Pan-Europe Voyage

We when had finished serving out our sentences in Russia and were released, my friends Tom, Nat and I decided to go back to England via the European railways. It was a four-day voyage that took us from Russia to Ukraine, then on to Germany through Poland and a brief stop in Belgium before finishing off in London St. Pancras.

This is a short account of our trip.

We said our goodbyes to our landladies and friends and got ourselves to the station. Some of our friends saw us off with hugs and waves and good intentions. We had some supplies with us as well. I myself had a litre of water, some M&Ns and some Haribo dinosaurs. Tom’s landlady had bestowed a cool bag of stuff for him; what seemed to be a whole dead pig in ham form, a colossal wedge of cheese and a hunk bread. All of it ingeniously kept cool with bottles of frozen water and some beers. Clearly I brought the useful, healthy amenities. We got ourselves sorted out in our coupe that we shared with a grumpy looking but quite affable Ukrainian man who was homeward bound and set off for Kiev at eight o’clock.

Voronezh – Kiev

As we were quite dazed and euphoric about leaving home, the first few hours of our seventeen-hour slog yielded many random and I daresay stupid comments and scenarios from everyone. You know the kind that someone says (or does), which is followed by a short pause as the lunacy sinks into the minds of those present, before guffaws and snorts of incredulity are emitted. We decided from the off that every time someone said or did something stupid it was to be noted down along with the exact time. Needless to say this got more and more intermittent as we lost interest and focus and slept. However here is what we gathered, as little as it may be.

20:16 – Bored. Take out shortbreads + pretend to be Scottish

20:36 – Pensive silence as we look out of window

20:38 – ‘Pastry beard’ – Tom, of Nat wielding pastry near her chin

20:41 – ‘Dream envy’ – Of Nat’s dreams

20:49 – ‘All the dinosaurs are going the same way so they can’t fight’ – me of my Haribo dinosaurs

21:00 – ‘You know when you see a field and you think…I could be in the middle of that’ – Tom, on fields

21:12 – ‘Chickens are funny creatures’ – Nat, pondering poultry

21:22 – Accidentally hand out secret questions and answers to bank account…insurance now void

06:30 – Border crossing

11:12 – ‘That’s f***king gay and bitch for battys!’ – Tom angry about something

Essentially pointless but it provided us with some mirth on this long and thirsty leg of our trip – I, for some reason, had thought it was only seven hours to Kiev and was rightly a bit miffed when I was told to add an extra ten hours and realised I only had one litre of water. Despite this clearly canyon wide gap in my intelligence, we arrived at Kiev safely and surely at one o’clock in the afternoon on the 25^th, eager to stretch our legs in the capital for a few hours until evening.

First thing we did was head, using Tom’s good positional sense of underground geography, towards the monstrous statue we glimpsed on the train whilst entering the city. We took the metro to somewhere in the right direction and started walking along the river towards the wooded area that surrounded the statue. As we ascended the verdant hillside we stumbled upon a large church complex that was all domes and iridescent gold. It was, with later help from wikipedia roaming, the ‘Kiev Monastery of the Caves’ and is a UNESCO World Heritage Site no less. It contains numerous architectural titbits from bell towers to cathedrals to underground caves and fortified walls. We passed, not quite effortlessly, through the complex complex on towards the statue, which was nestled on the far side of the ‘National Museum of the History of the Great Patriotic War of 1941-1945’. The memorial complex itself covers about 25 acres on a hill overlooking the Dnieper River. There is the ‘Glory Flame’ (a massive torch), a site with old WWII equipment and vehicles and the boldly named ‘Alley of the Hero Cities’, which is a broad, open air walkway lined with statues and monuments culminating in a large sculpture in memory of the 1943 Battle of the Dnieper, two brightly coloured ‘hippy tanks’ and the statue of the Motherland herself. She stands at 62m on a base that raises her to a full height of 102m. She wields a 16m sword that weighs 9 tons and she also sports a 13m by 8m shield that bears the coat of arms of the Soviet Union. She is fully metallic and she shines bright in the sun, though is hooded and heavy with shadows in the shade. All in all she is magnificent.

