I bought a car! I feel a bit like a teenager again – with my first car that is more falling apart than staying together, but I don’t care ‘cause I have FREEDOM!
It’s a 1984 BMW, a good solid car that I bought from another American who was leaving Ukraine. It looked to be in better condition than I would have expected for a 23 year old car, and my very brief test drive around the block didn’t really give me much more information about it. But for $1000, it was a deal too good to pass up.
My first two drives were short stints around Kyiv, bringing the car to Pechersk from Podil, and then taking it to Igor’s workplace on the Left Bank where we can park it in a secured place. It was stressful, even a bit frightening, to drive through the center of Kyiv, with all the maniac drivers honking at me for, god forbid, actually only going the speed limit. It was also a totally different way to experience the city. As a pedestrian, I’ve never paid attention to one-way streets, no turns, and street lights discreetly tucked away on the side of the street. I started to turn up one street only to discover that all the traffic was coming right at me – oh man, it’s one way the other way! Time to start paying attention to those things.
We decided to give the car a real test last weekend and drive it to Korosten. We were planning to drive up Friday morning, which was Independence Day, and spend a long weekend with Igor’s family. Then his buddies called and invited us to go camping and fishing starting Thursday night. I still had some work to do Friday morning, so Igor took the bus up to Korosten on Thursday with plans that I would come meet them Friday afternoon. I was nervous to take my first road trip in Ukraine alone – and soon managed to work myself up into near panic about driving alone through Kyiv and across the Ukrainian countryside. Fear of getting stopped by the police, fear of the car breaking down on some lonely stretch in the forest, fear that I would get mixed up by the detour that knew was in effect where a section of the highway is being repaired. I fretted most of Thursday, and woke up with a knot in my stomach Friday morning, at which point I decided to get a grip on myself. I drove ALL over the place in the US, including some looong road trips by myself. I don’t know what was happening to my self-confidence, but thankfully I got it back under control and took the wheel if not with total assurance at least with enough confidence that I could figure it out if I had any problems on the way.
After a busy day of running errands, I was finally ready to leave around 5:00. I put my new map of Ukraine and cell phone within easy reach and headed off. Being a holiday, there was thankfully very little traffic as I drove across Kyiv, and even less on the highway and country roads. There were a lot of police stopping people up to the edge of Kyiv, and then they thinned out, too, and fortunately I didn’t attract their attention (the traffic cops are notorious for stopping cars and detaining drivers until a “solution” is slipped into their hands).
The drive was GREAT! I rolled down the windows, opened the sun roof and let the wonderful wind blow like mad through the car. This is one of the biggest luxuries I have been missing. Ukrainians (and other people in this part of the world) have an intense fear of wind, and little breezes and even the pleasant coolness from an air conditioner, blowing on them. This means buses are horrific ovens on wheels – it is absolutely unheard of to open a window and get some fresh air circulating, because the circulating air apparently has extremely harmful elements that affect Ukrainians in terrible ways. The last time I rode the bus to Korosten, I sat up front next to the driver, and when I decided to try and open the window just a little bit to get a tiny fraction of relief for my slowly roasting brain, he yelled at me to close the window because he would get a sore throat. It was about 90 degrees outside, and about 6000 degrees inside, yet this grown, seemingly healthy man was convinced a little bit of fresh breeze on him would make him sick. I suggested he put on a scarf, but he didn’t seem to find that helpful. Since I didn’t want to get thrown out of the bus in the middle of nowhere, I sweated off a few pounds in the mobile sauna, promising myself that this was the last time I would take the bus to Korosten.
I know other drivers were concerned for me and my health as I drove along in my own car with windows wide open, wind whipping through my hair and across my exposed throat, but I didn’t care.
I got mixed up by the detour in the highway, but easily figured out my way back to the road I needed, and about three hours after starting out, I was in Korosten. Igor was already at his parents’ house, and we had a fabulous dinner with lots of fresh veggies from the garden.
Saturday morning we decided to give the car a thorough cleaning – another great car tradition. We washed it inside and out, even vacuumed, and finally checked what exactly came with the car: a jack, a broom (?), an ice scraper, a spare tire, some nuts and bolts, and several windshield wipers. These were an especially happy find since the previous owner had told us the wipers needed to be replaced (apparently she didn’t realize there were new wipers already in the trunk, probably left over from the guy she bought the car from). Igor and his grandpa spent about 30 minutes trying to figure out how to replace the wipers, and eventually grandpa popped off one of the blades without really being sure how he did. He somehow popped off the second one, and they put the new ones and we were ready to go.
Igor and I went to visit his Dad, who has been living part of each week in the house he inherited from his grandmother in the nearby village Bukhi. They keep a huge garden out there, along with a bunch of rabbits, and he has been working hard this summer on some major renovation projects. A few weeks ago, a natural gas line was installed in the village and they paid to have the gas line connected to the house (yes, the house has always been heated by and cooking was done on a wood-burning stove). Now Ivan has to renovate the stove inside the house into a gas stove. It’s a small two-room house, with a heating stove built into the wall that separates the two rooms, and a large traditional “pechka” (oven) in the first room where cooking was done. Ivan was hard at work when we arrived, but was very happy to see us and quickly washed up and put together a nice table for us – fresh tomatoes, green peppers, cucumbers, and some vodka and sausage for Igor and himself.
