Death and the pigeon...

So spring finally arrived. It went from cold to hot almost overnight and I suspect we've gone from winter to summer without passing through spring. The trees have suddenly woken up and started to sprout green shoots. The grass has grown sufficiently to cover the copious mounds of dog turds that had steamed their way down through the snow only to emerge, like a sticky brown phoenix, during the thaw as a trap for the unwary.

But it isn't all joy. Those flying disease bags - the pigeons - are back. Worse still, there are two that are under the misguided impression that they'll be nesting again on our balcony. How naive. It is, however, more difficult than I thought to teach them that, under no circumstances, is this going to happen. I assumed a couple of good shouts of "shoo" - and a vision of me in a t-shirt, sans bills - would tell them they weren't welcome, but they just take no notice. I've started to get obssessive about it, getting up in the middle of the night to check if they're skulking round the plant pots; sneaking around in the morning in the hope of catching them cooing and crapping on the concrete; spying on the balcony from below to see if they have appeared again; tieing ribbons of flapping plastic to the rail as a bird scarer. I've caught one of them a couple of times now with a well-aimed brush up the tail feathers, but it still hasn't deterred them. I've started washing the floor of the balcony almost daily so that I know if they've visited while I've been out; the fresh piles of shit they leave as a calling card an obvious giveaway. Yesterday I raced out on to the balcony, waving my arms and shooing as loud as I could, like an over-excited steam engine. As I watched the pigeons flap away, I noticed someone sat down by the door of the mortuary (our view on one side), looking up to see what the fifth floor madman was up to. They continued staring for several minutes before getting up and going back inside.

Last year, I've been told, the pigeons nested in one corner of the balcony. They made a 'nest' by throwing a few sticks on the floor, keeping it held together with pooh-glue. At the end of the spring, when they left, a new mop had to be purchased to clean up all the gunk and crap that they left behind. This year I'm not prepared to let that happen, especially as the two boxes on the ledge are now full of seeds and my tomato plants will soon be big enough to plant outside. So for now, I continue to sneak around and then run manically outside, hissing and screeching, all because of my intense dislike of these feathered scumbags...

(Apologies to Andrey Kurkov for the title...)

Only time flies here...

A fledgling airline has been advertising in the press recently, offering dicount flights to Sweden and Norway. As these countries are so expensive it makes sense to fly by one of these budget companies to save your money for essentials like bread and cheese without having to leave your arm and leg at the till. We talked about going over to Gothenburg, or to Oslo, and it seems like it could be a good idea for a short break, especially if the days are sunny and long.

So it was with interest that I noticed an advert in the Gazeta Wyborcza jobs section. It said:

Wanted - Pilots. Must have experience flying a plane.

Or something like that, I paraphrase. It made us laugh, the idea that they have a route, a price, we assume they have a plane, but as yet - no driver.

It's been a long, hard winter in Poland.

Punch-up in the post office...

I was in the small post office opposite Sadyba market, buying stamps for my brother’s birthday card. As usual it was full of old women, paying rent or bills, or just professionally queuing, which is what most of them seem to do. To preserve this system of queuing, you have to take a ticket from a machine and then, until it’s your turn, while away the time as best you can. I got my ticket and, seeing there were eleven punters in front of me, took a seat. At the window directly opposite my uncomfortable green plastic chair, a man was leaning, his hood pulled up despite the heat inside. He seemed to be waiting for his turn but I’m not sure now.

The bell sounded and another number clicked up on the display. It said 501 and a large bear-like man of around thirty, but possibly younger, came up to the window next to where the hooded guy was leaning. I heard 502 mentioned, then out of the blue the two – hoody and the bear – started to push each other at the window. Words were exchanged, then more pushing, then fists started to fly. A scuffle broke out in the not-too-large post office, the old women scattered like frightened hens and clucked and scolded but it fell on deaf ears. I moved further away to a better vantage point and because, as the only other person in there under 70, thought I might be expected to try and break it up. It was, however, much too entertaining to do that. Coats were pulled, punches exchanged, muffled swearing and grunting, and then the spinning dance that happens when two people can’t get a clear smack at each other. After a few minutes it calmed down and they both went back to the window. The old women drifted back to their previous positions, chunnering and tutting and adjusting their mohair berets.

Once the two combatants got back to their original positions I thought I’d slipped back in time. It was like watching an action replay as exactly the same thing happened again: the words, the push, then shouting, shoving, and then fists again. There was on duty a skinny, silver-haired, bearded security guard of advancing years and when the second scuffle broke out he took two precautions: he locked the door to the outside and he locked himself behind the counter. After several more minutes of scuffling, order was resumed, with the bear going back to the counter and using his size and apparent victory as a basis for his right to be served next. What did he buy? One ticket, normal tariff, for the bus. Nothing else.

I bought my stamps – as the girls had started serving again now that the fuss had died down – and came to leave but had to wait while the security guard came out from his safe haven and unlocked the door. He tried to keep the bear inside, but he was ineffectual and the last I saw, the security guard was trying to phone someone on his mobile. I don’t blame him for not getting involved, but if it had been any more serious he would have been useless, as he was too frail – and I am too careful, or chicken – to get involved.

Where is the spring?

It's almost the middle of March and there's still no sign of spring. This morning they announced on the radio that it was minus ten outside, so it's still a case of big coat, hat and scarf. During the day the sun melts some of the snow and leaves big puddles across all the paths which, overnight, turn into sheets of ice and lie in wait for those hurrying to work or for buses.

On February 23rd, there was a dzień bez łapówki - a day without bribes. This was advertised all over the place and I thought it was nice that, once a year, you can have a day where no-one takes a bribe. The usual excuse given as to why people take bribes is that those in poorly-paid jobs need the money to supplement their wages. So this makes it right? An 'extra' payment for doing what you're supposed to? For greasing the wheels a little? As an example, I was told that, to book the room for the wedding, I would have to give the woman in charge 'something', a box of chocolates maybe. For doing what? For writing two names in a book? And if I don't? Well, then she makes a few noises and says it isn't possible. So I have no choice now? To bribe and get what I want - and what it is her 'duty' to give me - or to ignore this and be frustrated by the soviet throwback attitude that people will only do their jobs if they get a little bit of something 'extra'. We've both decided she won't get an envelope, a box of chocolates, or even a thank you if she doesn't do what she - however poorly - is paid to do. Without a little 'gift' here and there, where is the job satisfaction? What is even more annoying is that it isn't just those people who grew up under the communist yoke that think bribery is not only an acceptable part of life, but almost a given way of getting things done.

This type of thinking sometimes goes beyond rational thought into the land of nonsense. On one tv programme, it was said that those who live together and aren't married are no better than cave people, who lived the same way, and therefore society is regressing into a prehistoric age. This was uttered without any sense of irony or mirth and reflects how the church not only keeps a tight grip on its followers here, but also strangles any kind of thought that goes against its teaching. Again, it isn't just the old who profess these things, the youth too are blatantly ignorant and intolerant and there is little feeling that change is possible. Apathy would reign if only people could be bothered...

