It was on a four-hour bus journey from Kharkov to Dnipro that potential titles for this book drifted into my head. One I considered was “The Worst Country in the World?”. Even with the question mark at the end, this would have been far too negative and would not have been a fair reflection of the love I felt for Ukraine, its people and the city of Dnipro. By the end of the journey, I knew what the title would be.
The bus was an old short town-bus, like a marshrutka - no bigger than a minibus - with firm, upright seats, no seatbelts of course, and nowhere to put my suitcase (despite paying an additional 15 hryvna* for it). The only air conditioning was the driver's open window. But what did I expect for my 165-hryvna ride (about £5)?
I naively believed that because the road linking two of the biggest cities in Ukraine, Kharkov and Dnipro, was a major route, the road would not be unlike a British motorway. I also believed that the crater-strewn roads around Dnipro were probably a local problem and the government would have at least put some money into the national infrastructure. I was wrong on both counts.
The roads were ridged along almost the whole distance in the way that British roads are when they are being prepared for a final top coat of tarmac and the speed is restricted to 20mph until the contractors have completed the job. In Ukraine this is the permanent state of many of the roads, but worse than that - the roads are also pock-marked with holes, some huge, which cause the driver to veer wildly across the road to avoid them. At first when the bus lurched unexpectedly, I looked quickly out of the window to see what catastrophe had been avoided but I soon realised that the only obstructions were the craters in the road, but a catastrophe it would have been if one of the bigger ones had been hit at 60mph - the bus would not have progressed any further.
The necessity of deviating to avoid potholes is not without risk in itself. The Kharkov-Dnipro road is mainly just a two-lane affair and there is often little room for taking avoiding action.
On long journeys I like to read - real ink and paper that is, not electronic recreations - but on this bus, on this road, it was impossible. The vibration from the road meant that I couldn't keep the book still enough to focus on the words.
I looked around at my fellow passengers. They looked a grim lot, faces set, stoically accepting that the heat and discomfort was the necessary price to pay to reach their destinations. Some tried to doze, others just stared blankly ahead, one wore earphones, a young female had her eyes cast down at her phone. A guy in front of me took regular swigs from a large bottle of cider.
The bus stopped for a 15-minute break twice, at places unfamiliar to me. People climbed out of the bus to buy a cold bottle of drink or have a smoke or visit the toilet (cost 3 hryvna) or just to stand in the shade somewhere.
But despite the discomfort I enjoyed the journey. I was going "home" to my favourite city and I was very happy, but it did set me thinking about why I actually liked Ukraine. People would often ask me that, especially Ukrainians - why do you want to come here? It was asked with genuine disbelief - many people wanted to live someone else, anywhere but Ukraine. Britain was a kind of unreachable utopia for them. Why do you want to leave Britain? Why Ukraine? Why??!!!
As the bus bumped along towards its destination, my mind drifted on to the negative aspect of the question, why Ukraine - there was certainly plenty wrong with it. The state of the roads and the buses were relatively trivial matters but they were symptomatic of greater infrastructure problems and of more serious things such as corruption, political uncertainty, poverty, a government that is almost bankrupt, little foreign investment and fighting a war against forces backed by the biggest country in the world. Any one of these subjects would easily take up a whole chapter or even a book in themselves.
The journey for me ended a little prematurely. With half an hour of the scheduled journey still to go, the dry, open countryside gave way to buildings, and traffic slowed the progress of the bus. I had no idea where I was but suddenly I spotted the Karavan - a large shopping centre only a 15-minute walk from my flat. The bus stopped and I dashed to the back to retrieve my cumbersome suitcase and hauled it onto the hot pavement. Hello Dnipro, it was good to be back!
* hryvna = the Ukrainian currency
Note:
The spelling of this in English is a matter of some debate and is complicated by the fact that the spelling and pronunciation of this word is different in both the Russian and Ukrainian language. Not only that but both languages have rules which change the ending of the word depending on whether we are talking about one hryvna or between two and four, or five or more hryvna. For simplicity’s sake I have used one word to cover all. Briefly, a word about pronunciation: read it how you like but for me, the Russian version is easier, pronounced “greevna”.
At the moment, a hryvna is worth slightly less than three pence in British currency. There are 100 kopecks to one hryvna, so you can imagine how worthless a 10-kopeck coin is. The 5-kopeck coin was removed from circulation only a few years ago.
The hryvna was Ukraine’s currency in 1917 after the country briefly tore themselves away from Russian rule. Soon after, the country was again forced back into Russia’s sphere of influence into the Soviet Union and a new currency replaced hryvna. The currency was re-instated in 1996.