Poltava is one of Kharkov's closest big neighbors; it's only a 2-hour ride by marshrutka to reach this city of 300,000. As it's now a holiday week and everyone has free time, our friend Zhenia offered to show us around Poltava, his hometown and a city I knew nothing about (save for it being the birthplace of
Andrei Danilko, the love-him-or-hate-him cross-dressing Ukrainian pop star).
Zhenia kindly reserved us a spot on an 8 AM marshrutka. His text read "look for a white Mercedes, license plate number 8334".
If you just read Mercedes and you're thinking
wow, a private car! the luxury!... it's nothing like that. Marshrutka translates as route taxi, a common way to get around Ukraine. It's an oversize minivan that can accommodate anywhere from 9 people to 9 billion people, depending on whether people are wearing their winter coats or not :p The marshrutkas that travel between cities are smaller and offer sitting only, while the larger ones that travel within cities offer both seats and standing.
By 8 AM our driver had collected 50 uah from each passenger, smoked his last cigarette, shaken hands with all the other drivers (men always shake hands when arriving or departing in Ukraine) and we were on the road! D fussed briefly with the seatbelt, surprised there actually
was a seatbelt, before realizing that it was impossible to fasten. They'd all been shortened as a matter of convenience, so as to not get in anyone's way. How thoughtful.
The road out of Kharkov is appropriately named полтавский шлях, or the Poltava Highway. We passed an almost surreal scene of men fishing from a river bank with the stacks of a power plant looming in the background before the Poltava Highway changed into a numbered highway. The road took us through small towns with names like Manchenky (full of little Ukrainian houses and flowering trees) and Sharivka (brick homes next to tilled garden plots). In Peremoga we passed Lenin's statue and stopped near a clothing store long enough for the driver to smoke another cigarette and the young couple in the back to run out in search of a restroom.
View Kharkov - Poltava in a larger map
Seen on the way to Poltava:
- 33 people working in the fields, planting potatoes and other tasty treats
- 27 bicyclists (only 1 serious roadside biker, most of the others out for a slow pedal through the town of Chutove, even saw one man transporting a 15-foot log on his bicycle!)
- 13 tractors, most in action out in the fields or puttering down the highway
- 12 goats
- 8 roadside crosses/memorials
- 2 refrigerated pelmeni trucks
- 2 graveyards filled with colorful fake flowers
- 1 roadside tank memorial
- 1 church for sale
- Cafe "Luck", home to a giant red-and-white dotted teacup
Zhenia met us a McDonalds, at, in fact, the only McDonalds in Poltava. Er, I feel like I mention McDonalds too much on this blog. Please believe me- I'm not an addict! :p We grabbed a bite to eat and talked about National Geographic's recent foray into the Ukrainian market and Zhenia's heady days as a high school exchange student in the great state of Texas.
Leaving, we ran into Zhenia's roommate, another former TX exchange student. The four of us briefly conversed in a huddle. Behind us was McDonalds, and behind that, a tall, burned-out building that once openly produced umbrellas or secretly produced weapons, depending on who you ask.
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| Victory Day will be celebrated on May 9th. Note the billboard: We are proud of the great victory! 1941 - 1945. |
Zhenia's first executive decision of the day (minus meeting at McDonalds) was to get us all to a war museum. Travelling again by marshrutka, this involved catching two of them to get to our slightly out-of-the-way destination. At our first stop, a man approached us with great excitement.
"English! Where are you from? How long are you in Ukraine?"
He pointed at his traveling companion, a woman sitting on a bench who acknowledged us with a raised hand and a shy smile.
"We are... how you say...автостоп?"
"Hitchhiking" Zhenia told him.
"Oh, hitchhiking" he repeated back while pulling out his cell phone. "Please write for me."
Unfortunately the marshrutka pulled up at that exact moment and we were left calling out the letters to him as he quickly tried to memorize them.
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| Ladies, if you ever catch yourself thinking hmmm, should I re-do my manicure now or later, DO IT NOW :p Don't let this be you! |
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| I watched this potato seller do business outside the "Kiev market" while waiting for a marshrutka. |