We care a lot... [sic]

With the temperature so low the streets are strangely empty of people as everyone seeks to stay in out of the cold. Even the bus drivers have started, grudgingly, to use the heaters on the buses and, on our local express, there is a note - in big letters - informing the dear passengers that, due to the extremely cold weather and in force until the 29 January, the bus will stop at any stop, not just the ones at which it normally slides to a halt. This claim is accompanied by a little asterisk on the page which directs your gaze to a footnote where, in even smaller letters, it explains about the exceptions to this information. So we discover that the bus won’t stop if: the stop is a regular one served by another route; the stop is too close to one where the bus would normally stop; the stop is before a left turn; or the stop is at the end of the line. Quite who would get on at the end of the line is beyond me, but it seems as reasonable as any of the other exceptions. So this show of a new, caring attitude by ZTM isn’t quite as caring as we’re led to believe.

Troche zimno...

I think I am finally beginning to tire of the winter. Yesterday was the coldest day in January with a high temperature of minus 20 degrees. That's almost thirty degrees difference between here and England and all of a sudden, ten degrees above freezing sounds positively tropical. Even the news that the weather will 'warm up' to a maximum of minus nine is greeted with enthusiasm. With the increase in temperature comes the promise of more snow and, as yet, I'm not fed up of that. I still get that excited might-get-a-day-off-school feeling in the morning when I look out of the window to see the street covered in snow and the cars going slowly round the corner sideways. It's a very childlike happiness, the sight of a fresh fall of clean, white snow, but it's one I think I will never tire of. Perhaps a remnant of living for so long in a country where the promise of snow is always greater than the reality.

I am, however, getting fed up of layering. Today I had to be at work, as usual for a Monday, at 7.30am. I get up at 6am and have, usually, plenty of time for a shower and coffee before venturing out to get the bus. The last couple of weeks though, have seen me nearly miss the bus on several occasions. This is all due to layering. An essential, and time consuming, part of the day. First the normal underwear, then the thermal: long johns and a long-sleeved top. Over this goes jeans and a t-shirt. Then a thin wool jumper, and a hoody. Boots, down jacket, scarf, hat and gloves. Then once I'm outside I put the hood up. I haven't owned a coat with a hood on since I was a kid and absolutely no-one put their hoods up then in case everyone else thought you were a big girl's blouse or something. Now I don't give a shiney sh*te. If I'm warm I don't care what I look like. I mean, everyone else is all bundled up. Everyone else's hair looks like mice have been nesting in it, everyone else's nose is redder than a baboon's bum, so who is looking at me? Dokładnie. No-one.

Over the weekend it snowed again, but it was the thin, powdery, annoying snow that stings your face and gets in your eyes and through the tiniest gap in your clothes. It must have snowed all of Friday night and it continued all day Saturday until after it went dark. Relentless, covering everything with a light film of white. Occasionally a flake would rest on a scarf or hat, a perfect six-pointed star, small and delicate, not melting because it was too cold and sharp enough to be able to study it carefully for some minutes. A thing that is beautiful, but so small and fragile at the same time. Together with others it can, and does, wreak havoc. In the hospital car park five snow-ploughs chased each other round and round before heading off in convoy towards the bridge where, on Friday morning, a speed-freak youngster doing over 100kph crashed his car into a bus shelter full of passengers, killing five of them and injuring several more. His car bounced over the parapet and down onto the road beneath but he walked away unhurt. The police said that he hit the people at the bus shelter so hard some of them flew through the air to land over thirty metres away, in the middle of a busy highway.

On Sunday the sun came out and the temperature dropped. Over the last couple of weeks the river has slowly been getting more and more clogged with ice. Small round floes, many of which carried a solitary seagull, or a host of cormorants, their wings held out to dry in the weak January sun, floated silently along the Vistula heading for Gdansk and the Baltic where they would try to congregate into a mass of wannabe icebergs. When the lumps hit the supports of the bridge, they made quiet slushing sounds that were like cold breaths in the crisp air. Overhead the traffic continued to thunder across the bridge, but down by the water, all waquiet. The only people there were me and a lonely fisherman, sitting on the ice hoping to catch a frozen fillet. That was last week. This week the ice has solidified and now the river is, on its surface at least, one solid mass of ice. The seagulls have gone now; their little boats are no longer viable means of transport. A group of Fieldfare, looking confused, could be seen trying to get a drink from the tiniest of holes that remained on the surface. They, too, will fly away soon, to Germany or somewhere further west, where the ground isn't solid and there is at least some sort of food.

To see the river was incredible, the widest stretch of water I have ever seen: solid, frozen and white. We had taken a bus there and walked across the bridge, then a tram and bus back to the flat. It took us less than an hour but by the time we returned we'd both had enough. How do people live in places where it is minus 20 or 30 for weeks at a time?

Today is just as cold and the prognosis for tomorrow is for the same but with more snow forecast on Wednesday. To experience this long, cold winter has long been a dream, to live through the snow and ice, the buses with their inside windows frozen - despite the heater being on - and to layer-up against the cold. Now it's becoming a chore, the hats and gloves and scarves every time you want to go out anywhere, even to the bin. When spring comes, as come it must, it will be a joyous occasion, to welcome the new growth, to see the green poking through the snow, to avoid being crushed by snow sliding off roofs, to feel the warm breeze and to know that on that breeze is the prospect of another summer in Warsaw.

It's cold out there...

They announced earlier on the radio that it is minus eight outside. It’s not hard to believe, looking out of the window. For several weeks now the sun has been hidden above the cloud, its presence felt rather than seen. Over the last weekend, however, it made a very welcome appearance. On Saturday when we got up, the whole of the world outside was bright and clear, the light sparkling off the snow that fell just after Christmas and still lies in deep piles all along the sides of paths and roads. But with the brightness comes the cold. Deep blue skies are devoid of the cloud that insulates the earth and we watch the weather forecasters point to lows of minus fifteen and – how droll – highs of minus two. On the bus this morning the ice formed sparkling patterns on the inside of the windows and the places to hold on to – the metal bars – were difficult to keep hold of as they were so cold, even through gloves. Hold on you must as the driver still refuses to slow down or have any regard for his passengers, they’re just a nuisance that keeps him from reading the paper.

As we crossed the river I looked out of the window and was amazed at what I saw. Dotted across the water’s surface like strange, white lily-pads, small floes of ice drifted along with the current. Many carried a lazy seagull, hitching a ride further down the river. On one bank, the ice had formed into the river itself, a vast sheet populated by confused-looking cormorants and some lost ducks. The cormorants drying their wings in the weak morning sunlight; the ducks doing their usual busy swimming around. I was told the river wouldn’t freeze over because of the pollution in it, but it was hard to believe this morning, looking at the surface almost covered with the little blobs of white-tinged ice. I don’t want it to go much colder, I’m already wearing almost every piece of clothing I own, but I would like to see the river frozen over. I have to decide which I want more – warmth or novelty. I can’t decide.

Last weekend, in the trees near to the flat, a flock of two hundred Waxwings spent an hour, chattering and preening, resting from the cold. I’ve never seen one before and to see a whole flock of them completely covering a tree was amazing. They much be on their way to warmer places, as there’s nowhere to get food here. People do hang out bacon rind and bread, but the pigeons bully their way into getting most of it.

