Ukraine 2015 - Thoughts

Ukranians seem quite tough. In particular men look always serious, or vaguely upset, as if they were bouncer of a disco, but in very informal and relaxed clothes. On the other side, women are very beautiful, stunning. Even though very few of them speak in English, and it's quite difficult to comunicate without Oleg.

Train to Lviv. 

It's a night train. It's a crowded train. I should be in the comfort coach, but I am actually in the normal one, to leave Oleg with his girlfriend. So nice of me, isn’t it? We are heading  to a conference in Krakow, so we have to reachLviv to catch a guy with a car who will drive us to Krakow. In the meanwhile,  I am on the train:  50 persons are in the very same coach I am supposed to sleep in. It could easily be a Mumbay-NewDelhi train. Nope, Solotvino- Lviv. The concert of snoaring is amazing for the variety of sounds, intensity and pitch. It vaguely reminds me of the italian night -train, but there only 6 persons per time sleeping together. And, in my memories, that was enough. At the time, I couldn’t obviosuly close my eyes, the concert is too intense and sometime it reaches epic moment of rare musicalit, but on the other side I really feel like the toughest traveller in the middle of the world. Survive in so called “Platzcart coach”: checked!

How to get to Oleg's place from Brussel? Nothing easier! Brussel-Budapest, by plane. Then trains, in Hungary, changing somewhere at 2am, when the night is the darkest and the station the most desert place: the next train will leave at 4am, but fortunately is already there and we can manage to enter: it's completely dark and empty, but we manage to lay down a bit. When the train start, though, from 4 am to 9 am we got the control of the tickets for 5 (five, really five) times by 5 different guys. We really could not sleep much. Once at destination, we meet a random guy, who drives us to the boundary with Ukraine. Usual passport routine, in which I got mocked by an incredibly beautiful and very sexy blonde officer who is wondering what an italian is doing there, and why he looks so pale and sleepy. Then we have to take another bus for other 1.5 hours and then we arrived in Uzgorod. We stay there few hours, eat something, and then we take again (this is the last) bus (3 hours) to Oleg's city. Yet, we still have to hitchhike for 15 minutes, to get to actually Oleg village. Almost 24 hours of trip. Oleg does that almost every other month, with the only difference of leaving Brussels in the morning instead of night Intense.

Uzgorod river 

Uzgorod, a glimpse

Making contacts with locals

Oleg goes to the bank for five minutes. In those five minutes I manage to attract a drunk guy who is telling me something first normally, then, after my very polite English reply "I have no idea what you are saying" starts to push me, and hits me. But he is too drunk to actually being able to do anything scary of dangerous. Just some pushes blabbering something. People around stop to take a  look: it's like 2pm and the  situation looks quite weird. I am not sure what I am supposed to do, I could easily stop the guy using some coercive action, but it could degenerate easily. Fortunately Oleg comes out of the bank few seconds after: "I can't leave you alone 5 minutes, can I??" and just drag me away. I will never know what the guy wanted from me (alcohol? money? bets are open)

 Typical soup, with a bread cup! Delicious!

Orthodox church in Uzgorod

Hoverla 2015 - Ukrainian initiation to manhood

It was a dark and stormy night, when I looked out of the window. I couldn't see anything, but when a lighting ripped the sky. We were in the kitchen, a nice and warm kitchen, seated around a table: Oleg's  grandmother to my left, the mother in front of me, Oleg going around the table, trying to phone people to organize our trip.

"it's very not safe to go out with such a weather during night" said the grandmother, looking very sorely at me. "Not very safe".

It was 8 PM, we were waiting for three other persons to start our expedition toward the highest montain in Ukraine: the Hoverla - 2061 meters. I had no idea what I was getting into: Oleg just told me it was a montain trip, a funny, relaxing, peaceful walk at the highest Carpathian montains of Ukraine, among trees, grass and colorful flowers. I did not get that we were supposed to reach the very peak. I did not know yet that the peak was 2061 meters above my head. A snowy, windy, scary high peak in the middle of the Karpats.

