The Old Country

You'll have to forgive that last post, both for the brevity and for the Mc'Ds rant. Perhaps I can add a little background to help explain my gastronomic exasperation:

See, since I stepped onto the TSR (in truth, the Trans-Mongolian rather than Trans-Siberian railway), I've been living on a steady diet of bread, cheese, and yogurt. But what of all those delightful Slavic dishes, you ask? But what of them? They're fantastic, when I can find them. It seems that, for the most part, eating out is still far too expensive for the general populace of these post-Soviet economies. Thus, when I find restaurants, they seem to cater to wealthy entrepreneurs and those who have grabbed their fortunes in the past fifteen years of kleptocracy. Who amongst them wear the Gucci-suits, and who the track-suits, I have still yet to discern.

In any case, these restaurants are priced far beyond the budget of a traveler like I, striving to break below the $20 per day mark. Common here, though, are 'produkty', shops stocking every type of bread, cheese, and sausage your heart may desire (and arteries, fear). Also, hundreds of kiosks lining streets sell similar items, so my diet has, for lack of healthy alternatives, been rather basic. A few bananas and a kilogram or so of "kefir," a delightful drinking yogurt, often prove a hearty meal. Also, as for this kefir, a liter a day keeps the immodium away.

If I'm in luck, however, I may find one of many "Shaverma" stands manned by a Tajik, Azerbaijani, Uzbek, or other Central Asian. In St. Pete, there was a very decent schwarma stand right across from the metro station near my hostel, so through my frequentings, I quickly developed "regular" status, and often chatted or received travel tips from the friendly, young kids.

The other occasional delights are "kookhny", little cafeteria style restaurants that do indeed have authentic, home-style dishes. Though cheap, these can be hit-or-miss when it comes to the quality of the food, and these "authentic" dishes are usually dripping with grease of some kind. Anyhow, all of this explain my delight when I find the Ukrainian and Russian fast food joints, and my newfound appreciation of the clean, quick, cheap traits of the American Fast-Food model.

But, oh, Lviv/Lvov/Lwow! Shall you go unmentioned this post around?

No, for I'm currently sitting in a 'net center in downtown Lviv. It's a nice city, though most of the novelty lies in its absolute Ukrainian-ness. The Ukrainian language, though to me it seems a kissing cousin of Russian, is still spoken rather widely here. The architecture seems charmingly Eastern European, and for every monument to a downplayed defeat that stood in Sevestapol, Lviv sports a museum or monument to Ukrainian heritage. And finally, verifying the adages that have been passed down through my paternal bloodline, the women are indeed less than spectacular.

I would be fine moving on tonight, but I have a ticket to Krakow for tomorrow evening instead. The weather here has been rather dreary, but hey, "Trudnuy na pravda." Also, I have finally managed to locate Kosiv, the little hamlet from whence Great-grandpa Malkawizcz came, but my approaching visa expiration seems to prohibit any sort of excursion to the Carpathian region near the Romanian border. Someday...

So all in all, it has been a terrific little journey exploring the Slavic lands. Russia was neat; Moscow had its Kremlin and New Russians, though I'm kicking myself over not chatting politics with Muscovites. My knowledge of Putin's hidden fist, and all of the Periwinkle, Fuschia, and Baby-blue revolutions that worked to escape it, are still limited to what I can get from Western media. St. Pete of course was fantastic, though I spent too much time there. This was my lesson in booking tickets far in advance, and of course, led to my lesson in making sure my train doesn't go through, lets say, BELARUS. But more on that later.

St. Pete was, for someone who enjoys museums, waterfronts, tourist-packed symphonies, and parks, a heaven. I also got to swap out most of the books I'd torn through since Beijing, thanks to my Hostel's book exchange program, so I should be set for some time. The museum fares would have added up quickly, but when buying tickets I would muster my best Volga accent, and with arms thrown wide, exclaim in Russian, "Hullo, comrade!" This worked for getting me the Russian rate about 70% of the time, if only because it succeeded in cracking up the ticket-babushkas. But for the difference between a ten dollar foreigner's ticket and the fifty cents for RF citizens, I was more than willing.


So then came the following little episode on the way to Kyiv, beginning with a customs officer waking me on the train at three in the morning.

"Where is visa?"
"Oh, right here."
"No, this is Ukraine visa."
"Where am I?"
"Belarus."

