Ukraine

August 2011

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Having taken so much longer than anticipated to cross the two borders, it was dusk when we set off along a badly surfaced road for L’viv. A nice scarlet sunset descended into darkness with a full moon. I had said to Trev that we should be able to avoid night driving, and here we were on Day Two driving at night. There were few road signs, a crap road and no streetlights and the journey took longer than anticipated.

We had a hotel reserved in L’viv, but we wondered, how on earth, in the dark, we would find it. As we approached the outskirts of L’viv, on a busy road, the first building I saw was a hotel to our left, lit up and thought I saw ‘Nton’ (it was actually ‘Hton’ in Cyrillic letters). “I think that’s our hotel” I told Trev, a bit amazed. We pulled up and I walked in, while Trev attempted to do a U-turn with crazy Ukrainian drivers roaring past. It was our hotel and they had our reservation. I also learnt that it was 10.30pm and the clock had moved an hour ahead when we crossed the Ukraine border. A security guard had let Trev bring the car in. Our room was on the second floor with the longest corridor I could remember seeing, but it was comfortable and we celebrated our good luck with Polish wine/beer and the usual road snacks. We had only driven a minimal 384 miles today!

Monday August 15th

Ukraine Background: 49 million people in a state slightly smaller than Texas. After Russia, it’s the largest country in Europe, so there is a lot of space (especially between drivers’ ears). Bordered by Russia, Belarus, Poland, Slovakia, Hungary, Romania and Moldova. Capital City: Kiev. It’s a Republic and they had a political revolution in 2006. Religion: Mostly Ukrainian Orthodox and Ukrainian Autocephalous Orthodox (whatever that is). Major industries: coal, electric power, metals, machinery equipment, chemicals, food processing, grain, sugar beet, sunflower seeds, vegetables, beef, milk. Formerly known as ‘the breadbasket of the USSR’ (producing 4 x as much produce as the next Soviet republic), over half the country is covered in fields of wheat, barley, rye, oats and sugar beet. A central ‘black belt’ of humus-rich soil, one of the world’s most fertile regions, covers nearly two thirds of Ukraine. Fields of red poppies and sunflowers predominated the countryside during our visit. Male life expectancy is 62 years, surprisingly long, considering the driving.

Historically, it was originally established by the Scandinavian people called the Rus (from where the word ‘Russian’ comes from) and during the 10th and 11th Centuries was the largest and most powerful state in Europe. Military devastation (Mongols, Lithuania, Polish attacks) and plague wiped out much of the population by the 15th Century. The area became popular with runaway serfs from neighbouring domains, who became known as kazaks (Cossacks) meaning ‘outlaw’. Then Poland and Russia divided up the area between themselves. Ukrainian nationalism flourished in the 1840s but Russia put its foot down.

After World War One they could have achieved independence, but argued between themselves too much, had a civil war and Russians took them over in 1922 which didn’t stop another national revival. When Uncle Joe Stalin took over in 1927, he decided to make a test case out of Ukrainian aspirations and engineered a famine (how do you do that?) that killed around seven million Ukrainians. He also destroyed all the churches. In later purges (1937-39) millions more were either executed or sent to labour camps. Six million more people died during the war in the fighting between Germany and the Red Army. It’s estimated that during the first half of the 20th Century, famine and purges cost the lives of over half the male and a quarter of the female population of Ukraine! So we were dealing with a seriously pissed off nation that was out to prove it wasn’t a quitter.

Many of you will remember the Chernobyl disaster in 1986 which happened in the Ukraine. The appalling slow official Soviet response set off political discontent and in 1991, they achieved independence. Russia was not a happy bunny. The Ukraine got to inherit all the nuclear weapons (all destroyed by 2001) and control of the Black Sea fleet. Now they want to join NATO and the European Community. The first attempt at integration saw them hosting the ‘Eurovision Song Contest’ in 2005. The Ukraine is famous for its Cossacks, Chernobyl and Cereals (oh and Communist dirty tricks).

We got breakfast thrown in and after a bored looking girl had taken our ‘breakfast receipt’ we helped ourselves to eggs, sausages, cake, toast, filter coffee etc and avoided the salad, cold cuts and beetroot. A TV blared out Europop videos while various businessmen or couples ate in silence or looked pissed off at each other. Once the security guard let us leave the car park, we followed the Monday rush hour traffic into L’viv for a quick look.