We took down our Christmas tree on Sunday. Rather than feeling sad that it had gone, our first Christmas tree together and the first in which I’ve taken an active part in its putting up and dismantling, I am positive in the feeling that this year will be good. The first of many spent with someone I really want to be with and who treats me like I really matter. More snow is forecast for the next week and as we trudged round the Old Town on Sunday, searching for a restaurant to hold the ‘wesele’, we realised how empty the city is in the winter. Many of the cafes take in their seats, leaving the ice and snow from the rooves free to crash down on a poorly-cordoned off footpath. Huge piles of ice now sit by every bus stop, the product of piling up snow after each successive fall. Some pavements are free of it, but many are still like glass, the ice and snow packed hard and worn smooth by hundreds of booted feet.

So the new year begins and I look forward to it. I always wanted to experience the cold of an eastern winter, to be freezing for weeks until one day there’s a breath of warm wind and the grass starts to grow again, the daffodils poking above the soil, announcing the start of another season. This year I get my wish, and by March I am pretty sure I will be welcoming the warmer air with open arms and, in stark contrast to now, an open coat!

My Polish is terrible!

Moje Święta w Polsce były bardzo różnie niż w Anglii.
W tym roku zostałem u rodzina moja narzeczona na trzy dnia w Katowicach.
W Anglii, pierwszy dzień Świąt jest dzień specjalnego. Mamy duża kolacja i dajemy prezenty. W Polsce wszystko zdarza się w Wigilia.
Najpierw przełamaliśmy się opłatkiem i życzyliśmy każdy zdrowie albo szczęście albo łatwy droga do mówienie po polsku, i potem usiedliśmy do kolacji.
Zaczęliśmy od barszcz czerwony domowe, który był nalewany na pierogi z kapustą i grzybami. Potem mieliśmy inną zupę tym razem zrobiona w grzybowi.
Jako dania główne mieliśmy karp. W Anglii nigdy nie mamy ryby, zawsze kurczak albo indyk. W Polsce, kolacja jest bez mięsa. Na stolik był też kompot zrobiony z moreli i śliwek.
Pierwszy i drugi dzień Świąt spędziłem relaksujący albo wyprowadzając psy na spacer do lasu, który był piękny w śnieg.
Wróciliśmy do Warszawy na drugi dzień z mnóstwem jedzenie, które wystarczyło dodatkowe trzy dni.
Spędziłem miło czas. Myślę, że w przyszłym roku Święta będą lepsze.

Bardzo dziękuje dla pomoc mój anioł ;-)

Post Christmas blues...

It's the second of January and it's back to the grind. After a whole week off it was a real chore to crawl out of bed this morning. But manage it we did. Eventually.

I spent Christmas in Katowice with my soon-to-be adopted family, and it was a very different experience from the English one. For a start, everything happens on Christmas Eve: dinner and presents. The other two days are spent eating and chilling out. The emphasis is on the dinner and the family and the presents are tokens for others, not the focus.

To begin the celebrations, everyone takes some wafer, the kind you get in church and, offering it to others, you break a piece off each and at the same time wish people good luck, happiness, peace and, in my case, an easy road to speaking Polish. It seemed very formal after the relaxed pubbing of England, but was a sign of how much less commercial everything is here. I mean, people were still carrying Christmas trees home on the day before, so there's no rush to get a tree up at the beginning of December. This year, on a vist to England, I saw my first fully decorated tree in a Westaughton pub on the second of September, on the way into the beer garden with a pint of shandy. It made me wonder what the 'feast' of Christmas is about when for some it starts four months early.

So what about the food? All I can say is I've never had a CHristmas dinner like it and am extremely grateful to those who cooked it. Well, we started with barszcz made from scratch with several pounds of beetroot and almost as much butter. This was poured over pierogi (parcels of pastry containing mushrooms and cabbage) and was fantastic. Next came mushroom soup, again made from scratch. There then followed the carp (which the Poles eat instead of a roast) which came with potatoes and vegetables. After that I got a bit fuzzy about which dishes came after which and I was grateful we didn't have the traditional sixteen courses. I lost track of the number we had, but it was approaching twelve. The food was washed down with a fruit punch made from fresh apricots and plums and to finish we had some cake and little oranges. The whole thing took around four hours and then afterwards we exchanged simple, but thoughtfully purchased, gifts and then sat around, bloated, on the chairs. No James Bond for me this year! The following two days were the same, a round of food and drink, endless cups of tea and no television. Perfect. Even after so much eating we were still able to bring three days supply of food back to Warsaw and now, finally, the fridge is bare!

Snow dominated the scene between Christmas and New Year, with half a metre (or a foot and a half in old money) falling in two days. It's started to melt somewhat, creating skiddy patches everywhere and slush puddles the size of football fields, but the ground is still white in many places and perfect to look at. We went for a walk on New Year's Eve morning, to the forest near to the flat. It was magical. Trees were heavy with snow, the forest silent, only the sounds of some birds and the squeak of a wheel as a woman pushed a pram along a path. We walked for an hour before emerging into a small blizzard and I felt like an Arctic explorer for a time, walking Indian file along the side of the road in the footsteps of an ambling drunk. Real explorers would have done the journey in, probably, half the time and in shorts, but I enjoyed the challenge of putting myself against the snow, only taking a few minutes to shelter in a bus stop. If only Scott had had a karta miasta...

New Year's Eve we went to a party with friends. Vodka, made with fresh cucumbers, and shots called 'mad dogs' were the order of ceremony and although we left at one in the morning to get two night buses home, the party caried on until seven, with dancing and drinking. We drank champagne at midnight and I set off two fireworks that threw sparks into the trees and then bounced back, burning one girl's coat and frightening everyone else. The joys of being slightly drunk and slightly irresponsible experienced again. Sparklers finished off the outdoor entertainment and, with the temperature hovering around minus three, we popped back inside.

Now it is time to start the New Year proper. The post Christmas blues are here only because of the return to work and a semblance of normality, shakey as it may be. I'm not blue though, unless you count that brought on by the cold. I couldn't be happier. And I start this year with the knowledge that I will live in Poland for a long time, with the girl I love and who I will marry later this year. Who could be blue about that?

December rain and two million lights...

It’s the run-up to Christmas that makes it special. The anticipation, the preparation, the false smiles of shopkeepers and the bogus bon-homie from the usually sour-faced public. So it was with great excitement that I scurried into town on St Mikołaj’s Day to witness at first hand the switching on of the lights on the largest tree in Europe. A similar tree stands in Lisbon but Warsaw got there first and so, has the edge.

I arrived in front of the Palace of Culture at 6pm prompt. The rain was blustery and the wind was popping umbrellas inside-out by the dozen. The tree, dwarfed by the Palace – its own lights blinking, the clock blanketed by mist – was dark and insignificant in comparison. A sizeable crowd had gathered and at exactly four minutes past six an announcement that the switch-on would be three more minutes was met by a small groan. Five minutes later, the MC said it would be another two minutes. A louder groan. Just before 6.15 a further message warned of more delays. This time the groan was loud enough to prompt the organizers to start the countdown. The crowd stirred. Ten, nine, eight. The wind blew. Five, four. A child screamed. Two. One. Nothing. Deathly silence. Then, in a heart attack-inducing volley, rockets exploded in the sky, heavenly music blared forth from loudspeakers and the lights came on. All of them. At once. No build-up, no gradual glow: from darkness to light in a split second. A few more fireworks, then silence. Gradually people drifted away; to the Metro, the buses, home. The spectacle witnessed and then left to memory for another year.

