All Roads DO NOT Lead to Kiev

This weekend I decided to go on another little adventure to Kiev. Nadia said she wanted to take me to the Botanical Gardens while the lilacs are blooming, and it didn't take much persuading...

As often happens on these experimental excursions, I got a little more adventure than I planned on :)

After a late pancake breakfast that nearly succeeded in rendering us immobile and useless, Masha and I spent the rest of Saturday cleaning up our yard. The owner is letting us stay for free, provided that we clean up and do some odd jobs around the yard. So we moved sand, raked, swept, and hauled leaves, twigs, and hundreds of nut shells out of the yard on old blankets.

Masha cut the crop of cheery yellow flowers out front with a scythe. I was enthralled. She let me try, and I managed to sort of get the hang of it while still retaining all limbs and personal appendages. It was fun. I kept thinking of the Far Side comics about the Grim Reaper...I can't picture them now.

I was a little sad to see the flowers go (they were weeds-- pretty weeds, but weeds.) She left a patch in front of my window because I like waking up to them in the morning. It helps to have something nice to look at first thing when you wake up.

But on to the important stuff.

I planned to head to Kiev in the afternoon when our work was done, but by the time I'd scrubbed off the grime and soothed the nettle stings and messed with my hair and gone to the Crowes to call Mom for Mother's Day (seeing as I'd be gone on Sunday) it was evening. I wanted to dress up a little (not by Ukrainian standards maybe) because it's such sunny weather and I've hardly worn a skirt in months.

I didn't know when the last Marshrutka was, and I was getting a little concerned that I was too late. So after the call home, Bruce drove me to the bus station to cut the walking time.

Luckily, I'd barely been standing there two minutes when a bus drove up with a "Kaniv-Kiev" sign on it, just like the ones I always take. I hopped on, relishing the swish of my white skirt and the neatness of my small brown shoes after wearing tennis shoes for six weeks. Free as a bird. Experienced traveler. Sun on my face, wind in my hair, etc, etc.

I took a seat by the window and the bus pulled out. I sat happily contemplating the new green of the great outdoors shining in the sun, enjoying the comfortable warmth, the faces of the people we passed, the smells of summer coming on. I started composing a poem in my head and got absorbed in trying to write it down against the bump and bounce of the Marshrutka.

Spring had changed the landscape so drastically since my last trip to Kiev...no more snow, no more drab brown. Green everywhere. Growth. In fact, everything looked so different I began to wonder if I'd...no, no. Surely there's more than one route to Kiev.

I thought it might be worth a bus ride to nowhere just to see these sights. The ride was so peaceful. I shoved aside my internal warning signals and just enjoyed the ride. Besides, I reasoned, Kaniv is just on the outskirts of Kiev; I'll manage to get there somehow.

Apparently, my premonitons were correct, but my reasoning dreadfully flawed. I've never seen Kaniv on a map. I just figured that if they put it with Kiev on the sign, the two must be close together, right? Kaniv must just be a suburb. The bus might not get me there, but it would at least accomplish some of the goal.

No such luck! I still haven't looked at a map, but I now know that Kaniv is a number of kilometers in a much different direction than Kiev. I've also discovered that Marshruktas don't run from Kaniv to Rzhishchiv in the evening, at least after 7 o'clock.

The bus driver pointed out the station, but after asking around a bit I found it to be closed. Nearby there were babushkas selling vegetables, and the sun wasn't going down yet, so I didn't feel too worried. I called Bruce. He said to call Daniel for translation. I called Daniel. Daniel talked to a babushka on the phone, the babushka conferred with a nearby taxi driver, and in the end, I had my first Urkainian taxi ride back to Rzhishchiv.

The ride home was surprisingly pleasant. The taxi driver was friendly, but calm, and I didn't feel uncomfortable at all. He couldn't speak a bit of English, but he spoke Russian in slow and simple fragments for my benefit and we chatted all the way home about taxi driving, and his daughter who works in a bank (I think), and my home in America, and what was growing in the fields we passed, and about the holiday.

There was no Kiev that night! The taxi stopped right in front of my house, because it's directly on the way to the bus station, so I got out feeling like a queen. Of course the taxi fee was royal too, but I'd say it was worth the experience. I don't get out of Rzhishchiv often, and I'm sure I would never have seen Kaniv otherwise. The taxi driver asked me if I took a photo while I was there...which I should have!

Early Sunday morning I started over, carefully inquiring after the destination of my Marshrutka. Nadia and I spent two days running hither and yon over Kiev and I took the subway by myself for the first time, (and never got lost more than a few minutes at a time). I'm so glad I got to go, but it's nice to be back in my quiet little Rzhishchiv again.