It wasn’t exactly a journey I was looking forward to, but it had been too many times that I had found excuses for not visiting my colleagues in Ukraine at their annual vet congress despite their warmhearted invitations, that I would have felt too much of a fraught, if I wouldn’t have gone this time. In addition to this, there comes a time when you have to show your support, even if it seems to be not more than a grain of sand on a beach….
Admittedly, the timing wasn’t that great, with Kyiv experiencing some of the worst attacks since the beginning of the war. Leading up to this trip, I had downloaded an early warning air raid App and I had started to use it while I was still at home, but after a couple days I had to de-install it again, as it was going off too many times and it was starting to irritate the people around me….
The ever helpful Robert had dropped me off at Warsaw’s East station well in time before the train’s departure and while I was standing in front of the visibly dated carriages that were supposed to be my home for the next 17 hours, I found myself reconsidering his offer to spend a few more days with him and Magda in Poland instead.
But some things in life are just not that easy…..and so I found myself a few minutes later inside a cramped compartment with the train moving towards the East.
Once I had found some space for my minute suitcase – I was travelling light – and after accepting that my iPad had stayed behind in my room in Warsaw….I acquainted myself with my fellow travellers. There was a young Frenchman, who was supposed to work for the next three months at the French Embassy in Kyiv. From being very communicative at the beginning of the trip, he became progressively quiet the further we were heading into Ukraine, before stopping all conversation and starting to perspire when we drove into the capital. The other traveller was a Ukrainian businessman with an American passport. As his family had decided to remain in Ukraine, he had done this train journey many times. After enquiring why I was going and commenting that I was “a brave man”, with an ever so slight undertone that made the words “brave” and “stupid” easily interchangeable, he retreated into the top bunk and wasn’t seen again until we reached the outskirts of Kyiv.
I like train journeys and following an initial conversation with my French travel companion (while he was still talking), I watched the plain and contour-less landscape outside disappearing into the night.
I then immersed myself into the book I had thankfully not forgotten as well and enjoyed an occasional glass of tea, which was the only kind of hospitality to be had on the train.
After crossing the border, while everyone was trying to get some sleep, the whole train was moved into a giant workshop and was taken apart to adjust the wheel set from the 1435 mm European gauge to the slightly wider 1520 mm track, which used to be the standard in the Soviet Union.
I was tossing and turning in the bottom bunk, with sleep a distant dream, while a maelstrom of thoughts was crossing my mind….
While the wheels were being changed, I realised that we would be sitting ducks, and I wondered why the line – so far – had never been attacked….
“How were weapons moved from the west to the east? …
Were additional waggons packed with armoury attached to the train while we were asleep or was there an unofficial agreement not to do so?…
How was Kyiv going to be like?…
If drones would attack the train, was it better to be at the front or at the end carriage?…
How were other lecturers travelling to the conference?… Was this crazy?… Should I have stayed at home? …
What would Paul Theroux on his epic “Railway Bazaar” journeys have made of this situation?…
Was there only tea to drink?… And where were here the drunken hustlers playing cards throughout the night?…
What was I doing here?….Come on – go to sleep!….”
When eventually I woke up, the train was moving again and first day light appeared from behind a wall of trees. Looking out of the window, a landscape not much different from the pine forests in the South of Sweden appeared gradually. Without a restaurant compartment on the train, there was no need to get up early and while nibbling on the dry rye bread I had been clever enough to purchase just before leaving Warsaw, the GPS signal of my phone indicated that it was still a couple of hours until we would reach the capital.
The buildings along the railway line looked as run down and dilapidated as everywhere along busy train lines. Driving through smaller towns, I couldn’t see any signs of damage or military build up. In some way I was struck by the deceptive triviality of warfare in a big country – while towns and cities were razed to the ground in the east of Ukraine, people here were going about their seemingly normal lives as if nothing was happening. The streets were busy with morning traffic, shops were open and early morning joggers could be seen sharing the countryside lanes with the occasional dog walker next to the railway line.
The sky was grey, and light rain started to fall when we reached the outskirts of Kyiv and my first thought was, that this was a big place. May be not in the same league as London, but on par with Berlin or Vienna. This together with the absence of any visible conflict related signs of damage very much reduced my anxiety. Eventually we arrived in a railway station that wasn’t much different from that in any other European city, possibly with the slight difference of its dome like central building and the grand arrival hall, that with its marble interior and the huge chandelier, reminded me of some underground stations in Central Moscow.
Right at the platform I was greeted by Andrij, who was carrying a large sign with my name on it.
From here on he would rarely leave my side and would turn out to be my universal fixer, always providing help, advice and translations, so that in the end this journey felt far less daunting than expected.
The Blue Vet Diary 