Behind the tree, the Palace grinned wickedly, knowing that when the tree came down in January, it would still be there, its brick tower defiant on the skyline. The tree twinkled and pulsed, the lights glowing brightly in the evening gloom. I stood and wondered if the bulbs were in series. If one went, would someone have to come and check all two million? I untangled my umbrella from a flicking branch and headed home, a strange feeling inside of pre-Christmas bon-homie.

An edited version of this post appeared in the New Warsaw Express, an English language magazine for which I write a column. http://www.nwe.pl

Let it snow, let it snow, let it snow...

It has snowed three times now in a week. The first time we got up on Saturday to find the world had turned white. By dinnertime it had all disappeared and the sky was blue and clear. Monday saw a further fall and this too disappeared as fast as it had arrived. A couple of days later the third one appeared. Again, overnight, to cover everything in a soft white blanket. The fourth fall came on Monday and was heavier than the previous ones. It partly cleared during the day but has since frozen in the sub-zero daytime temperatures and looks set to stay. People are talking about winter really being here and they cast suspicious glances at the sky, from which more flakes will soon descend.

The freezing weather has prompted me to buy a new coat as it is just too cold to stand around at the bus stop at 6.30 in the morning. Even when a bus comes it doesn’t mean a respite from the ice as most don’t use any kind of heating so people huddle together in the aisles like penguins, shuffling around to let other passengers on and off or to keep warm. The only way the buses warm up is from the heat that emanates from these folk, their breath steaming up the windows. To give you an idea of how cold it is, I was staring out of the window one day when I noticed that ice crystals had formed on the inside of the glass. I kid you not. And according to the forecast we’re not even into the cold period yet. That is all to come in January – March when temperatures are expected to plummet to minus twenty to twenty-five. What fun that will be.

The city has in some ways started to close down. Tables and chairs have been removed from footpaths and some of the cafes have disappeared, to re-emerge in the warmer sunshine of spring. Some things have stayed the same. The street traders are still there, now bundled up in a fabulous array of coats, scarves, boots and hats. My own favourite trader still sits on his box, winding up plastic frogs or fish and setting them free in a washing-up bowl of water. I mused on his life one day while taking a very long tram ride. What does he write on a form where it says ‘occupation’? Where does he get the water from? Does he carry the full bowl from his flat to Marszalkowska? Negotiating trams and buses to finally arrive at the space on the footpath outside Empik that he calls his own. Does he get any job satisfaction? Does he sell anything? Or does he sit all day, patiently winding and floating his crappy plastic toys?

Outside the front of the Palace of Science and Culture, a huge metal scaffold has appeared, soon to be lit with thousands of lights and turned into the largest – at 82 metres – Christmas tree in Europe. The switch on is next week, December 6th at 6pm. We intend to go and witness this amazing spectacle at first hand, providing it isn’t too cold. Standing around in the day is one thing, doing it at night waiting for someone to throw a switch is something completely different.

So what of my life here? It is very simple and very basic and I am very, very happy. I have everything I could ever need or want here, although a slightly more secure working life would be welcome. This week I hear if my application for a five year visa has been accepted and if I will finally receive my karta pobytu, allowing me to open a proper bank account and to save me having to carry my battered and dog-eared passport everywhere.

Have you heard the news? The dead walk...

The first of November – All Saints Day – is an important feast in Poland. I hadn’t realised just how important until the day itself came round. This year the first fell on a Tuesday and preparations had started at the end of the week before. New route numbers had appeared on the bus stops along with new timetables and notices warning of delays, detours and reduced frequency on the regular services. Barriers suddenly sprang up at the side of many roads around the various cemeteries and by Bródno cemetery – close to where we live – a couple of buses were in place as impromptu cash desks for people to buy transport tickets and all along the road, stalls were being assembled ready for the big day. Inspecting the timetables and routes for the buses showed that it would be possible to commute from cemetery to cemetery throughout the hours of daylight by direct connection. In case of any queries, whole pages in the newspapers were devoted to maps of routes and cemetery opening times.
Monday, sandwiched between the weekend and the first itself, was quieter than normal on the going-to-work public transport, although the scenes around the cemetery were of bustling trade and frantic, last-minute flower-buying. Many people took the day off, making the weekend four days long. Most, however, were still at work and getting past any of the cemeteries proved to be a challenge, with buses doing huge unnecessary detours and taking twice as long to complete their usual journey. The stalls that had been slowly appearing along the side of the road multiplied over the weekend and some were even manned overnight, despite the gates of the cemetery being closed and the temperature hovering around zero.
Tuesday dawned bright and clear. The queue of traffic visible from the flat balcony made us glad that Bródno was close enough to walk to, and after breakfast we ambled along to the cemetery. Everything was in full swing. Chrysanthemums – the traditional flower for this feast day – were being sold by the hundred from every conceivable spot. The road was closed and allowed people to walk there as the path was full of flowers. Votive candles made up the other main thing for sale and then other stalls sold bread, pańska skórka (a pink or white sugary confection wrapped in twists of paper), sausages, barszcz (red beetroot soup, served with cabbage and mushroom croquettes), gloves, trinkets and Teletubby balloons. I still can’t see the relevance of a balloon although I do appreciate the need to sell food.
The street outside the gates was heaving. It was absolutely packed full of people, most of whom were clutching flowers, candles or a combination of both. The pushing and shoving never abated, as if people thought that it was a race to the graveside, in case the people they were visiting would no longer be waiting. At one point the crush was so bad the whole of the street was at a literal standstill as another fleet of buses emptied their passengers at the end of the street. We didn’t go into the cemetery, just shuffled past and then boarded a bus to go to Powązki Cemetery. This is where many famous Poles are buried and its importance was evident from the number of TV vans parked outside. Again, the crush of people was amazing, with queues to get in through the narrow gates to pay respects. Some were not paying any respect at all and at the risk of sounding like a middle class Tory – or moharowy berety as they’re called here – I was irritated to see people bellowing into mobile phones, racing around the paths, and generally ‘grave spotting’ those of the rich and famous. Some were, I must admit, meeting family and sitting peacefully by the graveside in contemplation, but many more were there for show with the biggest bunches of flowers and the brightest candles. It made me wonder if they ever gave a thought to the people buried there throughout the rest of the year or whether this feast day is a good reason to don one’s finest and put on a show. Maybe I’m too cynical, but it certainly looked like some were there to be seen and not to remember.
In the evening, after dark, we went back to Bródno. The crowds had thinned and the air was scented with the smoke of thousands of candles. A place that is so often eerie and creepy in the dark of night was made magical amid the combined glow of these votive lights, with almost every grave having at least one or two. There were no electric lamps to light the way but the glow was bright enough to make walking easy, even away from the main path where a monument to the dead of the war was fronted by hundreds of candles burning fiercely. A man played songs from Evita on a trumpet and there was a hushed reverence.
During the day there was an almost carnival atmosphere and the stalls added to this, their inappropriate merchandise turning the day from a remembrance of those we have lost into a party for those who still live. At night, in the weak candle light, among the headstones and tombs of the dead, the reason for the whole day became apparent and real and it was not without a tear that we left the graveyard, the candles flickering until they faded and, like the people whose graves they mark, died. To be forgotten until next year, a patch of cold earth topped by a slab of marble, un-remembered and unremarkable until the week before the first of November 2006.
On Wednesday almost every trace of any celebration had been removed. Some still tried to sell the flowers they had left, others had taken the pots and left the flowers by the wayside, to be taken by people of cleared away by the council. The buses were still full of old people, heading to the graveside in the hope of meeting old friends or of remembering loved ones. It seemed sad to me that for one week a year the living remember the dead when both sides are alive or dead for the rest of the year. Is this the way it will always be? Is this where we go from now on? You tell me.

