Arriving in the Ukraine
The flight from Chicago was not particularly
eventful, except for a seven hour layover in Frankfurt.
Jetlag was getting to me, so during the layover I walked to
one of the airport cafés for some coffee.
I sat near a window where I
could see the airport’s old-fashioned metal sign, to watch for any
changes in the flight schedule. I was just finishing a cup of
Turkish coffee when I saw that my flight was boarding. I asked the
waiter for the bill and, Wow! Five Euro not including the tip for
that small cup of mud.
I hurried onto the plane. That Turkish coffee didn’t keep me from
dozing for much of the flight to the Ukraine.
For the rest, I put on the headphones provided and listened
to Loretta Lynn’s country music.
We landed at Zhulyany International Airport in Kiev, the
capitol city of the Ukraine.
The jet-liner slowed to a stop near the two jets parked on
the tarmac, about 250 meters from the terminal building.
I grabbed my luggage and hauled it through the tiny door to
the Customs area.
Following the luggage inspection and the
filling out of forms, I searched the lobby for Igor, my Interpreter
who was to meet me. The
Ukraine is not normally a tourist destination, and doesn’t have any
kind of special transportation or programs for visitors. Anyone who
wasn’t meeting relatives at the airport—myself, and several men on
business trips—would be meeting personal drivers in the lobby.
I finally saw Igor, a tall
thin man wearing a grey sweater and a new looking black leather
jacket holding an airport sign that read QUIST-EVERIL.
He was waiting with our driver, Dimitri.
Dimitri carried my luggage for me, as was
customary to do for visitors.
We headed out to Dimitri’s four-door Russian Lada car.
Most of the private-owned cars in the Ukraine are older
mid-sized Russian Ladas, painted in a passive blue or green—a style
carried over from the communist days, when the government encouraged
the use of emotionally calming colors.
Igor and I climbed into the back seat, and Dimitri started
the car. As we headed out of the parking area, Dimitri stopped near
a bus-stop, where a small crowd stood waiting.
A heavyset man quickly jumped into the front seat.
No one had mentioned anyone else riding in the car with us.
He was middle aged and nicely dressed, not my idea of a
typical hitchhiker. I
began to ask Igor why we were taking him along, but Igor slapped my
hand and Shhh!ed me quickly.
We finished the half hour drive in silence.
When we reached Kiev, the stranger handed Dimitri some money,
then vanished into the crowd on the sidewalk.
Once the man was out of sight, Igor explained
to me, “We never talk when we are around strangers.
They may be Mafia, or secret agents spying on us.
But most of the time it is someone who needs a ride and
doesn’t wish to wait for the bus.”
That night, Igor and I stayed in a small
apartment near the business district.
The next morning, I was to
attend a briefing with Petro (pronounced “Peter”), the USAID Project
Manager. On our walk to the
briefing, Igor and I passed a large museum with a life-sized statue
of some prominent figure next to the entrance steps.
The Ukraine is filled with
statues of elite artists, poets, and other intellectuals. Like the
other Former Soviet Union countries, the Ukraine had virtually no
religious art—no statues of saints or prophets, no churches or
cathedrals, not even crosses in cemeteries. The churches and
cathedrals had been converted into military warehouses during
communist times. Under
communism, religion of any kind was banned, allowing only for a
“people-worship” society.
Every city has at least one statue of Lenin, the Soviet
Union’s first ruler.
A line of men waited for the doors to open at
one of the buildings—the Workers Employment Bureau.
“They are pensioners,” Igor told me.
He said that they had come
to collect their retirement money.
We walked through a large park where a babushka
was sweeping the snow from the sidewalks.
Igor handed her a couple Hryvnia (Ukrainian money), a small
tip. Many pensioners,
he told me, kept the sidewalks clean in exchange for modest tips
from passersby. The
park was quiet. In the
center stood a couple of statues of military generals next to a WWII
army tank. I looked
over at a large water fountain and saw a pack of stray dogs, running
around searching for food.
When we reached the building where my briefing
would be held, Igor and I parted ways.
He walked three miles to the railroad station to purchase our
tickets for the overnight train ride to Sumy, a small city near the
Russian border in the North Eastern Ukraine.