A few days earlier, Igor’s 82-year old grandpa had ridden his bicycle out to the village house, about 15 kilometers from Korosten, to check on the rabbits and do some yard work. Like so many elderly Ukrainians, Grandpa is a wonderful and fascinating man who has seen and done much in his life. He has always worked hard all his life, and I think the most difficult part of getting old for him is that he can’t work so hard anymore. He hasn’t quite accepted that yet, but I think that day at the village house was a wake up call.
He biked the 15 km in 90+ degree heat with extremely high humidity. He then cleared part of the yard by cutting the tall grasses with a sickle – very intensive physical work. Mind you, it was still 90+ degrees and extremely humid. After all this work, he sat down for a bit but didn’t feel very well. He took a triglyceride pill. Still didn’t feel better, so took another triglyceride pill. A few minutes later, a neighbor was passing by and, thank goodness, noticed him lying on the ground. He had passed out. The neighbor roused him, gave him a shot of vodka, and somehow managed to get hold of Ivan in Korosten. Their village house has no telephone, which has been a source of great concern for all of us since Igor’s Dad spends so much time out there, working hard in this intense summer heat. Not only does he have no way to call anyone, but the family also cannot reach him should there be an emergency in Korosten. We have tried to convince him to get a mobile phone, but he didn’t want any of that “new fangled stuff”. Well, after Grandpa’s accident, even Ivan had to admit a mobile phone would be useful. So after our visit with him, Igor and I went to an electronics store in Korosten and found a really simple, kind of cool even, mobile phone – a big display screen, with big font, and it even speaks out loud your options as you scroll through them. Perfect for him!
Then I dropped Igor off to meet with a friend, and I went to the Korosten china factory store, one of my favorite places, and bought a beautiful set of dishes. In the past 2 years I have purchased a decent amount at that store –gifts for others as well as items for myself. One of my favorite purchases is a tea set (tea pot, six cups and saucers, a creamer and sugar bowl) with beautiful and delicate hand-painted tulips. Just lovely. My other favorite purchase is a really fun set of bowls that look like strawberries – three serving bowls of different sizes and six individual bowls. They just make me smile to look at them, so original and cute.
What I had never bought though was a set of dinnerware – plates, bowls, etc. I have been hoping for a long time to find a dinner set with tulips to match my tea set, but they don’t seem to have ever made such a thing. This time I found a beautiful set of dishes with delicate hand-painted cornflowers (at least I think they’re cornflowers, lovely whimsical blue flowers). I couldn’t pass them up!
Later in the day we went out to meet Igor’s friends, who were still at the campsite. They had been fishing, cooking, eating, relaxing, and drinking since Thursday night. They were in, to the say the least, an interesting condition. Igor went out with one buddy in a little two-person boat to fish for a bit, and I hung out on shore with two couples who had been drunk for over 2 days. Since I was driving, I didn’t drink anything with them. It was amusing to watch and listen to them for the first thirty minutes or so, then it got kind of boring, then it got downright painful. They were certainly cracking themselves up, though, and having a great time. Eventually, the wife of one guy sobered up enough to realize she had had enough of camping and wanted to go home. They started to slowly come back to life. Igor finally came back after 2 hours on the river, and I was more than ready to leave. We helped them pack up their things, trying not to think how these people would get home safely. When I started to back out of the site, through the dark woods, I realized we had our own problem – the reverse lights weren’t working and I couldn’t see a thing behind me. I very slowly backed out to the dirt road in the open field, without hitting or hurting anything (I think) and we drove home hoping no police would spot us driving without tail lights.
Sunday we offered to take Nina and Oksana, Igor’s mom and sister, to the market and then to visit Igor’s dad at the village house. We filled up the car to the maximum, planning to check the mileage it gets. At Ukrainian gas stations, there is always an attendant who fills the tank for you. We told him to fill it up, and he added about 40 litres to the 20 or 30 litres already in the tank (the gauge indicates it holds up to 70 litres). We had another nice visit in the village, and Ivan enjoyed playing with his new toy, the mobile phone.
Later we checked the back lights on the car and figured out that all of the lightbulbs were still good, just the connections were loose. It must have been a bit hilarious to watch five of us – Igor, Nina, Oksana, Vova (Oksana’s husband) and me – all stooped over the back end of the car trying to figure out in the bright sun which lights were actually working. At one point, Oksana shouted out “Oh, it’s working, it’s working!” Despite the fact that I was holding the lightbulb in my hand and no actual bulb was in that light, she was dead sure it was working. Finally I realized it would be helpful to back into the garage where the sunlight wouldn’t reflect on the casings. Duh. We got the brake and tail lights to work, but something more serious is wrong with the reverse lights, maybe a wire is broken somewhere? We’ll take it the mechanic to get it checked.
Next began the loading up of the car for our return to Kyiv. Igor’s parents seem to think that there are no sources of food in the city, and that they should fill up every single free centimeter in the car with supplies for us. We managed to keep it limited to only an absurd amount, instead of an insane amount, but nonetheless we still looked like we were going to the market to SELL vegetables. There were at least 10 kilograms of tomatoes, 20 kilos of potatoes, plus eggplant, zucchini as big as baseball bats, squash, radishes, carrots, beets, and corn. 21 ears of corn, to be exact. OK, that’s insane. 2 people cannot eat 21 ears of corn. It took us each FOUR trips up to the apartment (on the fourth floor, with no elevator) to get it all inside.
The drive back was very nice. It was fun to take our first road trip together. Igor even tolerated my open window (although he complained of a sore throat the next day). He was a good navigator and with his help I got the detour right this time. The car held up well, we didn’t get stopped by the police, and I had such a fantastic feeling of freedom – not a bad first road trip!
Anka in Kyiv 