Sunday morning, Kiev
Trip Start
May 12, 2006
1
2
20
Trip End
Jun 03, 2006
Kiev, Ukraine
Sunday, May 14, 2006
Then 5 ill-spent hours at Schiphol awaiting the Kiev flight. Had a second breakfast just to pass the time and started a collection of Checkov stories.
Two-and-a half-hour flight from Amsterdam to Boryspil Airport in Kiev. The guy in the seat in front of me was a denim-shirted American Southern Baptist missionary off to save Ukranian souls. Hope they confiscate him at customs.
Swooping in from the air through towering thunderclouds, the country is as green and flat as a billiard table. The Dnieper winds and spills silver across the emerald expanse of farmland and small villages.
Passport control at Boryspil is a very long and winding road, but once through a straight shot through the green lane and into the terminal without a bag check. I change some money and get a cab -- a 40-minute ride through birch and pine forests into row upon row of cheap and crumbling Krueschev-era apartment blocks, across the Dnieper, through hillside parks dotted with golden cathedral domes, across the city square and into the diplomatic quarter where my hotel is located.
There, well-done and crispy around the edges, I unpack, check my red road-mapped eyes in the mirror and repair to the bar around 5:30. The bartenders speak English. Kateryna knows everything about Bulgakov and quotes Oscar Wilde. She promises to make me a list of things to see and do here.
After what seems like 47 small airline meals, I'm not very hungry, but I manage to pack away a small plate of grilled foie gras and an order of caviar and blini, before turning in.
Now it's Sunday morning and post breakfast buffet, I'm pitting lashings of coffee against last night's vodka and pouring through my Lonely Planet guide for a Sunday strategy.
Here I am in the seat of the Kievan Rus, the mother of all Russias. Founded as a trading port on the Dnieper in the 10th century by those ubiquitous Vikings, sacked by the Mongols under Ghengis Khan's grandson in the 13th century (sacking ran in the family) and living under various flags ever since, until August of 1991 when the Communist Party of Ukraine decided that if they didn't declare independence from the USSR, the opposition would. The speaker of Parliament that day, put it something like this: "Today we delclare Ukrainian independence, because if we don't, we're in the shit."
Time to stop tapping and start walking.