Sumy was where I would be spending the next couple of weeks,
educating and training farmers on the value of starting a Western
style, Member owned cooperative in the Sumy Rayon.
(A “Rayon” is similar to a county here in the States.)
In the conference room I met Petro, a man with
thick bushy black hair wearing a dark suit and tie, who was never
without a cigarette. He
sat next to me at the end of a long table with high backed padded
chairs. The large conference
room gave one a sense of the communist days.
Old chandeliers hung from a high metal ceiling, and the faded
yellow walls were lined with tall windows.
Even with Petro and the others at the meeting
speaking English, I became aware of my need for an interpreter.
Without Igor to help me, I had to struggle to understand
everything that was being said, due to everyone’s accents and
pronunciations. More than once, I had to refer to my translation
dictionary.
A young woman named Tanya was charged with
translating and organizing the training materials I had prepared.
She was a tall, slender student from the International
Affairs Department of a State University, working as an intern. Her
low-cut blouse, short shirt, pony-tail and strong makeup
demonstrated the independence of a new generation of Ukrainians. But
her work ethic was no less strong than her older colleagues, and she
kept busy translating, copying, and collating my training materials.
When she got the chance to
speak between her duties, she told me that she planned someday of
going go to America. She
asked me about different American stars and singers like Lady Gaga,
Taylor Laurent, and a string of other names I’d never heard before.
But knowing the stereotypes
that many Europeans have about Americans, I didn’t want to say
anything that might cause her to think I was unintelligent or
unaware of what was going on in the world.
So, rather than tell her that I didn’t know these
celebrities, I smiled said that they were my favorites also.
Petro was intent on acquainting me of the
status of the farmers in the Sumy Rayon, especially about their
reluctance to accept changes in the Collective farming practices.
It will take years for the
concept of privatization to become accepted, he explained.
Many of the older farmers would be reluctant in taking on
individual leadership responsibilities, harboring the old communist
mindset. Tanya’s
generation might be more open to the idea of a democratically run
cooperative, but in the meantime, we’d have to work to convince the
older generation farmers.
Even with a conversion chart in my hands, the
task of converting acres to hectares, miles to kilometers and
Fahrenheit to Celsius started to overwhelm me—the jetlag not
helping. My body wanted to
go to sleep.
Well, so much for Kiev.
It was late in the evening when Igor and I saw
our train pulling in.
The train station felt like a huge wooden warehouse, having
originally been built to transport military troops.
There were no restaurants or shopping stalls that I could
see. This train station never expected or planned for tourists.
It felt even larger and emptier with there being only a few
other passengers boarding the train.
We were welcomed aboard by the Provodnitsa
(conductress), a heavy-set gal in her thirties, wearing a clean,
well pressed grey uniform and the typical dark brown Russian fur
hat. She smiled and
showed us to our cabin, one of eight on our car, each with two bunk
beds and a closet but without a toilet or running water.
The vintage WWII-era passenger car was a tight fit with a
narrow passageway along the one side.
The Provodnitsa and I were not able to converse
much, due to the language barrier; I didn’t speak Ukrainian, and the
only English words she knew were “fee,” “toilet” and “You must pay
now.” She and Igor
began a conversation that didn’t end until we’d settled in for the
overnight ride. There
was a fee for the toilet at the opposite end of the car from the
Provodnitsa’s station, for 13 hryvnia (one U.S. dollar), 25 hryvnia
for blankets (two dollars), and 260 for a bottle of vodka (twenty
dollars). Well, I supposed
she had to make a living somehow.
Jet lag kept me awake for hours.
I had finally fallen asleep when Igor shook my bunk and said
loudly, “Hey, We’re in Sumy.”
by Everil Quist, International Agri-Business Consultant
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Everil Quist - President & CEO of QuistSpeaks, LLC
"Aside from teaching cooperative farmingtechniques, I have learned so much from working with the noble peoples of third world countries, and have many heartwarming and entertaining stories to tell.
By sharing these adventrues with my audiences, I am 'Creating Positive Change" - and I find that both heart-warming and immensely fulfilling."
"Everil Quist’s depth of knowledge about how business is run in this country, and around the world, makes him a unique public speaker. His stories of his adventures overseas are true and unusual. I do not hesitate to recommend him for any speaking event anywhere.”