picking cichorium

Boryspil Airport, Ukraine, together with Aerosvit Airlines, Ukraine, the beacons of customer care, should win an award for the poignant jokes all over the place.

[Ex]change your baby for a new and improved model, take some “fluid soap,” wash it down the drain with water, not coffee or juice (apparently Aerosvit is fighting some sort of a precedent) and don’t flush your towel. To come in, always “push door open for.” In case you had second thoughts about bringing your towel on board of a plane, think again, for Aerosvit is clearly considerate of the common intergalactic travel practices.

I have looked up “airport awards” in Google, and www.airlinequality.com does not have a category “The Wittiest” (I will complain). Instead they list customer comments. Some Westerner writes

“Have used terminals A and B on a regular basis. Things are improving but for a country of this size Borispol is a poor introduction to the Ukraine. It will grow over the next few years and hopefully by 2012 it might be adequate for the international traveller. Staff speak little English which is bizarre as the many times I have been there it is often filled with English speaking customers! I have never had a problem with the toilets in terminal B but A is different, too small and not cleaned very often. The bus ride to the planes in winter can be like sardines in an icebox – be warned! Passport control is all about knowing the system, on my first visit it took me over an hour. I then learnt to jump the lines and got it down to 10 minutes, standing in line for anything is not the Ukraine way, pushing to the front is acceptable. To avoid taxi sharks learn a little Russian, and they leave you alone, never had a problem. Finally, it is a developing country give it time and it will come good, overall Borispol is OK, crowded, noisy, too small with little Western style ideas of customer service – accept these things and you will be fine. ”

What can I say, my Western friend, just like many of us, learn some Ukrainian or Russian and stay away from the Terminal A! Plus it’s “Ukraine,” not “the Ukraine,” so learn English as well while you are at it.

Lastly, this website is in the business of foretelling a horrid future for all of Eastern Europe. Beware, the world!

“In the next few years, Boryspil will actas a central hub for Eastern Europe with hundreds of flights and thousands of passengers daily. If you ever land at Boryspil, you will be positively surprised at the modern infrastructure, pleasant atmosphere, and regulated climate – all of this brought to you by the controller systems from B&R.”

Thanks, B&R, please don’t bring me anything.

a collection from my travels this fall.  Hyderabad airport, India. I thought this was cute and reflected my state of mind, considering the Kingfisher jet in the background  Cochin, India. Dutch people never stop smiling. Great to know.  Boryspil airport, Ukraine. No wonder the West thinks all Ukrainians are drunks.  Boryspil airport, Ukraine. You are completely on your own with this one.

I completely forgot to post this executive summary of Ukraine that I was enlightened with during my stay in Kiev.  Enjoy.

Awaiting the beheading

A complete summary of Ukrainian life as of today can be found in the first chapter of Bulgakov’s “Master and Margarita.” Even trying to order sashimi at the fancy Buddha Bar in the down town Kiev where a champagne bottle goes for $1000 ended with the waiter coming back to inform that there was no yellow tail. Choices one, two and three were also unavailable. Shortly,out of the 9 kinds of fish on the menu, you could get only 5, one of them being raw shrimp (bleh).

- Дайте нарзану, – попросил Берлиоз.
- Нарзану нету, – ответила женщина в будочке и почему-то обиделась.
- Пиво есть? – Сиплым голосом осведомился Бездомный.
- Пиво привезут к вечеру, – ответила женщина.
- А что есть? – Спросил Берлиоз.
- Абрикосовая, только теплая, – сказала женщина.
- Ну, давайте, давайте, давайте!..

Here is the same in my free translation, written especially for our no-Russian-understanding friends

- Some seltzer, please, – asked Berlioz.
- There is none, – answered the woman in the kiosk, and, for some reason, got offended.
- Do you have beer? – Bezdomny enquired in a hoarse voice.
- Beer’s being delivered later this evening,- the woman replied.
- Well what do you have? – Berlioz asked the woman.
- Apricot water, only it’s warm.
- All right, all right, we will have that!..