Wonderful Warszawa

Well I arrived in Warsaw in June, things went well, things went very well. I'm staying. I live with the most wonderful girl and I am very happy. I am still looking to start a hostel or maybe a bed and breakfast, but it takes time to do these things but with perseverance and the woman I love by my side I think it will work.

Carpathian corner

I'm now on the final leg of the trip and have passed through the Carpathian mountains on my way to Lvov, where I am now, currently residing in the Stalin-built Hotel Kiev: hot water from 6 - 9am and 6 - 9pm, make up your own bed, steal your own toilet paper. It's not actually that bad, it's in a great central location, just by the opera house and that's the main thing. Although it's true about the water, bed and bog roll...

So to get here... I took the train from Kiev, sharing my compartment with three women who never stopped talking until they fell asleep. Then one of them snored so loudly that people in the next compartment kept banging on the wall to wake her up. She would stop for a couple of seconds and then start again even louder. In the morning she looked as fresh as a daisy while others up and down the carriage were bleary-eyed and quiet.

We had arrived in Kamyanets-Podilsky, a small town on the edge of the mountains not far from the Moldovan border. The reason for coming here was the old town, which is built on a natural rock island formed by a bow in the river. To get there you have to cross a road bridge which lets you see how far down the water / ground is through strategically-placed holes in the footpath where the bridge is crumbling away. For someone who hasn't run since school, I crossed that bridge fairly niftily I can tell you. The town itself was empty and run down. The only people about were wedding groups paying their respects to various churches and monuments. There were plenty at the Polish cathedral - where a statue of the BVM sits on top of a minaret, proof that there was a mosque here long before a church - making lots of noise and then just as quickly they were gone. No wonder the statue of Christ sits with his head in his hands by the gate.

All roads here lead to the castle, which isn't built on the natural fortification, but across another bridge, again, built by the Turks. Here, after queuing behind a man trying to buy tickets for a group - '34 children, 6 students, 5 adults, one with a beard, 3 cows and a chicken please. Oh, and a discount for the unemployed...' - I finally paid my entrance fee and entered what turned out to be one of the best castles I have ever been to. This wasn't just because the walls were high and it was in a - fairly - good state of repair, but because you could go anywhere you liked. I chickened out of the highest walls and the deepest, darkest dungeons, but the Russian kids swarmed everywhere like ants, mindless of the crumbling masonry and slippery steps. I liked the well a great deal. There was no sign, just some steps leading down into a dark, gloomy, chilly underground room. There was a bright light that shone down into the well - hung low enough so that you didn't get the glare from it - so you could see all the way to the water. Having no string or ruler, I had to use the old fashioned schoolboy method of gobbing and then count how long it took to reach the water: 8 seconds. I'm still working out how deep that is, but it's pretty deep. Outside, scores of newlyweds were milling round, having their pictures taken in the rain...

From there I moved to Chernivtsi, a very German-looking town close to the Romanian border and got a room at the Hotel Kiev. This turned out to be something of a mistake as they had plasterers in the rooms on either side of me who started work at seven in a morning and instead of having a tea break to start with like any normal workers, they chose to lump furniture about for half an hour until I was fully awake. This made the day very long as Chernivtsi isn't the most sight-filled city ever. There were plenty of churches to keep me busy and they had a supermarket! With real food!! Oh the joy of being able to inspect food before buying it, of being able to look for ages without some straggle-haired old haridan staring at me like I was going to rob everything, of emerging with my purchases in a Tesco bag for life and seeing the looks of jealousy of all those people carrying cheap purple Sainsbury bags (Someone, somewhere must have hijacked a lorry-load of these as they're everywhere).

Ivano-Frankivsk was my next stop. Here it didn't stop raining for the whole of my visit and I spent a long time in my hotel room watching taxi's trying to run down pedestrians and staring at the back of the Ivan Frank statue. It wasn't long before I got a bus to Lvov and ensconced myself in the Hotel Kiev here. Lviv - L'viv, Lvov or Lwow - is a very pretty town. It was fairly undamaged during the war and as a result possesses a great number of original buildings that make wandering around a treat. I spent two hours in the Lychakivsky cemetary wandering round looking at the tombs and graves of people I had never heard of, while the rain pitter-pattered through the leaves on to my umbrella. It's the greenest, serenest, most calming place I have been to in the whole of the last two months. This is in stark contrast to the rest of the town which, for all it's architectural glory, is clogged with traffic. The worst culprits being the busses and marshrutka vans that carry people from place to place. The amount of fumes they spew out is unbelievable and it makes me realise how much cleaner even somewhere like England is.

So this is possibly the last entry for a while. I will take a bus tomorrow from the bus station here to cross the border into Poland and head for Lublin. I have already stashed any remaining cash and will change the rest of my Hrivna into zloty later today, just in case there's a customs guard with a money-collecting ambition... Six hours on a bus, luxury!

I feel like chicken Kiev tonight...

One of the differences between Russian train travel and that of Ukraine is that, when you wake up on a Ukrainian train, your face isn't covered in feathers from a leaking pillow. So gone are the days of waking up looking like Foghorn Leghorn's mange-ridden older brother. And dreams of eating birds whole. The other big difference is that when you get out of your pit in a morning, you leave the tidying up to someone else. Luxury. I had swapped my lower bunk for the top one as the woman who had originally got the top one couldn't climb up there easily. I don't know why she didn't just change the ticket. Everyone else seems to.

When you buy a ticket in England, you state where and when you want to go, you pay your money, you get a ticket. Job done. In Russia, they have to do it all differently. When you're a Russian, you queue up, dodging from one to another in the vain hope you'll get served sooner than the regulation half hour wait. When you get to the window, you ask for a ticket to where you want to go. You're asked when. You say when. You ask how much, they tell you. You complain it's too expensive. They say, tough, do you want it or not? You say yes. They give you the ticket. You argue again about the price. You pay. You get your ticket. Then you move away from the window and allow the next person in line to get the first half of a carefully rehearsed Russian question said, before butting back in and telling the cashier that she has given you the wrong train / seat / date / price...

Kiev is expensive. I had decided to pick a hotel and not let my jaw drop when they told me how much it was, just to stay where I wanted to. I think it was worth it. I got a double bed - no more falling out in the middle of the night - with a real mattress, so no waking up with a creaky back. The towels in the bathroom all match and the small one is not cut from a worn larger one. The shower is a shower, attached to the wall, with hot water. The toilet is not made from concrete, and neither is the paper. So for the last two nights I have slept like a log and enjoyed my stay, even if it has cost me a fortune.