After loitering beneath her mighty self for quite a while we decided we should head back leisurely in order to get to T.G.I Friday’s for dinner. We decided to walk a new, unknown way back into the town, seeming to forget that capital cities tend to be quite large. Knackered and sweaty we finally chanced upon a metro station that took us to the correct metro station – the grand ‘Independence Square’ – for the restaurant. However we then struggled, with some now apparently inadequate directions, to find the place itself. We proceeded to walk ten minutes up a beautiful main street, then back again, then ask for directions, find out we were looking for a slightly differently named square than we thought, then back down the road again until we found the right one. We then stuffed ourselves silly and waddled out. After a brief and relatively joyless interlude at a games arcade we made our way back to the main Kiev station in order to start our overnight ordeal.

You see, we had thought, perhaps unwisely, that instead of getting a youth hostel overnight – given that we had an eight o’clock – we could just sleep on the chairs in the main station for a few hours, which would be free. However it soon dawned on us that every cheap-arse commuter in Kiev had the same plan and there were no free seats – apart from one or too wedged in between a large, slumbering woman with drool making its descent slowly down her chin and a man who looks like he would rather punch you in the face and take your money than have a conversation. We trundled along with the most ridiculously heavy bags in existence and found a free strip of marble floor along one of the two main thoroughfares by the windows. This already was a bit irksome, but then Yura joined us.

Yura was an exceptional drunk creature who decided to bug us on and off for our 9 hour stint on the floor. Just as we settled down and got comfortable he wandered over with a bag and sat with us. He sat next to Nat. Tom was by Nat and I was on the far right so I didn’t have to talk to him. Nat did the very English action of humouring him, smiling and nodding politely to his slurred concoction of English and Ukrainian. He then asked if he could leave his bag with us while he popped outside. Twenty minutes later he came back and sat and jabbered away at us again. He went and came back again with another bag, and again and again, coming back drunker each time. We were starting to get annoyed by this behaviour as we needed to get some shuteye, but we put up with it. Then he started to get very annoying by serenading Nat and professing his love for her. He would then go and come back with some bread and vodka saying we should eat and drink.

‘No thanks’ we said, ‘really, we’re fine thankyou’

When the clock hands wandered past two o’clock, the camel’s back collapsed and the straw floated away. We tried to lie down in the sleep position in order to send a large hint, but he still came over, knelt down and mumbled away at us – his hot breath reeking of alcohol and poor manners. Nat got most of the bother because this old, crusty fifty/sixty something ‘loved’ her. He clearly did because after an hour respite from three to four o’clock he arrived back, Nat pretending to be asleep, asking to speak with Nancy! He came back once when we were genuinely on the brink of sleep and this pissed us off. We now plainly ignored him – he sat there giggling and musing on his life and the people he probably didn’t know – hoping awfully that he would decide to trundle off once more and try to stop a train with his face. He then left with his bags of cans and drink for a large period and we thought that was it.

How wrong we were.

Nat and Tom were at the loos when he came back and focussed his verbal prowess on me. It was 5:45-6 o’clock when he waddled up and explained how I should take his daughter’s number and come and visit them at his house by the sea (probably Black Sea), where there were lots of fish and mushrooms and forests. I smiled and nodded dumbly, wishing he’d stop breathing on me. He asked if I had paper and a pen. Of course I did, I’d been studying in a university for God’s sake.

‘No I don’t I’m afraid’, I said

He nodded slowly and then walked away down the walkway, talking to everyone he bumped into, clearly asking for the implements he needed to provide me with contact information for the most enticing holiday prospect ever.

About ten minutes later he came back, which disappointed me greatly as I had hoped that Nat and Tom would come back (clearly the bastards were pissing as slowly as they could) or that Yura had decided he could fly and had flung himself off the building. But no, here he was again. He proudly displayed to me the biro he’d acquired.

‘Still no paper though…’ I offered helpfully. He nodded intently and meandered off once more. I rubbed my forehead in strained disbelief. A couple of minutes later Tom came back, ‘Nat’s hiding downstairs looking at the times’, and was joined seconds later by Yura wielding a washing powder box. Tom looked on incredulous as our drunk proceeded to rip the box to shreds and then write a number down on one of the flaps of cardboard he had deemed fit for this information.

We accepted with a knowing smile and a thankyou and ignored him again. He said his goodbyes and finally left at 6:15. We’d had no sleep, but took advantage of his absence and legged it down to the platform that had finally come up on the board.

At eight o’clock after hauling our seventeen-ton bags downstairs, we boarded the twenty-five hour Kashtan train to Berlin – the longest leg of our trip.