Caught in a downpour of merciless autumn rain in Poltava, Ukraine, I ran into the first café I noticed.  There I found a not-so-cozy seat on a tall stool overlooking one of the main streets. The street is nothing special, just streams of water and cars. Fortunately the interior design of the place is entertaining an array of thoughts; a personification of one sociological phenomenon of Eastern Europe, it has hit an old wound. The blue sign over the sky scraper on the decoration announces “SIGNORITA BIKINI & GODZILLA,”and the bubble above the girl’s head states in Ukrainian “A road to a man’s heart.”

Women’s position in Ukraine infuriates and puzzles me. I observe left and right various manifestations of female objectification; it jumps at me even from the high school courses and national news edition! Women are often simply an entertainment, an aid or a potential sexual partner for the night. “You cannot come dance at a club for fun, females are only let in if they look and behave like they want to be picked up,” complains a female friend who lives in Kiev. Many girls are raised with “X or nobody will take you as a wife,” where X may vary from a necessity to look a certain way or to perform a certain housekeeping duty. Caring for a man and pleasing a man seems to be among top priorities of a girl. Wearing clothing on the borderline between sexy and slutty even to a workplace at a bank or school is a norm. No wonder I hear from the foreigners that Eastern European women are the best: they are hot and well kept, they cook and clean, they raise children and don’t say a word against their husbands’ whims – a mix of Barbie dolls with vacuum cleaners.
On the other hand, often working with the teenagers, I have noticed that mostly girls take acute interest in extra school work and non-traditional educational opportunities, mostly girls show up to talks and presentations, mostly girls take top ranking spots in their schools. Why then, 10 years down the road, it is men who run the majority of businesses, make most money and constitute the majority of the political force in the country? When and how do these social groups swap the roles? I might have stumbled on an answer in a conversation with a recently married female friend. She had a hard time switching jobs after marriage since the new employer has pointed out to her that he would prefer for her to stay away from having children. Childbearing seems to knock most women completely out of the labor market.
Not once and not twice did I observe a godzilla strolling down the street with a hottie 20 cm taller and/or 20 years younger than him. Where these couples are an exception on the streets of New York or Berlin, they seem to be a typical sight in Kiev. Strangely, the early soviet ideological writings and practices highlighted women’s equality as comrades; looks like not only the economic beliefs have gone extinct in Eastern Europe over the last 90 years.

Ukraine greeted me with cold weather, absence of my suitcase for days, and forever-angry sales ladies. So far I have been yelled at with my every purchase. Yesterday, for example, I tried to pay for some face cream with a credit card and was asked for a PIN. I politely explain that I have not requested a PIN for this credit card – it does not exist. As a response the sales lady started screaming that every “plastic card” has a PIN and offered to bring hers to demonstrate. Five minutes into my stubbornness, i.e. the actual lack of the PIN, she was forced to change the way she was executing the transaction, and, voila, a receipt for signature sans entering a PIN emerged.

As of today, technology and its usage was the most frustrating part. I needed to email out 15 proofread essays to our students and brought a USB drive to the internet café, to which I was told that they “do not work with the USB devices” and was asked to bring a floppy disk (??!!!) Another saddening factor is my non-working blackberry. I have dutifully researched the GPRS coverage in Ukraine, found a press release about MTS covering Ukraine with GRPS since this summer, called up T-Mobile and enabled the international berry plan. After landing I have discovered that MTS does have a very good coverage, just not the GPRS one. The phone sees the GPRS network, but it does not function once you go 10 km outside of Kiev and Boryspil.

Even dogs on the streets are angrily-neurotic and do not apply reason to their actions. Yesterday I saw a pack of 5 large animals calmly strolling in the street.  Suddenly, when passing one of many cars, one of the dogs turned around, barked at the vehicle and continued on its course. I have been perplexed for a while, getting on and riding in a falling-apart bus.