On flying in Ukraine
At the end of December my husband and I decided to go to visit my grandmother.
The dominant intercity form of transportation in Ukraine is the train. It is relatively comfortable, relatively cheap and relatively reliable. Unfortunately, my opinion is supported by the majority of locals. By the time I decided that it is the time to buy the tickets to go to Nikolaev where my grandmother lives, there were no tickets left. Everyone wanted to travel at the end of December and the only tickets available were in the third class. I could not torture myself, so I told my husband that I couldn’t torture him and bought the plane tickets.
On the day of the departure we arrived an hour in advance due to my usual paranoia of being late and missing the plane. We spend next hour awaiting the registration in a frozen airport. When the departure time arrive and the registration did not, I went to enquire about the flight. The airport manager had no idea about anything other than her make up, and certainly no idea about our flight. By that time we already met all 4 other passengers of our flight. As another hour passed we found out the plane is not going anywhere due to the fact the company who owns it did not pay the airport fees. The eventually found representative of the airline declared that money were paid but got lost on the way. The airport refused to let the plane go till the receive the cash.
My fellow passengers voted to change tickets to Odessa (town about two hours drive from Nikolaev) and take a taxi from there. After a half an hour of trying to get her computer on-line, the ticket sale clerk sweetly informed me that (1) I cannot change my tickets because I did not buy them there. I have to buy a new tickets at her office, and the airport manager can issue an official letter allowing the company that sold me my current ticket to issue a refund; and (2) flight to Odessa is full. One of the fellow travelers tried to calm me down with word: “Don’t you worry. We’ll just wait for the pilots to come and then talk to them. I once flew in a luggage compartment with 18 other people. Don’t worry, we’ll get to Odessa”.
From the flying in a luggage compartment we were saved by another fellow traveler, who happened to be a representative from Nikolaev in the state parliament, Verhovna Rada. He called the ministry of transportation and within half an hour the plane took off. On the way he told us a story that when the Ukrainian President Kuchma went to visit Nikolaev, the airport antenna was stolen just few hours prior to his arrival. Stealing objects made from non-ferrous metal and selling them is a major source of income all over Ukraine. Apparently the airport antenna looked too irresistible source of non-ferrous metal to pass up. Kuchma’s plane had to be landed by hand signals, since there were no way to communicate with the plane.
Our sky adventures were not over. Since I did not know when we are going to arrive I told my grandmother that there is no need to pick us from the airport, we can get a cab. Or so I thought. We landed at the huge gray cement box of an airport only to find it completely deserted. Ah old lady sitting at the registration desk was the only alive person in the building. Her response to our question where we can get a cab was encouraging: “Run fast, there are couple of cars at the entrance - may be you can catch one ad persuade them to take you”. As you can guess, there wasn’t a single car left near the entrance when we got there. From the front door all we could see was a beautiful field covered up to the horizon with white fluffy snow and not a single car in sight. Next five minutes passed in a discussion on how difficult would it be to walk four kilometers through the field to my grandmother’s house. My sun-loving husband was definitely not impressed with such perspective and neither was I. Fortunately, the gods were smiling at us and a car appeared from nowhere. The driver only looked at us and before we could plead him to drive us, told us to sit in the car till he checks in his sister to fly to Kyiv. In another ten minutes he drove us to the porch of grandma’s house. Thus, the travel was over.
P.S. On the way back, the flight departed without any trouble. The same people’s representative was flying back to Kyiv. Thank God for Ukrainian corruption!
©Lidia Bhaskar, 2003