L’viv (pop 735,000) is the Ukraine’s most elegant city with open squares and wide boulevards while the ornate stonework, reliefs on door panels and graceful balconies all reflect centuries of crafted architecture. Consequently, L’viv was put on the UNESCO list of World Monuments in Architecture in 1998. As the Ukraine’s number one tourist attraction, it has yet to attract the cheap European weekend air tourists but eventually it will. Originally Polish, the Soviets ruled for only 50 years and didn’t have time to destroy its rich historical architecture which was built “like a rich layer cake of neoclassical architecture in rococo, baroque, renaissance and Gothic styles” (Lonely Persons Guide). I had already visited L’viv in 2005 and raved about it and I specifically remember the amounts of beautiful local girls. Link to my previous Ukraine visit

Yet again, Trev would just get a quick glimpse, much of which was via me trying to remember my bearings from visiting it 6 years ago and suddenly remembering that many roads were still cobble stoned that had warped which took a toll on the car along with the local tram lines. We drove around and finally found the central Prospekt Svobody (Freedom Avenue), where at one end stands the enormous statue of Ukrainian hero poet Shevchenko, and at the other is the Theatre of Opera and Ballet. It’s a lovely tree lined park/boulevard and Trev got out for a stroll/photos while I guarded the car against traffic wardens. While I stood there, a taxi driver pulled up and introduced himself. He had spotted the English number plates and talked about the Euro 2012 football championships (being played in Poland/Ukraine). He gave me some cards in case any of my ‘friends’ were coming over for the competition. So if you are, you can email Roman and he will ensure you get to the games as well as see what L’viv has to offer. I didn’t have the guts to ask if he had a beautiful daughter who was single.

I had wondered why there were so many road works in town, but I now knew that it was the city getting ready for Euro 2012. Fortunately, Roman was able to explain in sign language how to escape the city despite the road works which blocked our exit.

As with Krakow, you can easily spend a couple of days in L’viv. It is a splendid place that should be explored on foot and you will be come across wonderful places. But today, we had a massive 460 miles to drive and it would all be on ordinary roads. In 2005, I had driven with my dad from L’viv to Kiev, the capital. To avoid repetition, we would drive across Ukraine using a secondary road. While it was the most direct route, it also turned out to be the slowest road possible.

Leaving L’viv, the two lane road (one lane for us), twisted and turned through rural farmland and every village/town had a slow sign and potentially a hidden police car with a radar gun. Away from crawling through settlements, we would try and make up speed on the bits in-between but would get stuck behind slow moving trucks. By the side of the road, we were surprised to see workers cutting the grass using scythes. In one town, we came across a worker repainting a zebra crossing using a brush and a tin of white paint!

Paranoid of police speed traps, we tended to try and follow faster vehicles. When they slowed, we knew that they knew that there was probably a trap. Whatever they did, we did. This became obvious when a polish car overtook us at great speed and great stupidity and further along the road, we saw that it had been pulled over by the local rozzers and booked for speeding. How we laughed.

For some of the trip (over 100 miles) we followed an orange transit van. It became our best friend. When we approached a large town, the road signs took you around the town while you could still drive through the centre. At the first of these, the orange van went into the centre, while we went round. Back on the road, we overtook numerous vehicles until we came across the orange van and realised it had taken a shorter route. After that, we just stayed behind the van and let it guide us. The scenery was one of black soil and miles of fields of drooping yellow sunflowers.

No matter how careful we were, it was inevitable that we would run a speed trap and sure enough, we were waved over by a policeman who pointed at his gun and a 91 kph speed. We were ushered up to the watch tower where a policeman attempted to point out that it was a 50kph limit. We had seen the 70kph sign, but there was no 50 sign. They couldn’t speak English and pointed at a book with a 50 sign picture. We drew ‘70’ and pointed at the sign. ‘Bank’ they said, indicating that we would have to pay a fine. So we did what we always did. We played dumb and didn’t move. They looked at our passports and Trev’s driving licence and my vehicle details but didn’t start to fill in an offence form.

Someone came past the check point at rapid speed in the opposite direction and one of the policeman grabbed his hat and took off in ‘hot pursuit’ This pursuit was rather hampered by the fact he had a small Lada and the other car was a BMW or Mercedes. We stood in silence, looking humble and waited. The other policeman would continue to point at the ‘50’ sign and say ‘Bank’. I would say ‘No’. After 15 mins or so, the other policeman was back, having failed to catch the car. Within 5 minutes, they let us go. Result.

Trev did an exhausting 6 hour stretch from L’viv to Uman where we filled up with fuel on a credit card. We had lost time with the heavy traffic, bad surfaces and police. Then darkness fell and the rainstorm from hell descended on us. The road was flooded within minutes but we battled through. Then we were stopped at a level crossing for two trains to pass – with a 5 minute interval.

By the time we reached the outskirts of Kirovohrad, it was dry again, but we were faced with finding a hotel in the dark in a city of 250,000 with every sign in the Cyrillic alphabet. We had no map of the city either. Pretty much your worse nightmare. I followed a main road into the city centre, jumping out to ask a man, then a pair of girls, who giggled and tried to explain in Ukrainian that it was too complicated to explain. They indicated in broken English, that I should look for a square with a statue and ask there. It was off to the left somewhere. Eventually, we found the square, and took a left after it and ended up on a one way system back to the square!

