Day 17-18: The Way to Kiev

Moscow-Kiev: Approx. 530 miles.
Total distance traveled since Vladivostok: 7252 miles.

With Lance and his family safe on their way, it was time for Dad and I to press on into uncharted territory.  The next major stop for us would be London where we would spend about four days before flying back to the United States.  However, to get there (by train) would take a bit of time so I decided to spend a day each in Kiev (Ukraine) and Warsaw (Poland) on our journey west. 

Why Kiev?  Well, for one, it’s easiest: Ukraine doesn’t require a visa.  Traveling through Belarus via Minsk is a faster route, but US citizens need a visa to travel through their country.

Secondly, Kiev is one of the centers of Russian/Slavic culture.  Kievian Rus was originally the major “Russian” power on the steppe that emerged around the 9th Century AD and lasted until the Mongols wiped it out in the early 1300s.  The collapse of Kiev and the Mongol occupation paved the way for Moscow (Russia) and Novgorod (Belarus) to emerge in the north.  These three cultural centers correspond with the ethnic division of Ukrainians, Great Russians, and White Russians, respectively. 

Finally, because it’s Kiev – who hasn’t heard of the Great Gate of Kiev (Mussorgsky - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vw7OM_Q810k) or of chicken Kiev?  If not that, then there’s the Battle of Kiev (in which 650,000 Soviet soldiers were captured by the Germans).  OK – probably quite a few people haven’t heard of them… but have they named anything after Minsk?  (Besides the motorcycle and a Russian Kiev-class short deck carrier)  Kiev wins on name recognition and cool points, in addition to the reasons above.

We boarded the train at the aptly named Kievskaya train station in Moscow.  This overnight train is an express train to Kiev, departing around 2315hrs and arriving in Kiev the following morning at 0702hrs.  The border guards checked our bags and stamped our passports as we boarded the train so we didn’t need to wake up in the middle of the night at the border crossing, and off we went.

Kievskaya train station at night.

Before we bedded down for the night, I had a conversation with one of the Russians in the berth with us.  He didn’t speak any English but is a regular commuter on the train (he works for a Russian company that either does business in the Ukraine or has operations in the Ukraine).  Although my Russian is good enough to get by for practical purposes, it wasn’t as well suited to a conversation.  He remarked that the exchange rate from rubles to Ukranians (actually the hryvnia) isn’t favorable to Russia, inquired about the price of gas in the USA (which is roughly equivalent to the price of gas in Russia), and asked about national service requirements in the States.  That seems to be a familiar topic with Russians – one of my guides last year asked a similar question – since Russia still has a conscript armed forces.  I was able to communicate in general terms our trip from Vladivostok, that I was traveling with my Dad, and that I was American (he originally thought we were Canadians).  After about half an hour, we both gave up trying and turned in for the night.

With that, our sixteen day stay in Russia came to an end and it was onward to the West!