Half an hour later the crew is complete, fully sit around the table: Oleg, Sasha, Galina and Boris. And me. It's already 9pm, but of course we cannot leave the place without have eaten something (for this, Ukranian grandmothers look very Italian). When all the stomachs are duly full, and the car is properly filled with packages and more food, we left (I had only a modest bag half empty.. the first clue that something was wrong started to pervade me). 

When we arrived to the lovely wooden house in the middle of nowhere it's already midnight. It was quite difficult to actually find the road, and once there we were forced to go very slowly, since there was no light at all, and the road was full of holes and craters. The light of the car cut the darkness like a knife in the butter. First thing we did, after having turned on a fire in the yard, was going to the sauna. Yes, we had a sauna in the wooden house we rented for the night. A sauna, at 12pm in the night. It's my first sauna, and the heat is barely bearable. Barely. Huge waves of heat burn my skin like if I was in hell. I am sweating the hell out of me. When we went in the snow, it was an immense relief: it felt like a re-birth. We repeated the procedure other 3, 4 times, trying also to reach a river nearby, which was too dirty to bath in cause of the rain. When we finished the sauna I was very tempted to go to bed: it was 4am. But only Oleg spoke English there, and I cannot share my thoughts: 4 o'clock in the morning happened to be the best time to cook some meat on the fire: we prepared a lovely barbecue, “shashliki” they called it. It was 5.30am when we finished. We looked at each other: in 1.5 hours we will have to wake up to climb the highest montain in Ukraine. Nuts, you said?

At the beginning it was a child’s play: we walked on terrain and grass, and it was very pleasant all around. We had a very nice time enjoying the view. It really looked like a funny walk to enjoy the nature. But then the snow came. And the wind. And I was in my office-jacket. My clothes were completely inadequate for that. I had no idea we were going to do something like that. To cover my bad unpreparation, I put my pijama under my jacket and my jumper. All the others had very serious and professional montain-suit, only me and Oleg were in casual winter office working day clothes, as if it was any other day in Brussels. He was a bit luckier than me because had more layers and the hood, further than the wool hat. What a lucky duck! After hours of walking, we stopped for lunch in a quite large area completely covered in snow. Everything was covered in snow now, and after lunch things got worse. The slope became stiffer, and every three steps my leg sank in half meter of snow. Once I cut myself hitting the ice with my shinbone (the wound will stay there for weeks after). Fortunately I had proper shoes, the unique Oleg’s recommendation about the clothes, and my socks didn't get completely wet until almost the end of the day. But walking was a very, very difficult task. At some point I started to think I understood where is the good and dense enough snow, and where there were the bloody hidden holes: there, for example, where is darker, is clearly a compact bunch of... nope, sunk in the snow. Shit.

The last part was the worse: the slope was considerably big, we used feet and hands to climb, while we were hit by strong gusts of wind, cold bloody wind that cut my face and my hand until I didn't feel anything anymore. I couldn't handle my camera, I gave it to Oleg and I put my hands in the pocket when I did not use them to help me advancing: now walking is barely possible. I was completely bended, fighting against the wind, with my legs burning like crazy for the effort of climbing that hell of a montain. I was hating Oleg. I was at the edge of my limit. Probably, I pushed the bar a bit further. But at the end, as soon as we arrived at the very top, the view was amazing, and the satisfaction of having done it was the best reward. I suffered the cold the whole time we were there, and I couldn't wait to go back down, where there was no bloody wind. We took the usual pictures, the usual funny poses. Finally we went down. I was exhausted, but I felt I did something extraordinary.

Oleg told me something funny days after. Few days after our epic achievement a bunch of people climbed that mountain doing exactly our path: they were super equipped, super trained, and did that for some sort of hiking certification. It took me that to realize how crazy and tough it was.