Kiev – Berlin

The compartment on this train was far narrower than the one on the previous train, which made storing our six bags and ourselves a rather irritating and tricky process. But we got it done and we soon pulled down our rack of three beds – one on top of the other – and caught up on the sleep we so needed now thanks to Yura’s antics. We went to sleep until it was time for our border check for entry out of Ukraine and into Poland at 16:52. When we were leaving Ukraine we had to have a massive pit stop as they changed the wheels on the bottom of the whole train – for narrower rail tracks in Europe – by raising the whole thing up on stilts and running the old wheels out from under it and rolling the new ones in. Then we were travelling to Poland with its stunning flat, open grassland to look at.

18:05 – We played Fight Plane Challenge. Tom, in the Kiev station, had randomly bought a fit together plane with flashing lights and noises. The idea of the challenge was to see how quickly you could assemble the six-part plane from box to complete plane. Bronze medal went to a certain Thomas Harley of Great Britain with an average of 18.91 seconds, silver medal to Natalie Varnier of Holland with an average of 18.19 seconds, but gold medal went to Luke Darracott of Great Britain with an average of 17.40 seconds. It was completely childish but it kept us amused for about five minutes.

19:05 – Border control into Poland proper. Armed guards came onto our carriage and caught a cigarette smuggler, who had been hiding cigarettes in his compartment, behind the skirting board of the corridor and in the bin in the toilet. Hundreds and hundreds of cheap Russian cigarettes were confiscated and he was taken off…probably shot.

19:25 – Get our passports back and the armed border lady takes a shine to Tom’s surname. In Ukrainian she chuckled ‘Oh, Harley…like the bike’. We liked her.

We finally got to Berlin early the following morning on the 27^th after spending a nice night on the Kashtan.

In Berin we put away our bags in left luggage as usual and went off into Berlin, which I have decided is in my top five cities list.

1. Bath, UK
2. St. Petersburg, Russia
3. Berlin, Germany
4. Moscow, Russia
5. Hong Kong

This is all subject to change by the way.

We showered for the first time in two days at the insane Haupmanhoff station and revelled in the return of nice mannered, polite people. We then went off, with Tom as our guide, to act like complete tourists for the day.

First we glimpsed the magnificent Reichstag building, the Brandenburg Gate and the Holocaust memorial, where it was strange to hear our mother tongue spoke so freely. Then we checked out Checkpoint Charlie – see what I did there – and after that took the metro to Potsdammer Plass to have a meal of bacon and eggs with baked beans. After wasting some time in the Lego Discovery Centre we went to watch a film (Forgetting Sarah Marshall) as it had started raining and we needed to pass the time until dinner. Before our Cantonese meal we saw the Marx and Engels statue, the TV tower, a massive cathedral and the marine museum shop, then we took the metro back to the Haupmanhoff station and boarded the Deutschbahn to Belgium.

Berlin – Brussels

Our train to Brussels was an eight-hour overnight train in a compartment of six. The problem, right from the off, was firstly that it was cramped and secondly that, being an overnight journey, we would want/need to sleep and we couldn’t in the sit up seats we were in. We sat. We looked out the windows. We talked. Then we tried to sleep. Nat couldn’t. Tom and I only slept for a few hours before we decided, whilst rubbing our cricked necks, that we might as well ‘get up’ and change into the touristy t-shirts we purchased at Charlie’s checkpoint. And so we arrived at Brussels-midi…one of the worst main stations in the world.

It took us over an hour to find exact Euro change for the left luggage machines in a station where all the shops were not open early in the morning. I had to buy some tictacs with a twenty Euro note to disapproving looks from the person working behind the till. Every other left luggage machine/system we had used in the other countries gave change or had a person working there to help you out. On noticing this annoyance Nat muttered ‘the French clearly designed this place’. Having spent half a year in Paris with the appalling stations there, she was probably right.

So we had a drizzly, grey moaning couple of hours in Brussels. It wasn’t enough time to see anything worthwhile so we wandered around the area near the station. We had a very nice breakfast at a little eatery – that seemed to be the only one open at seven in the morning – and looked around at the buildings and a market for about two hours. Then we had to get back to the station, retrieve our bags, and sort out our Eurostar tickets.

Belgium – England

Not much to say here really. It was with great anticipation and excitement that we sat, scrunched into the tight Eurostar seats, looking forward to the prospect of dear England’s great, green bosom greeting us on the other side of the Channel tunnel. Whilst in the tunnel we timed the exact twenty-minute journey time through it and smiled contentedly at the chirpy, sunny faces around us. We noted two ladies – strangers to each other – who after five minutes of talking about the weather were swapping stories about their daughter’s new baby and their husband’s new electric shaver adapter and whatnot and suchlike. It seemed a shame that we were stuck with a haughty nosed, sour-faced Belgium gentleman who was reading ‘La Merde’ or ‘Le Frog’ and had ridiculously long legs.