It would have cost me a lot more if I had fallen for this scam too. I walked out of the hotel on the first morning, freshly arrived from Odessa. I was walking up the road when a twenty-something bloke walked right in front of me, immediately stopped and bent down. As I moved around him, my best 'tut' forming, he stood up and showed me a wad of money - including dollars - held together with a bulldog clip. He asked if it was mine and I said no, then he said that we could share it, '50 - 50' as this was 'an old Russian custom' and it was only fair that I get something. It was when he got the money out for the second time that I realised this was a scam and I started to walk away. Just then another bloke appeared, said something to which I looked blank, and then said to me', 'Do you speak English?' to which I shrugged, looked even blanker and shook my head before walking off. They didn't pursue it, and I have since learned that this is a way of swapping a foreigner's real money for the fake stuff they have. I have been on my guard since then, with the result that a fifty-ish woman stopped me in the street earlier and asked if I could help her. I was just about to stop when I thought better of it, said no, and walked on. Maybe she was genuine, but I didn't hang around to find out.

Kiev has been a whistle-stop tour of the churches and monasteries, and anywhere inside as the weather's been foul. It's a nice city, but big and sprawling and I prefer the smaller places. So tonight, I will board my, hopefully, last overnight train to Kamyanets-Podilsky in the south west at the edge of the Carpathian mountains. This is supposed to be where Ukrainian is spoken as opposed to Russian and it will be nice to see some real hills for a change.

Odessa - and more stroppiness

I decided to stay at the Passage Hotel. From the outside it looked lovely, baroque architecture, lots of statues, filigree ironwork on the balconies, pigeons on the television aerials. The girl on the desk was honest.

'There is no hot water.'

'Do you have a room though?'

'Ýes, but there's still no water.'

'Do I get a discount because there's no hot water?'

'Do you want the room or not?'

It was actually hot enough in the room to fry an egg on the tv (which was, quite frankly, the only thing it could have been used for as there was only a fuzzy black and white picture) and the lack of hot water didn't matter that first day. After rescuing a spider from the bath and flushing the rest of the dead insects down the plughole, I had a shower and then moseyed on out to see what Odessa had to offer.

The first thing it had to offer was a Dutch cafe that did proper breakfast. Omelette! Toast!! Real coffee!!! I thought I'd died and gone to Groningen. Breakfast here became a ritual and set me up for the day and I was very grateful. The cafe was also the scene of a strange incident. As I was downing my second coffee, a man came in: bearded, oldish, dressed in black t-shirt and jeans. A few minutes later he went out. Then he came back in again with a woman. Then they both went out. A few minutes later they came back in again. This time they sat down and ordered. The woman got aq glass of ice into which she pured water from a bottle she had in her bag. The bloke spent the time on the phone. When his soup came, he played with it for a minute, then called the girl over. She removed the soup and returned it shortly after, now steaming. This seemed to satisfy him for a minute. Then he called her over again. Holding up a bread roll - and at one point bouncing it on the table so that she could see it wasn't fresh - he had another go, complaining about the bread. There was also something wrong with his salad but I didn't understand what. Finally, with a wave of an ID card, he called for what I can only assume was the complaints book and spent several minutes writing before signing it off with a big flourish. Then, not yet done, he asked for the phone number of the establishment which was duly brough to him. He phoned the number. The phone behind the bar rang. The girl picked it up. He looked across to see her talking to him on the phone. He lost his rag completely, left his own number and firm instructions that the owner was to call him first thing in the morning and apologise for the poor level of borsch, bread, salad and service. With that he left, the woman followed. I didn't notice when she came in if she was wearing them, but when she left, she had on a pair of black leather strangler's gloves...

Odessa's beaches were not the miles of golden sand I'd heard they were, although I didn't, I must admit, spend the hour on the tram going 5km out of town to find them. I made do with the lightly littered local beach, in the shadow of the container terminal and a direct stopping-off point for Odessa's sewage. No wonder the Russians sunbathe standing up, it's so they can't smell the stink from the water. How anyone could swim in the water is beyond me, but swim they do, without even face masks. Or an ambulance standing by.

Wednesday 1 June was Children's Day and was celebrated by a parade through the town. This consisted of several groups of kids from school or church groups, some older youth dressed in traditional costume, stiltwalkers, a couple of bands (who didn't actually play anything), some thin-as-a-rake bellydancers, four scruffy men on big motorbikes, a pony and trap and... a llama. Everyone made they're way to the front of the Pushkin museum where a stage had been set up and various dances and groups were singing and playing. Instead of watching this, I decided to go and try to buy a phonecard...

What is it with post office staff? On this front, Odessa is as Russian as Volgograd, but even more ignorant. Having failed to buy a card at the main post office, due to a queue of two people, neither of whom seemed to be doing anything except block the window, I went back to the smaller post office I'd used the day before to get stamps. I asked at a window and was pointed along to the next window where two girls sat staring into space. Before I even said anything the girl behind the copunter looked up and just said, loudly, 'No.' I smiled in that I-am-foreign-and-do-not-believe-you way, and asked for the card. This time she almost screamed 'No' and I felt my last thread of patience with the Russians fray. 'Where?' I asked. That brought on a torrent of abuse, containing one word I understood - English. To be spoken like that by anyone is bad enough, but when it's a jobsworth teenager... The thread snapped. Ýou are incredibly f****** rude' was the only thing I could come up with, but I said it loud enough for the whole of the post office to fall into a deathly silence. You could have heard a fly fart. When I looked round, a young bloke was grinning, which made me shrug at him. 'They've finished for the day,' he explained. He then helped me to buy a card from the other two women - one of whom gave the young girl a talking to and got a similar response to the one I'd got - and when I said thank you, both smiled. The card I bought won't work in any phone I have tried it in, neither can I use it at the post office call centre. Ideas for revenge can be sent via the normal channels...

Sevastopolifragilistic...

And so I left the Crimea. I wouldn't have taken the bus but there were problems with the trains on my day of travel so it was easier to go by chara. Sevastopol's bus station is a relatively sedate affair, buses are well marked, and there's lots of signs in the windows of the buses to give you an idea of where they're going. Some even post the times too, although they always wait five minutes extra for stragglers. I sat in the waiting room out of the sun for a while before getting on board my bus. A mid-20s male came in while I was sitting there. He had a white t-shirt on that said 'Lyndsey's Lovely Ladies' on the front. When he went out a few minutes later, I noticed it said 'Amorous Anne' on the back. He didn't look like he was part of a hen night posse, or that he would ever be in the future. Maybe he didn't have a clue what was written on the shirt, or maybe a relative - or even Lyndsey herself - had sent him the shirt as a gift...

So promptly, fifteen minutes late, we left Sevastopol. It took nearly two hours to do the 90km to Simferopol - where we stopped for almost an hour while the driver drank tea and smoked - although I do admit we were delayed slightly by the two old women, one old man and a dog who had decided to herd twenty or so goats across the main road just as we were approaching. It got dark after that and they switched off the dvd player and everyone nodded off. I woke up at five the next morning, a crick in my neck and the knee of the woman next to me in my side, to find that we had already reached Odessa, where we were due in at eight. Luckily it was cool enough for me to walk into the centre, checking the way by asking the street sweepers in my terrible Russian. One man I asked looked puzzled, then asked if I spoke English. I said yes and he smiled, told me which tram to take - the number five - and, as he held up his left hand to make sure I understood, I noticed the top half of his first finger was missing. He was a salvage engineer he said, and had worked all over the Black Sea and Mediterranean. He was due to go to Suez in a month to try to raise a tanker from the bottom of the canal. I wondered how he'd lost the finger. He had been to England only once, he said, a trip that had consisted of sitting for ten hours at Heathrow airport waiting for a flight to Kiev. He watched me walk to the tram stop and waved as a tram came along and I waved back through the dusty back window as I trundled off into the early morning sun.

