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Published: November 29th 2007
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Monument in Lvov
The Monument on Lvov's main street... The Journey to Lvov
I just about made the train in Krakow and had a pretty uncomfortable journey to the border town of Przemsyl. The small carriage was packed for the 4 and a half hour journey. The atmosphere was imposed by the guy sitting beside me, a massive man with ape-like features who was listening to bad techno on cheap headphones at maximum volume. He was rigid with sitting legs splayed out, and his heavy breathing filled the carriage. In his shadow sat two old ladies, and facing us sat 3 upright, very conservatively dressed, clean, neat and obviously religious girls in their 30s. I took some nap time, read and wrote my journal, and very soon we were at Przemysl.
There were two onwards trains to Lvov in Ukraine, one leaving in 1 hour fifteen, the other in 2 and a half. I thought I'd get the earlier one, the woman at the station told me all trains to Lvov left platform 4 and you could get your ticket at the platform. I didn't investigate, figuring it'd be no problem if I missed the train, there was another. Grabbed a cheeseburger and a coffee and a diner where
I encountered two other travellers, a Belgian called Olivier and an Aussie called Rachel, travelling to Kyiv. We chat and munch, and with about 15 mins to spare I head for my train (they already have through tickets for sleeper cars on the later one, as its going all the way to Kyiv).
Platform 4 is actually an entirely different station about 5 mins down the road, as it turns out, and I'm already on the back foot when I enter the tiled lobby which closely resembles a toilet. The scene's quite chaotic, theres a group of people, mostly old ladies, encircling a busy woman at a ticket desk who has a machine thats printing tickets very slowly. It seems obvious that I won't be getting on this train, but I should get tickets for the later train, so I fan out my elbows and join the crowd. On the other side of the ticket office there's a door labeled
Departures with an EU flag on it, guarded by two soldiers, and a clock beside it. The crowd gets increasingly frantic as the time approaches 18.15 on this clock, shouting in foreign tongues at the ticket woman.
One old lady is standing in the door way as the time approaches, shouting at another old lady who's currently being sold a ticket. She's still there when 18.15 arrives and the soldier shouts sometime, she replies. Its clear he's going to close the door, but she must be waiting for her friend to finish buying the tickets. The soldier shouts again, but she pleads, grabbing his jacket. He pushes her aside, but she persists, blocking the door once more. She shouts at her friend at the desk but you can barely hear it over the shouts of the others in the room, including the ticket lady, all directed at the soldier! The noise is deafening thanks to the tiles. Another soldier comes out the door to investigate, wearing a huge hat. He evaluates the situation immediately, draws his truncheon and clobbers the old lady out of the way. The crowd shouts louder as he pulls his colleague in the door and slams it closed.
After a few minutes the crowd pipes down and disperses, and a few minutes later I'm served by the tired looking ticket lady, who offers me two prices for tickets to Lvov on this train. I pick the cheaper (at 40 zlotys) and get a ticket. Heading back to the cafe, I meet up with Rachel and Olivier and tell them what happened, and we agree to leave at least 45 minutes before departure for platform 4.
Check in is much more peaceful this time, although my battered passport gets thoroughly scrutinized by the guard who had previously clobbered the old woman. Since we're all in different wagons, we say goodbye at customs and agree to meet at the restaurant car when the train gets going. My wagon is what I now know to be a 'Plascarte' wagon. This means its basically like a mobile dormitory. An open car containing about 60 beds stacked vertically in small partitioned areas. There's only minimum light when the train's not moving, since the main lights seem to be powered by some sort of alternator, and I'm wishing I'd brought a flashlight. There's no way out of the car at either end, so I won't be seeing Olivier and Rachel again. The car is mostly empty and there's a couple of technicians checking the panels as we journey on. We stop for an hour at some sort of other checkpoint, and my passport's examined again, and shortly after 12.00 I arrive at Lvov.
Lvov train station's damn impressive. The reception area is made of high vaulted marble and Soviet marching music plays as we enter off the train. Outside it spills onto a large, black-cobbled boulevard that glistens on the light of the station. There's clearly no public transport running so I negotiate a taxi to the hostel for 30 glivnas (about 4 euros). The drive into the town's amazing, this place is beautiful. All the streets are paved with black stone, the buildings are imposing and gothic, but badly maintained, and the centre of the town is a wide boulevard with grand old statues harking to a communist age, and fluorescent lights reflected in the glistening paving. The taxi man's been great, so I tip generously.
I'm greeted at the hostel by a hurried young lady who barely speaks English, who checks me in quickly and says she's off clubbing. I ask if I can go with and buy her a drink, and she seems pleased, so we hop in another taxi. Her name is Marushka she tells me and soon we're at a door that looks like the entrance to a kitchen! Turns out its an underground nightclub, she pays the girls rate and I pay the boys rate and in we go. The place is cavernous, there's a hall of R'n'B, one of Ukrainian pop and a third of old-skool dance, interspersed with various chillout rooms. I can see now where Europe's hooker supply comes from, most of the girls are dressed like we would think of stereotypical hookers, and many of the guys like drug dealers!
Marushka introduces me to two other hostel guests, an Aussie and a Macedonian (zdravo!) and heads off, and we enjoy a few vodkas and beers and some dancing. After a while the dance music bores me, and I explore some other rooms, and the R'n'B room is now playing Beastie Boys! A few vodkas have eased my dance moves and quickly I'm tete-a-tete with a stunning, tall Ukrainian girl called Natalie, and it seems English is one of her many talents. Other guests are quickly forgotten, and soon we're back in the kitchen-like reception with our coats on the way to the door.
Later, I'm pleased to find the compass from Krakow is still with me, and to know 'Opera House' in Ukrainian and surprisingly it proves sufficient to help me back to the hostel in the dawn twilight in this totally foreign town...
13th October
Up too early for my liking and have a brief shower (there's no running water in the hostel during the day apparently, its all stored in tanks, so they request short showers) and take a look around Lvov. All day. Breakfast is some random food I order by pointing at the menu, turns out to be potato dumplings with sour cream, really nice. Coffee is the same in every language 😊
Get some point-and-order sandwiches, and struggle with the Cyrillic alphabet and Ukrainian in order to get my hands on a train ticket for Kyiv that night. Eventually figure it out, this time I get a couchette, it's not much more expensive. Back to the hostel, Marushka recommends a place for dinner, and where to buy some warm clothes, then the long walk back to the station. There, I have a broken (and very hand-wavy) conversation about the origin of the Celts with an old guy, and I get the comfy couchette to Kyiv...
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