Journey Through the Mountains

I recently completed a journey from Zhytomyr in Central Ukraine to Rakhiv in the Carpathian Mountains. When my business was completed I then walked over the Ukrainian border at Solotvyno to Sighetu in Romania (home to the late Elie Wiesel). This trip I hope to discuss in further detail later. But the real Peace Corps part of the journey occurred when I returned to Ukraine and had to find my way back to Zhytomyr. Let's just say my journey did not take me the "way the crow flies"; unless the crow's radar is on the fritz.

My journey began at 5 AM when I woke up in Sighet and headed for the border. Of course I took a wrong turn and ended up half a mile away from the border crossing. When I finally found my way I had to hustle over the border in order to make my marshrutka (maxi-taxi). My path would take me from the town of Solotvyno to the city of Ivano-Frankivsk (IF). From IF I would take a train to the western city of Lviv and finally another train to Kyiv. My final leg would be a marshrutka ride from Kyiv to Zhytomyr. It would be a lot of traveling in the increasingly muggy summer weather. If all went well then my ride from Solotvyno to IF would take five hours and once that was over the rest of the trip would be a can of corn. This being Peace Corps, the "if" loomed large.

The good news is I made all my connections and the views of the mountains were great. Then there was the not unexpected bad news...the marshrutka ride. To understand the dynamics of the marshrutka is to understand Ukraine itself. There are certain unwritten rules that one is supposed to know (or quickly learn) when riding in a marshrutka. First, have patience because marshrutkas will stop at every other lamppost to pick up passengers. Like many things in Ukraine transportation is supposed to be workable but not necessarily efficient. Get in, squeeze on, and let the driver do his business. You get to your destination about on time but not necessarily in comfort. So, in order to make money the driver will squish on as many passengers as possible. People will be standing in the aisle and nearly hanging out the doors but no one will actively complain. Second, be ready for anything and anybody. Being a mountain route there were many farmers climbing aboard. This can mean they may have bags of vegetables they want to sell at market or perhaps they may be carrying a chicken in a cage. Luckily none of that happened here. But there were many smells emminating from around the marshrutka. Like in many countries bathing is not a daily routine so someone working in the fields all day...smells like somebody working in the fields all day. No judgements just a fact. You have to suck it up and try not to breathe too deeply. This leads to the most important rule....at any cost don't open the windows!

Closed windows on marshrutkas are the bane of Peace Corps Volunteers' existence. Every summer there is a reverberation down the spine of our collective back when the subject of marshrutka travel arises. Despite years of science and common sense that proves otherwise many (but far from all) Ukrainians believe that a cool breeze will make you ill. It's somewhat understandable in the cool weather when you are told to bundle up but in the summertime the same advice boggles the mind. So when you are on a marshrutka in the middle of the summer heat no one dares open a window even if the whole van is dying of heatstroke. If you dare to break this unspoken convention you run the risk of being chewed out by an old woman or an old man and perhaps a mother with a baby. I've always hoped I could improve my language skills so I could tell people that there are more germs multiplying in the heat than there are coming through he open window.

This was my experience as the marshrutka wound through the mountains towards IF. I was lucky enough to get a seat in the back but had to shove my backpack between my legs. To the right sat a young woman to the left, near the window, sat an old man. At first all was well: it was a cool morning and the roads were rather good. But as the sun rose higher, the roads got more curvy, and more people crammed on the marshrutka, the temperature spiked. As I looked to my right, the young woman dabbed her forehead with a napkin. I could see she was getting green around the gills. When she fished a plastic bag out of her purse I felt that it was car sickness time. But she hung on for hours as we all did. As I looked around the marshrutka I could see how miserable everyone looked, dripping with sweat under layers of clothes. Finally the woman asked the old man near the window to open it. He reluctantly agreed and made a lame attempt at opening the tiny window. I seized the opportunity and helped him get it open. For the next five minutes a cool breeze filled the back of the marshrutka. Then the old man shut the window! I was not surprised but I was still upset. Finally people were feeling better and he let old superstitions take hold. I didn't even attempt to speak in Ukrainian and went after him in English but to no avail. Did anyone else attempt to say anything? Of course not. Perhaps fear of questioning the wisdom of an elder overtook them but either way we had to sit in the ever-festering heat for two more hours. I did the only thing I could do - I gave him the stink eye the rest of the way!

This is just a 'mildly crowded' marshrutka,

Foot bridge from Solotvyno, Ukraine to Sighet Marmatiei, Romania. 

Jesus statue right before the Ukrainian border crossing into Romania (are they telling us something?)

Neatly organized haystack as seen on both sides of the border. 

Carpathians in Ukraine

Mountain Houses