment probably runs higher than almost anywhere else in the world, and yet here was this thing from less than two generations ago, celebrating Moscow's Olympic triumph. Incredible.
The bus eventually got back on its feet somehow, so the three of us boarded, and we took off through the picturesque western-Ukrainian countryside. However, this particular bus seemed to have an MUOR (an acronym I've just made up – it stands for 'Maximum Uninterrupted Operation Range') of about 30kms. It broke down twice more on the way to Lviv, seemingly from a different problem each time.
There was also a foul smell on board, clearly coming from the air conditioning. For the first half of the journey, the driver didn't turn it on. However, someone must have complained, because later there was conditioning ... but it was causing some very odd things to happen. Most worryingly, the TV was drenched in water that was leaking from the conditioning unit – not a comfortable sight at all!
 |
Drippy TV
Road to Lviv, Ukraine, 12.07.16
|
I just hoped at this point that we'd get there eventually, and not have to call taxis out to the wilderness.
On our third break-down stop, the driver disappeared with a small petrol drum; it appeared we'd actually run out of gas, about 5kms short of Lviv's central railway station! This was incredibly inconvenient, because I'd booked an apartment, and the custom in Lviv is to meet the landlord/lady at the apartment at an agreed time. That time was now approaching.
I had a SIM card, but there was no balance on it. All I could do was wait for the landlord to call, and explain why I wasn't there yet.
In the end I was about an hour late, and I had to wait in the street for the landlord to return, with passers-by eyeing me suspiciously. At one point, a neighbour came out and asked "What are you standing here for?". I replied that I was waiting for the owner of a rental apartment, and she said "There are no rental apartments here."
Had this been my first visit to Lviv, that would've worried me. But this woman was from the 'older generation', and I knew what she was really saying was "I don't actually know if there are any apartments here, and I don't want to appear ignorant, so I'll say there aren't." This is just one of those cultural quirks that you get used to as you go along: older Ukrainians must seem authoritative at all times on all subjects, and it means you sometimes have to take what they say with a grain of salt.
Btw, if you're planning to visit Ukraine (and you should – at least Lviv and Kyiv), this will probably happen to you at some point. People will confidently tell you that things don't exist when in fact they do, and that things do exist when in fact they don't. It's part of the fun ... adds a bit of mystery to your holiday :-)
Anyway, I've officially arrived now, and I'm looking forward to more (mis)adventures over the weeks to come. Of course I'll keep you updated as always.
Bye!
(*Btw, if citizens of Ukraine or any other ex-Soviet country are reading this, I'm using the words "Badlands" a bit sarcastically here. It's mainly a comment on how some people in Europe see Ukraine, not about how Ukraine actually is. So please don't be offended.)
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