Painting the town "Red" in Kiev

Sunday, November 18, 2012
Kiev, Ukraine

They say that what you don't know can't hurt you. You've booked a trip to the Exclusion Zone around Chernobyl Power Station, scene of the world's worst nuclear accident, and your parents ask you where you're going on holiday. You tell them simply "Eastern Europe". Better them to imagine you enjoying delicious foods and fine wines in a posh restaurant than risking a potentially massive radiation dose standing outside Reactor 4 of Chernobyl Power Station.

I arrived in Kiev a couple of days before the official start of my tour and took a taxi to the Kiev Lodging Hostel where the tour group would spend the first night. I'd booked a couple of extra nights there to save switching hostels, and splashed out a bit on my own room with two beds. Well, that's what the picture on the website looked like. What I actually got was, frankly, a bit shit. The room consisted of a windowless box with a single bed, no furniture, with a ladder going through a hole in the ceiling to another windowless single-bedded room. Oh, there was a fan though, so I could circulate the stale air and fart smell around the room. The hostel owner Robert was originally from Norway and ex-Forces, and as I'd soon discover, had a tendency to rant and rave. Maybe my room was part of an experiment he was conducting to turn all the rooms into prison-style accommodation, although prison cells would be preferable because they'd have a window, bars and a toilet in the cell. Being absolutely knackered after a long travelling day, I ventured out for an early evening meal so I could get an early night. Not feeling adventurous enough yet to try the staple Ukrainian diet of a raw potato and vodka, I decided on tandoori chicken, naan bread and lager at the nearby Himalaya Curry House. And very nice it was too!

The next day was my birthday so I'd arranged something special to celebrate - AK47 shooting, complete with ex-Soviet army soldiers in commando gear! This meant I had to endure hours in the car there and back with Robert, the hostel owner. I just nodded along in agreement to everything he said. It was like talking to your wife - just nod along as the words go in one ear and out the other. At one point, he was ranting so much that I swear spittle was shooting onto the inside of the windscreen. I think he should put his windscreen wipers on the inside of his car. At the shooting range, I first had a safety drill with the weapon. Basically, don't shoot anyone, anything else is okay. Then it was onto the shooting range - a target with rings 100m away. I lined up the sights as best I could, squeezed the trigger and BANG! The massive recoil meant I couldn't see what I was hitting. The occasional puff of dirt showed I was occasionally within a few metres of the target. Now, I'm not sure that an AK47 is the best weapon for long-distance shooting but I finally understood all those James Bond films where the baddies couldn't shoot for shit. I then decided to do the full-on Rambo mode with a full magazine. With an empty gas cylinder as target, I was told not to spray the bullets from side to side and just squeeze the trigger until the mag was empty. I just wish I'd wore a fake mad-Mullah beard and wrapped a turban round my head for the ultimate photo as I was shooting.

Back at the hostel, I met Gareth, our Tour Leader. Some of you oldies may remember a cartoon called Dangermouse from the 1980s. He had an assistant called Penfold. When I saw Gareth, I thought "F*ck me, that's Penfold reborn!". For anyone who wondered what happened to him when the show ended, it appears he set up his own extreme travel company to continue his life of adventure and excitement.

As it was my birthday, Gareth suggested a few drinks along with another member of the tour group who had arrived early, Spanish Inigo. The evening certainly wasn't uneventful and would be a taste of evenings to come. First impressions of Gareth? Well, apart from his comedic appearance, he drank like a fish and smoked like a chimney. Now, at the end of the night, I must admit that we weren't exactly that drunk. The local police apparently needed little excuse to harass tourists who may have had a drink in order to extort a bribe for their eventual release. So there we were, standing around looking for somewhere to get something to eat when up drove a police wagon with three police officers. There then followed a load of shit, "Show passports", "No visa" (you're not required to carry your passport at all times and don't need a visa), which ended up with Gareth and Inigo being carted away in the paddy wagon. I managed to get out of it. It was suggested later on that with the troubles Eastern European football was having with racism, I'd got away with it because of my colour. Some interesting reverse logic there. The next day, I'd learn that the pair of them had been released without having to pay a bribe due to Gareth's ingenuity, if that was the right word for it. At the police station, he'd headbutted the wall so hard that he'd cut his head and then shouted at the police officer "You hit me!", "You hit me!". After telling Inigo that Gareth was a crazy motherf**ker, he let them go.

I'd arrived in Kiev a couple of days before the official start of my trip to do some sightseeing, particularly the Chernobyl Museum and the UNESCO World Heritage-listed Caves Monastery complex. Unfortunately (or otherwise), the only sights I was seeing were the inside of bars. Best laid plans and all that. I was beginning to get an inkling that this wouldn't be the usual type of group tour I was accustomed to. Indeed, the company's slogan is "Group tours for people that hate group tours". The rest of the tour group arrived during the course of Friday. By the time we had a group meeting at about 5pm, Gareth had somehow managed to get steaming drunk. We headed on out for some food and a bar crawl. After entering a bar and sitting down, Gareth would proceed to stand up and shout "I want some titties!". He also thought he'd ask any pretty girls he saw in the street if they were prostitutes. We managed to stop him being arrested, and at about 9pm, a couple of the guys carried him back to the hostel. One of the new guys went on to a club and didn't return till 6pm the next day, minus his under-crackers but also, alas, minus much of his memory of the night's events. An eventful evening for all concerned then!