So we took the left before the square and wondered how we would find it in the backstreets. I spotted a small shop, walked in and showed the man the name of the hotel (but ours reservation was in English). Since the hotel was called the Dvorcoviy West Court hotel, I couldn’t even pronounce it. He went to a room behind and brought out a man. ‘Policeman’ he said. He could speak some English. “I take you” he said and climbed into the passenger seat. It was only a few blocks away, but we would never have found it in the dark. When we stopped, he got out and indicated he lived nearby. If you don’t ask, you don’t get. And I am never hesitant about asking anyone about anything when travelling.

By the time we got to the reception, we had spent an hour in Kirovohrad looking for the hotel. It was 10.30pm. A very attractive receptionist spoke little English and I don’t think they got many western tourists but they had our reservation. The female Manager appeared and we were checked in and given a nice room and able to pay using a credit card. Yet again, we feasted on ‘road food’ wine and beer in our room with crappy Ukrainian TV stations. Yet again we had ended up driving in the dark. But we had crossed over half of the Ukraine in one day. We hadn’t seen another hotel in town so we were glad that we had had somewhere to aim for tonight.

Tuesday August 16th

We had been asked what time we wanted breakfast and had said 7.30am. It was a bit of a shock when the pretty receptionist brought us our breakfasts on trays to our room – omelettes, bread and black coffee. Since we had left Europe, my English car road tax was no longer valid and I wanted to send it back to the UK to get 2 months refund. I asked the Manager if there was a post office nearby. She drew a map of one within 2 blocks. When we reached the ‘building’, there was no obvious entrance. I asked an old man for ‘Post office’ in Ukrainian and he led us behind a thick bush to the entrance. As with all Communist Post Offices, there were 3 counter staff looking busy but not dealing with the handful of customers who were lined up waiting. We stood around and I was eventually waved over and produced an envelope with my address on it. ‘UK, England’ I indicated. She pointed at the envelope and indicated that even though my address was in the centre of the envelope, it was in the wrong place.

Eh? She was looking for a sender’s address in the top left corner. It took a while for her to communicate this without English. (I’m thinking to myself – I’m a bloody tourist, I don’t have an address here). I passed over my hotel reservation sheet and pointed at the address and said ‘Hotel’. I tried not to laugh when she copied out the address starting with ‘Hotel Confirmation Reservation Number’ as the name of the Hotel followed by the address. But she found room to fit the stamps and off it went. (Postscript – this letter sent on the 4th day of our 3 week trip arrived a week after I got back. I lost a month’s refund. I could have brought it home myself quicker and it would have visited 6 countries on the way around – handy tip: the Ukrainian postal service is slow so post anything elsewhere).

The city of Kirovohrad, in the middle of the country is both industrial and very rural but is not a tourist destination. It doesn’t even get a mention in the Lonely Person’s guide. With apparently, nothing to see, we left the hotel and wondered how we would escape this city. We followed our compass and headed north, hoping to pick up the E50 ring road that would take us to the main highway called the M04. We both successfully avoided a police check and found these roads. Today, we had a light driving day of around 240 miles to Donetsk.

I don’t have much in my diary, but the words ‘Trailer Boy’ are written down. I think this refers to the fact that we followed a driver with a trailer who overtook at the most stupid places and was driving so fast that his trailer was almost jumping off the road. We tried to keep up with him, knowing that if he didn’t kill himself, he would attract any police radar traps. As I remarked to Trev when he first passed us “Its not often you get passed by a Lada with a trailer doing 80 mph”.

We had a large city called Dnipropetrovsk to skirt around and then Pavohrad. The scenery was the same as yesterday – just flat agricultural fields, more sunflowers, some arable crops. (The) Ukraine is not the most spectacular country to drive across. Its easy to see how the German army in World War Two just swept across it with no resistance. We passed pairs of storks with huge nests build on top of telegraph poles and as we approached Donetsk, we drove past massive slag heaps which were the result of coal mining industry. Apparently, these used to be a ‘tourist sight’ in Communist times. “Comrade – what say we go to Donetsk for a holiday to see the slag heaps?”

It was a bit of shock to arrive in the ‘modern’ looking Donetsk at the frightening daylight hour of 4pm and with only 234 miles on the clock. With a grid design, we drove along boulevards, past new buildings and only had to stop once to ask for directions to our hotel which was the new Ramada Inn. This was definitely a step up in quality for us. I confidently strode up to the reception, handed over my reservation and said “We have a reservation”. The receptionist checked her computer. Looked puzzled and then disappeared behind the scenes. Eventually, she came back and said “Yes, your reservation was for the (something) of June”. I looked at our reservation and indeed it had that date. Somehow, when I reserved the room, it had defaulted to the day I reserved the room. Doh! The charge had already been deducted from my bank account (originally I thought I had pre-paid).