No water in the hotel...

After three days in Yalta I'd had my fill of walking along the prom, watching the boys with their pet monkeys trying to get people to pose so they could take photos. They don't have a camera, they charge people to hold the monkey - or owl, eagle or sellotaped-mouth mini-crocodile - and they use the person's camera to take the pic. I made sure to avoid them. One thing that was quite tempting where the boards which are painted with Blackpool-esque risque paintings and you put your head through a hole to be transformed into a buxom lass in a bikini, or a Sumo wrestler wearing a nappy. How I laughed.

I didn't laugh, however, the day I took the cable car up to Darsan, the pseudo-Greek temple at the top of one of the surrounding hills. From start to finish this was a Health and Safety Executive nightmare, a classic example of danger at work. To begin with, there was no fence around the turnround for the cars. Several workmen were sitting around in the shade, probably waiting for someone to sit on the wall, lean back slightly, and then - clunk! One bruised head. To get to the ticket office, you had to wait for a gap in the cars, then jump across the track. Twice. A lively, fat, sunglasses-wearing bloke rattled on happily as I bought a ticket from a sour-faced woman in a booth. A car approached and, as I had previously stood and watched four or five other people do this, calmly jumped aboard. The car dipped alarmingly and the sound of metal on concrete announced that I was in. I quickly closed the two doors and sat down before it started rocking any more and, to the happy sounds of the fat bloke, chattering away at me, we lifted into the sunshine and away up the hill. This novelty lasted almost eight seconds before I began to notice that the fresh paint on my particular car was holding the bits of rust together, and that those slight gaps in the floor were actually cracks. It was too late to bail out though, we were crossing one of the main roads. As we did so, a trolleybus went past underneath, the arms catching the connectors - which sparked - and I clung on even tighter.

Blind panic aside, this was quite a nice ride. We passed over some rooftops, then a couple of houses being newly-built, their rooves only inches below the bottom of the car. Further to the top I could smell cypress spruce and pine needles and started to relax slightly. Only slightly, as a truck passed underneath and I just had to look at it, and then I realised how far down it was. Not that far, but far enough that if the cable snapped, I'd bounce and roll all the way down to the Black Sea. I would, the car would disintegrate on impact I think. At the top I jumped out, managing not to fall over, and noted that there was a toilet very handily placed - as there was at the bottom of the 'ride' - for people who may have arrived with slightly queasy stomachs and found the need for relief paramount. I followed the signs, hoping to get some good photos of the view but within seconds my enthusiasm was curbed.

Darsan, Pseudo-Greek temple. Right. So when did the Greeks stop making things out of stone and use concrete instead? And then paint the pillars pink? No matter, it was all surrounded by a rickety-looking fence anyway and a red on white sign said 'Beware! This thing is dangerous!' Behind the pillars sat Zeus, a twenty foot high painted statue of the God, his beard flaking, his nose peeling. One of his hands had fallen off. I walked round to the back to see if there was a way in but it was all fenced off. It was also surrounded by trees. This meant that, from the top, all you could see was either the way up in the car, or trees. There was, I nervously noted, also no way down apart from the cable car. So, after having a wee in the bushes, I clambered aboard and made my way back down to the bottom, where I managed to get out without falling over. The workmen were still sitting there, smoking and drinking beer, and the fat bloke was still yapping away. I left, and went to calm my nerves by sitting on the front for a while.

From Yalta I took a mini-bus to Sevastopol, the secret city where the Russians hid their naval secrets, only opening up the city - to Russian as well as foreign visitors - in 1996. A huge white arch marks the outskirts, a stern-faced Lenin keeping an eye on the buses and cars passing underneath. As the only people allowed here for most of the last century were naval bigwigs, the city is a pretty place, clean and tidy, with plenty of architecture to stop and gaze at. As I sat by the front, sipping a warm beer, I could see two tugs towing in a naval gunboat, and then I wondered if that's why it was closed for so long: embarrassment at their broken-down ships. My hotel here is a Stalin-built block, but looks like Catherine the Great might have had a hand in its construction. It's the first hotel I have stayed in with a website - www.hotel-sevastopol.com - and also the first where they turn the water off promptly at 10am. Still, it has a grand staircase with the most perfect bannister for sliding down - very useful because there's no lift - and a prime position in the centre of town, just a stone's throw from Artillery Bay and the bars and cafes on the front.

Yesterday, after getting trolleybus 12 to a faceless suburb, I then crossed the road and boarded another trolley to somewhere I knew and wanted to be. A short walk later and I was at the bus station, having taken some sneaky pictures of submarines moored in the inlet. I took a bus to Bakchysarai, to visit the Khan's Palace, as I had read it was one of the most fantastic sights to be seen in the known world. An hour's bus ride and an hour's walk later, I found what I can only describe as a crumbling, mass of buildings in need of repair. Where were the 'minarets that grace the skyline'? There were only two and they were so short the trees dwarfed them. The Turkish chimneys? Just one row of five. Hardly a village full of them. Bakchisarai is the capital of the Crimean Tartars, forcibly removed by Stalin from Crimea to Uzbekistan in the 1940s for allegedly conspiring with the Germans, the Tartars have gradually been allowed - since 1992 - to return and are re-building the town for themselves. The Bradt guide suggested that Friday, prayer day, would be a good day to visit, and there would be a bustle around the mosque. The only bustle around the mosque was a couple who had dressed up in medieval costume to have their picture taken and where arguing the toss with the photographer about how medieval it was to have a red tractor in the background. To solve this dispute, one of the workmen came out of the shadows and started the tractor. Its plumes of black smoke sent the couple scurrying to the other side of the yard. I had a quick look at some faded postcards, taken in 1967 if the picture is anything to go by, and then wandered out. As on the way in, the old ladies selling crispy deep-fried dubios-looking snacks started to announce their wares just as I passed. It was like I created a ripple that set them off and it made me feel useful. I still didn't buy any of their dusty food though, I just jumped in a mini-bus and got the hell out of there.

Finally, after several weeks of travelling I met my first real European in the form of Bernard. A manic Frenchman who spent all the time he could in Russia and the former Soviet states. He had visited them all, he said, at least twenty, twenty-five times. 'New Year is best,' he went on, 'the French? They just eat, but the Russians... ha haa!' I never did find out exactly what the 'ha haa' meant, but after long tales of his love for Russian women and how Russian music was 'the best in the world' I kind of got the idea. He ordered a glass of champagne in his French-accented Russian and when it arrived, took one mouthful before pulling a face and calling over the girl. 'Devushka, what the hell is this? When I ask for champanska I want the real thing, not this Ubek horse urine!' (Here, I paraphrase). They brought him another glass and he seemed happier. Unfortunately, he was someone who wanted just to talk and the more he talked the stronger his accent and the less I listened. I didn't want to know about discotheques in Tashkent, or hotels in Kazakhstan. When he pulled out a cloth captain's cap and stuck it on his head like a beret, grinning at waitresses and passers-by alike, I made my excuses and left.

Next stop, Odessa...

Crimea, I'm here...