Yes, I'd screwed the pooch on this one, and trusting the travel agent who assured me the extra $10 dollars was because my train would travel via Moskva. For believing that, I was an idiot. Anyhow, I was gently removed from the train, where I learned that I had been pulled off about 30km from the Ukrainian border! No, you don't need a visa to get INTO Belarus, but you're just not going to get out of there. Anyhow, I sat there for a few hours, a couple of miles across the border from Chornobyl, right in the area where 80% of the fallout settled. What radiant smiles those folks had. Also, to my classmates from Mr. Rob's English class, and anyone who's read Don DeLillo's "White Noise," environmental disasters really do make for gorgeous sunsets.

Meeting with a Latvian woman, Valentina, who also thrown off, but because she had come into Belarus two days before her visa went into effect, we set about trying to find a solution. This at times proved quite comical, since neither of us understood eachother. She was, however, the one who came up with the idea of going to Minsk, and I was all for it, the tickets being five dollars, and there not being much reason to not explore the country, save being an illegal alien in a backward nation ruled by an avowed Anti-Western dictator.

We got to Minsk early the next morning, and while enjoying a cup of hmm-what-to-do-now coffee in the train station, I spotted an American passport under the papers of a guy near us. Judging from his notebook, and perhaps because he was an American jotting notes in the middle of a Belarussian train station cafe, I announced my presence by venturing a guess that he was a writer. Click. Indeed he was a US citizen, and indeed he was a writer. Adam, I learned, had actually first come to Belarus in '97, eager to find some trace of his missing roots, and he had since started a family and settled down in Pinsk. This, my friends, was heaven shining down upon me. Not only did he speak excellent Russian, and finally clear up what Valentina and I had been saying to eachother, but he was actually on the way to take care of business at the same place we needed to go for a transit visa. Score.

So the three of us set off, getting spun around a few times by the helpful clerks juggling us around different offices, in different areas of the city. In the meantime, however, I garnered quite the tour of Minsk (and how depressing it was), with a very knowledgeable tour-guide. Adam seemed quite well versed in the recent history of his adopted home, and I got a very extensive opinion on current happenings. Indeed, I received (in my view) a pretty even-handed lesson on the Lukashenko regime and the effect it's having on Belarus. Later, reading his blog, I learned the paperwork he had been taking care of was for permanent residence in Belarus. This prospect was injeopardyy, however, as the buck-stops-here administrator who he finally won a meeting with informed Adam that American interests were covertly offering a $32million war-chest to any candidate willing to stand to oust Lukashenko. The Belarussian government was therefore not inclined to look favorably upon American citizens, and indeed was even considering a bar on visas issued to Americans. Whether this had some kernel of not-in-your-NYTimes truth, or whether it was merely a bribe shakedown, I do not know. In either case, however, it offers an interesting glimpse into Belarussian society. Moreso, I'm glad to be out of Belarus.

So yes, I finally did get a transit visa, after we were sent to a 'special' copy shop, since the photos and passport Xeroxes we already had weren't produced by the official's cousin. Of course, Valentina and I also had to write letters of apology, promising we would never do such a thing again. Since it had to be in Russian, Valentina wrote everything but the "Love, John" I affixed at the bottom. But after a full day in Minsk, full of little lessons on how not to drag your country out of the Cold War, we had visas, and we were on our way to Kyiv.

Travel plans going awry also proved to have an upshot when, returning to Balaklava for one more night, I found I had a new-roomie. An Italian in his late twenties, Luciano had been working in the diplomatic section his embassy in Kyiv, so he had an extensive knowledge of the problems of Ukrainian politics and economics. It was fascinating to hear about the rampant corruption that existed despite this very pro-business atmosphere (which seems to be taking off), the problems facing the Ukrainian steel industry, and a few other topics (the finer points of Ukrainian women, etc.). Anyhow, I love the little surprises that come with solo travel.

Having thusfar lost most of my readers (or are both of you still with me?), and having earlier described the beautiful ladies of Kiev, the hiking and diving of Balaklava, and the horrid visions of frying lard on the beaches of Yalta, I think this is a good place to call it a night. Now, it's time for me to fill out some Navy paperwork, making my crazy plans sound not so crazy. I should be back to the journal in a few days, perhaps with some impressions of Poland, and perhaps with some of the myriad stories that have accumulated since March. Anyhow, thanks for sticking with; much love for that, holmes.