Now looking rather embarrassed, I was asked “Would you still like to stay?” Yes (we’re here now so why not). Trev was magnanimous and said ‘Don’t sweat it. Just add it to the bill. You would have split the speeding fine with me”. So we got a room on the top floor with a great view over the landscaped river/lake – but it was a tad cramped. Everything you need, but not much space to spread out. It was also very warm and humid outside, but we had air conditioning. Trev tried the a/c with no luck. We checked the power supply, the remote… still nothing. So since we had paid for the room (twice), I got in the lift and descended 8 floors to reception, where an English businessman was checking in with his flash American Express card while talking on his mobile in a loud voice. I wanted to say “Get a grip mate, you’re only in Donetsk, Ukraine”. So I waited while the receptionist rolled her eyes towards me indicating “as soon as I get rid of this arsehole, I can deal with you”.

After he had disappeared, I reported our faulty air con. “I will send up an engineer immediately” she smiled. I went back up and within 10 minutes, a man appeared. He pressed the remote control and on came the a/c. The reason it hadn’t worked is that because Trev is a short arse (I’m sure he won’t mind me writing this), when he pointed at the a/c, his aim didn’t reach high enough. Doh! So I assume the impression we left at the Ramada Inn in Donetsk is that we couldn’t remember when we had reserved a room and we can’t point an air conditioner remote control in the right way. Doh!

Since we had eaten our own road food and alcohol every night since we had left the UK, I suggested to Trev that we go out tonight – just for a change. Just after we had got the a/c working, the skies opened up with a torrential thunder and lightening storm - the kind where all the power just disappears for 2 seconds and comes back. The crack of lightening was frightening close. We were looking out of our window and watching the downpour just flood the streets.

But eventually it stopped, just as we were leaving the hotel. I had read about a restaurant in my Brandt ‘Ukraine’ guide. The ‘Yuzovskaya Pivovarnya’ is a tribute to the city founder John Hughes (a Welshman who was commissioned to come over and try and teach the locals how to dig coal). The guide said that “This place is full of shiny brass – that of the mini brewery pumping fresh brew into the pipes that take it straight to your table.” I re-read this and said to Trev “I think I have found a restaurant where you pour your own beer”. “I’ll drink to that”, he said downing a glass of Polish red wine.

We plodded up the hill from our hotel, knowing that this restaurant was on this road. Finding it, we grabbed a ‘compartment’, where indeed there was a beer pump with two taps. The waiter asked if we wanted stout or lager. We opted for lager. Two pint glasses were produced and we poured our own beers. What a brilliant idea. Looking at the menu, we ordered a meaty central European dish with potatoes. It took long enough to arrive that we had poured ourselves a few beers. A bit pricey, but definitely worth it for the unique experience.

Wednesday August 17th

It is always a joy to turn on a TV in a hotel room in a strange country, find the BBC World News and discover there is no news.

Donetsk – the ‘black pearl’ of the east is the country’s heavy industrial capital. Coal slag heaps dot the city skyline. After the break-up of the Soviet Union, its coal resource allowed energy, chemical and metal production to turn the city into a booming metropolis with shiny modern buildings and tidy tree lined streets.

Most of the first railway tracks in Russia and Ukraine were hammered out in Donetsk including those used to build the Trans-Siberian railroad. The most famous memorial is of miner presenting a huge lump of coal as if it has come from the heavens. It was originally founded by a Welshman called John Hughes and is twinned with Sheffield. It is the hometown of the country’s richest man – Rinat Ahmetov and its president, Viktor Yanukovych.

Donetsk is preparing to host the European Football Championships cup in 2012 (a joint Polish/Ukraine venture) and we drove to see the brand new and impressive Donbass Arena.

We were keen to push on to the Russian border and found our way out of busy Donetsk. More slow roads and police traps to busy Luhansk where we found a small supermarket and restocked on alcohol and road food stocks to use up our Ukrainian currency. Then on to the border at Krasnodon. It was a small departure from the Ukraine and nothing like my previous one, where a customs officer had demanded to check my foreign currency against my declared amount and then refused to let me through because I had a few Dollars more than I’d declared. We had crossed the Ukraine and while it is ‘westernising’ it still feels like a Russian state.

Roadkill: 4 cats, 3 dogs, 2 foxes, bird, 6 x UFOs (Unidentified Flattened Objects).

Travel - £93
Accommodation - £125.50
Food - £61.73
Other - £9.34
Total - £289.57