We slid into London St. Pancras and launched ourselves with glee back into our most favourite and lovely and perfect country, nodding happily to the police and officials, coming to terms with the truth that we were finally, after months away, HOME.

The End Of All Things

‘In England we never entirely mean what we say, do we? Do I mean that? Not entirely. And logically it follows that when we say we don’t mean what we say, only then are we entirely serious’ – Alan Bennett (from The Old Country)

‘We should look long and carefully at ourselves before we consider judging others’ – Molière

‘No one can be as calculatedly rude as the British, which amazes Americans who do not understand studied insult and can only offer abuse as a substitute’ – Paul Gallico

‘No chord, nor cable can so forcibly draw, or hold so fast, as love can do with a twined thread’/ ‘You know, of course, that the Tasmanians, who never committed adultery, are now extinct’ – Robert Burton/ William Somerset Maugham

‘She’s beautiful, and therefore to be woo’d;

She is a woman, therefore to be won.’ – William Shakespeare

Not the usual low-quality poetry I know, but I thought I would put up some quotes that, on looking back on my time here in Voronezh, have all been very and all too relevant – especially in the last few weeks.

I mentioned in my last literary outing that I had a new American staying with me; well he stayed, along with the ten others – in different places of course – for two weeks or so. We didn’t see much of them while they were here due to the fact that they were studying at a different campus. However we did go out for drinks with them now and then. One such evening was on the День России or ‘Russia Day’, which is a holiday of national unity celebrated on June 12^th. On this day, in 1990, Russian parliament formally declared its sovereignty. The holiday was officially established in 1994. Initially it was named “Day of the adoption of the Declaration of Sovereignty of the Russian Federation”, which was crap and pointless basically so on 1^st February 2002 it was officially renamed to “Russia Day”…and it’s not very good.

A watered down version of the goings on during the Victory Day proceedings met us on Lenin Square. A lot of drunk people, a few stalls selling plastic tat, a stage – the same one used for the aforementioned V-day that had sat desolate on the square for a month – that hosted some truly abysmal acts also greeted us. However, unlike the patriotic grandeur and madness of victory day, the modestly named Russia day was as limp as Elton John’s wrist but not as musically potent. Anyway, we endured it for the sake of our American brethren, knowing that at some point there would be fireworks. There were. They were magnificent. A rising, ever-improving crescendo of explosions and colours boomed and splashed across the sky. At the climax the largest rockets detonated and made the heavens bright and our ears throb, whilst the Russian national anthem (one of the best in the world) pounded out of the speakers. Having learnt the words in our singing classes, we sang along and, even though we weren’t Russians, our hearts swelled somewhat. So, in conclusion, it was a triumphant end to a somewhat uninspiring ‘day’ – more of an evening. Much drinking and mirth followed the fireworks…we joined in of course.

Nights of little sleep, many glasses full of beer, hearty laughs and broken Russian conversations later the Americans had to leave for Moscow. We said our goodbyes and resigned ourselves to loneliness for the last two weeks.

There was an air of anticipation, as there always is near the end of these things, permeating through every action of daily life. The last two weeks really did tick along as normal. Nothing particularly out of the ordinary or notable happened. We had a final meal at Golf Tee Club, then a second final meal at Gulliver’s. We spent many nights in the pub watching the football tournament – my Italy eventually being kicked out by the dirty Spaniards. I continued working away diligently on my ridiculous essay in a vain attempt to reach the outrageous word count. Then we decided to go to the beach.

When I say beach, I’m sure the first image that flittered into view in your mind was of a sandy beach, it’s golden grains glowing in the sun, while the sea surf slaps at the shore. Or maybe it was a serene, shiny shingle scenario situated south of Shoreham. Ok I’m being an arse but the ‘beach’ in Voronezh isn’t really a beach. It’s a arm of sand that lies by the eerily still waters of the Voronezh reservoir…not sea.