Saturday was the day most of us had come for, a visit to the Chernobyl Exclusion Zone. I've put this in a separate blog entry. A relatively quiet Saturday night followed, particularly compared to the previous two!

On Sunday, we had an excursion to an 1970's-style ex-Soviet ICBM Rocket base, minus the nuclear warheads of course! If the nuclear missiles had been launched from this base, then after 30 minutes cities like New York, London and Paris and the world as we know it would have been annihilated. There were missiles on display, including the black SS-18 ICBM nicknamed "Satan", we could look at the now empty missile silo tubes, and there were also army vehicles dotted around the place. We also got taken 33m below ground through a 150m long underground services corridor to the top secret Soviet launch control center where we sat in the hot-seat with our finger of the button that could have destroyed the world. How cool was that!? The Control Room was designed to withstand nuclear impact. In Soviet times, officers would work on 3-on, 3-off shifts. We visited the room where the 3-off soldiers lived, basically a tiny, cramped submarine-like environment. Would we have been able to visit such a facility in the West? A quick search for similar facilities in the USA and the answer was yes! You could even buy a decommissioned base! God bless American consumerism. Check this out, a souped-up missile base:
http://www.scoutingny.com/?p=4765
http://www.titanmissilemuseum.org/
Why live in a 2-up, 2-down when you could live in a renovated missile base: http://www.silohome.com/

We had an overnight train to Odessa, leaving about midnight. The train was so slow that it would take double the time to get to Odessa than by driving. Overnight trains are a cheap way of travelling for the backpacker as they combine accommodation and leave the rest of the following day free for excursions, plus they offer an opportunity to meet locals. More importantly, they provide a good boozing opportunity in your very own cabin! There were eight of us split into two 4 berth cabins. Everyone decided one cabin should be for those who snored and wanted to drink (ie. me, Gareth and Jordan), and the other a quiet cabin. It says something about the drinkers/snorers in the group that the fourth member of our cabin decided he'd rather sleep on the cramped floor of the quiet cabin than with us. So began a night of vodka and beer and much hilarity. We were joined by a couple of older locals. One seemed to be an ex-boxer who wanted to shadow box with us. However, after a few drinks, we appeared to want to bum us so I'm sure what he was. The international language of alcohol pretty much failed in this case.

We arrived in Odessa about noon. Our booze cabin had gone to sleep about 6 or 7 in the morning. One of the others opened the door of our carriage later that morning and was nearly knocked out by the fumes of alcohol breath and body odour that exploded from the cabin. We had a few hours in Odessa to bum around before catching our 5pm train to Transnistria, a dodgy, ex-Soviet, breakaway republic which doesn't unofficially exist. Of course, no train would be complete without alcohol so we cleared the bar of spirits! Also, this was our first experience of dealing with Eastern European border guards, although on this occasion, we only had Ukrainian leaving customs and they were relatively relaxed, but only in comparison to what we'd face on future border crossings. We arrived in Transnistria at about 8pm, very excited at potential adventures ahead, and were met by ex-Yank Tim, who'd come to live in the country and opened a hostel here. There was no-one else at the small main train station, just a couple of border guards. After hastily filling in some registration forms, and after Gareth had declared his eternal love for the female border guard, off we went! Tune in next time for our adventures in Transnistria, of which there were plenty!

This was the first visit to the Ukraine. My thoughts?

- It was bloody cold, a chill, biting Arctic wind (but it was early winter I suppose).

- Smoking bans hadn't made it to Eastern Europe. They may as well have saved themselves buying plates and served food in ashtrays. And how I missed my clothes smelling like an ashtray the next morning, and coughing up tar from my lungs after a night of passive smoking.

- Our hostel was a bit shit. We had a borderline psychotic owner, Robert. There were also (strangely) kids staying there so we'd get a rebuke from Robert if we swore (always due to Gareth's potty mouth). There was also no sound-proofing so no communal areas or rooms we could retire to. It did have a good central location though.

- I've been to quite a few countries in the last few years, some of which might be described as dodgy in terms of the treatment of tourists by local police/authorities. I've never had any trouble in any countries before, and been in some very inebriated situations, but the Ukrainian police must be the most corrupt I've encountered yet. There was always an edginess to being around them.

- The women were hot. Hubba hubba!

Links:
http://dprk.youngpioneertours.com/group/eurasian-adventure-tour/
http://www.hostelukraine.com/en.html (for that prison-style hostel experience)
http://www.getyourguide.com/kiev-l185/extreme-missile-base-icbm-rocket-base-day-trip-from-kiev-t6225/ (Missile Base tour)

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