I'm sat in an internet centre writing this. The computer is, I think, diesel powered, because every so often I have to crank it up with a winding handle. To go from one page to another, you click, then go off for a brew and come back ten minutes later to find it still loading... The space bar hardly works and I keep hitting the key by mistake that turns the Roman letters into Cyrillic ones... Apart from that, Ukraine is so much nicer than Russia. People are friendly, they smile, they don't blank you when you ask a question and they are genuinely helpful if you ask them something.

My first stop was Simferopol, gateway to the Crimea. A bustling town with a river that runs through the middle, lined with willows and other trees and with an abundance of bird and animal life. They have real squirrels here, red ones, not those north American tree rats... It was so pleasant to amble along by the river, watching plastic bags or empty beer bottles make their way down through the town, getting stuck occasionally on a pile of newspapers or an old tyre, lobbed in by local kids to give the water a bit of variety. The temperature has also gone up here, reaching 30 degrees for the last week, not the kind of heat you want to wander around in and a far cry from a month ago when the warmest place was by the eternal flame at the tomb of the unknown soldier. By gauging the time of day and planning my route I was able to get into and out of town by clever use of the shady river bank, and along streets where the houses cast a shadow. There is a mosque in Simferopol, which dates back to 1502, but it was closed. The Holy Trinity Cathedral wasn't and is a fantastic building, inside and out. Huge religious mosaics cover the outside, under blue and gold domes, and inside the iconostasis and walls are covered by hundreds of paintings, each in a gold frame and which brightened the shady interior. Outside, a priest was blessing a tank of holy water, surrounded by old ladies all wearing worn coloured cardigans and crossing themselves elaborately in the Orthodox way.

From Simferopol I took an express bus to Yalta. It was here that I realised I am not quite the transport nerd I thought I was. The world's longest - and at two and a half hours for the 80km / 50 mile journey, probably the slowest - trolleybus route starts in Simferopol and goes across the hills to Yalta. Having spent five minutes sat on a trolley in other towns, I decided the bus would be better. Even though everyone had brought their bags on - to avoid paying the extra thrippence ha'penny to stow them in the lockers - and had left them in the aisle; even when it overtook a cement lorry on a blind bend and then steamed past two other trolleybuses when there was a van coming the other way. The one problem I do have with transport in this part of the world - death wish drivers aside - is that no-one looks out of the window, and therefore they always close the curtains against the sun. Add to this the tree-lined road and my ability to see much of the trek over the pass was limited. Just occasional glimpses of vines, newly green, and of hills lined with scrubby bushes, a rock fall, or goats. I have also learnt a valuable lesson with regard to seats on these buses: if a seat is empty, it's probably broken.

Yalta is a very pretty place. It sits on a bay surrounded by hills and there are several beaches and a long prom on which to stroll. On the top of a small hill is a pseudo-Greek temple, accessible by a chairlift that clanks over the rooves of the houses below, dropping bits of rust and defying any kind of safety regulations. I must try it. How injured can I get falling from a rusty metal bucket thirty feet in the air? Every bench on the prom has its own resident cat, who cough up fur balls next to people eating ice-cream and leave piles of hair everywhere. I nearly stood on one very dirty once-white cat that was licking its love spuds in the gutter, only noticing it when it tried to claw my leg. Apart from the obvious threat of rabies, I am enjoying Yalta and have decided to live it up a little here, and went for a hotel rather than taking a chance and staying in someone's house. To this end, I have taken a suite of rooms at the Hotel Krim (and no, I hadn't noticed that rhymes with 'grim') and have filled the fridge with produce from the local market and Ukrainian beer and have stuffed my face royally. I spend my days strolling along the prom and that's where I am going now, even if it is a bit foggy...

Dosvidanya...

And so I boarded a train - wagon one, place six - at eight in the morning to get away from Volgograd. A petty revenge was had on the cow - who was dozing at her desk - on reception at the hotel by launching my guest card on to the desk, where it landed with a loud slap. Not, unfortunately, as loud as the slap she should have got, but I digress...

Third class travel wasn't as bad as I had anticipated. For a start, all 52 places weren't taken, so there was room move about, and secondly, the people I travelled with were nice enough. I had the top bunk which was very close to the ceiling as forehead bruises will testify, and so in the afternoon when everyone crashed out, I was forced to go to bed. It was weird, apart from the train clothes ritual and the other custom of bringing everything with you, in various-sized pots and jars, the whole of the carriage, with me the notable exception, dossed down around twelve in the afternoon and dozed their way across south-east Russia. It was like being in the TB ward at Peamount Hospital, lots of white sheets covering snoozing folk. I think even I must have slept, seeing as I jerked awake - banging my head again - with a mouth full of dusty phlegm about four o'clock. The old boy in the bunk below was forever up and down the train to consult the timetable, coming back to report where we were, how early / late we were, how long we'd spend at this place, how long it would take to get to the next place etc etc. He did make me laugh though, for all his time-keeping efforts, he put his watch an hour forward instead of an hour back, and then wondered why we were late getting in to Simferopol...

Around seven in the evening we reached the frontier. Customs came on, police arrived, checks were made. All the Russians sat up straight, even the kids were quiet. Then came a guy to check registration certificates, which I had received when entering Russia a month previously. He had three or four in his hand, collected mine and then motioned me to follow him to the provodnitsa's cabin. There he spent an age looking at the passport, the registration, and at me. It fairly quickly became apparent that he was after a bribe, so I played up the dumb foreigner for all I was worth, even going so far as to ask if he took Visa. He started to lose patience after about fifteen minutes and as we were watched by the severe-lipsticked provodnitsa, he made me walk the length of the carriage to the bit where the smokers stand and where no-one could see. Pulling a 500 rouble note from his otherwise empty wallet, he stuck two fingers up. 'Dva'. I wanted to stick two fingers up at him too, but he was holding my passport and I was up the proverbial creek. If I'd had a paddle I'd have lamped him with it. I handed over the cash, he laughed, clapped me on the shoulder, handed me my passport and walked away. Do I need to say how many times I have relived the encounter but it ended with him losing his gold tooth? I was so glad I took the guide book advice to stash any amounts of cash and I was so panicky that the Ukraine police would try the same thing, I hid 200 quid down my kecks. (That answers the question of why none of the exchange offices will accept them I suppose). I needn't have worried, the Ukraine police were as nice as the Russians were severe and all passed well, with even a handshake from the one who used a fancy Ericsson gadget to record my details, and then got out the trusty pen and paper and wrote everything down as well, just in case.

I told the other people in the carriage what had happened and they went pretty quiet for a time. I suppose they were glad it wasme that got stung and not them. When it was time for tea, I got out my home made cheese sarnies and space was made for me at the table. The old boy presented me with a big tomato, then a kartooshky - a boiled potato - and finally a boiled egg. When we'd eaten, he made me get a cup from the bobby-socks-wearing provodnitsa and gave me a tea bag (Ahmad Tea, Russia's favourite English tea. Has anyone ever heard of them?) and some indestructible sugar and we had a brew, watching the dusty Ukraine pass by. In the morning before we got off the train, he gave me what was left of his train provisions, including his little jar of sugar and a bag of - stale - biscuits. I thought it was very kind and was grateful for the bread, even if it did go mouldy before I could eat it.

And so I arrived in Ukraine...