Even though rain was clearly imminent in the sky – you know when it’s just looks angry and visually it’s a smudgy black/grey carpet of cloudy doom – we still decided a beach bbq was in order. So in two shifts we purchased a fair whack of burgers, buns, beers, crisps, and material things such as one-use bbqs, tongs, and a cool bag. We had two teams (due to the two shifts) barbequing. One team was Chris, Silvia and myself (team elite), and the other team was everyone else (team burn holes through one-use bbqs, not cook food properly, and generally suck at the tricky task of basically setting fire to meat until you can eat it). My team enjoyed a swift succession of unfairly tasty burgers, whilst team-crap struggled in vain to even get their fires going. Their downfall attributed to the fact that Sean had gone to fetch his girlfriend, which left Tom and the girls in charge. Sean, on his return, courageously tried to fix the situation with heroic levels of fan-flapping and tong tactics. The girls sat there saying it was Tom’s fault. Tom grumbled…even when he got his beer and burger. My team sat there, staying out of the way of the pandemonium safe in the knowledge that we had won. All we had to put up with were insults and incredulous cries as to how well we did and to how diplomatic we were with dishing out food and ketchup. Did I mention all of this was done in the rain and under an umbrella?

After eating we played beach football as the sun set. The buildings glittered, the empyrean burned and a rainbow arched over the sky – we saw the whole semicircle. Sean started a bonfire then all of us boys did what we do best…shirtless we strode into the nearby woods to find dead stuff to burn. Stuff that once was tree crackled on the fire as it grew in might and power. We talked and smiled as the embers glowed. Frogs and crayfish frittered about in the shallows of the reservoir. A distant thunderstorm growled in the distance as flashes of yellow lightning punctured the clouds. It was immensely pleasant.

A whole day without any water. No water for the Voronezh region. Rubbish, old pipes does this to a country said my landlady as she gasped incredulous that I live three hours from London. Cafes had to serve food on plastic plates…with plastic knives and forks. What a mess.

Went to the old book market with Laura and picked up ‘Elementary English’ (1948 and full of communist propaganda) for 80p after explaining to the man selling (who kept trying to speak to me in Italian) that I was an English student. As I left, he trundled up to me and offered me a 1938 soldier’s English-Russian war dictionary for £1. Obviously I bought it. Two remarkable soviet relics for under £2…bargain!

We ended our time at the university with some, rather stupid, ‘exams’. Old Vadim gave us a choice: either a сочинение (a small essay) изложение (exposition). I chose the former as I had already done it, as had Chris and Helen. The others, thinking it the easier option, chose the latter. We handed in our written pieces and were done with it. The others were taken into a room and were read a short story twice and then had to re-write it as best they could. In other words it was impossible. The next day, due to the unprecedented amount of errors in the изложение works, he decided the whole class should do it. As we started, we protested feebly as to its impossibility. The old man grumbled and gave us a gulag-sending look and decided to do a dictation –pointless. After that we then spoke about what we had just read/written, which was our oral test. The following Monday we had a very hard grammar test on verb aspect (imperfectives and perfectives) – Russian students you’ll know what I mean when I say it’s hard.

The very last day we had a small party in our honour, though earlier then planned as Tom, Nat and I were leaving a few days early in order to travel home through Europe by train. Cakes, sweets, cheese and champagne adorned the tables. There were toasts – I made one, being the ‘group leader’ and all – songs and certificate presentations and lastly goodbyes. And that was it. That was the end of our time at the Voronezh State University. I have to admit I didn’t feel too sad. Partly because I wasn’t really the same kind of student there as I was when in Spain and partly I wasn’t sad to say goodbye to anyone, as they were all the Bath lot. With the exception of Irina the secretary I had no emotional link to that part of the university. We also said goodbye to the great Luba and the magnificent Katya at the foreign languages faculty. Without their help we would have been sleeping in boxes outside, beaten up by the militsia, fined about £5000 for some stamp that we had forgotten to get at the public toilets after using them, or been deported back to the UK.

The end of all things. The end of Russia. The end of my Year abroad experience. It was the one of the best years of my life. Russia was one of the best experiences of my life. It contained the best and worst times. I saw the beauty in people and the nastiness in people. I learnt a lot about everyone, about myself, about the way things work. I matured. I have been on the tops of mountains, underneath waterfalls, establishing lasting connections and sampling new culinary delights. But I have also seen the darkness in people, been low and confused, not quite loved and lost, and had to deal with having a bucket shower. But this is life. This is real. Spain as much as I loved it was a four and a half month holiday with lectures. Russia was a different beast entirely. Russia was gritty, raw, remarkable and surreal. And we lived it. I lived it. And I’m better because of it.

The year abroad experience is one of the greatest things you can and will do. You won’t regret it. And if you ever moan or feel like giving up just remember to tell yourself to shut up and look at how lucky you are.

The End