The Borderland Chronicles

Greetings! Or, rather, Nǐ Hǎo.

I can hardly believe it, but I’ve successfully completed my service as a Peace Corps volunteer in Ukraine. As of one week ago today, I am an RPCV, or what those of us who’ve finished service call a Returned Peace Corps Volunteer. (In PC there are a lot of acronyms.) I’m still able to vividly recall my first day, hours in Ukraine as a trainee more than two years ago, after being whisked from Boryspol airport to a quiet sanatorium in the small town of Desna outside Chernigov, like it was yesterday. Now I’m here in Shanghai, China with all that in the past. Wild.

Honestly, I still haven’t processed it all. Two years, while sounding like a long time, in reality passes like a train in the night. I think it’s going to take some time before I’m really able to sit down and figure out what it all meant and means to me, as well as how the whole experience influenced my life. Right now I feel as though I’m merely on vacation. Any day now I’ll be returning to my home in Artemovsk, right?

Fortunately – and unfortunately – no, I won’t be returning there. Yes, leaving Ukraine was bittersweet. I had some great times, but I experienced some extremely trying ones, too. I’d say Ukraine and I had a love-hate relationship. There were certainly times during the past years when I felt lower than ever before, but there were also times when I felt extremely proud, appreciated and as though I was a contributor to the development of the country. It was, at risk of sounding extremely cliche, an incredibly enriching, fulfilling and invaluable experience.

I’ll forever remember my time in Ukraine, especially a select few things. Visiting the Chernobyl exclusion zone was a fascinating look into a post-apocalyptic world. Traveling around the southern coast of Crimea with my girlfriend and swimming in the Black Sea among the many jellyfish and thonged Ukrainians was a wonderful getaway. Celebrating holidays with my Ukrainian friends and colleagues over incountable bottles of vodka and samagon was always an interesting cultural experience. These memories and many others I’ll forever cherish.

Now I’ve begun the next chapter. Let’s call it the China chapter. I’ve been in Shanghai one week now, and I can happily tell you that I’m enjoying it immensely. It’s not only wonderful to finally be living with my girlfriend of three years, but it’s incredibly fascinating to be living and working in the People’s Republic of China. If all goes according to plan, we’ll be living here at least a year, teaching, photographing and writing.

So far, deprived of a vast variety of food during my 27 months in Ukraine, I’ve eaten an array of cultural dishes from all around the world here in Shanghai. I’ve huffed down a delicious Reuban with a pale ale that put Ukrainian beer to shame, I’ve chugged 2-for-1 margaritas and fed my face with fish tacos and I’ve devoured an enormous amount of Chinese street food, including meat-filled dumplings, fried octopus and assorted vegetables and strange fruits. Since arriving I’ve been in a state of pure foodie bliss.

I’ve also seen more smiles in one week on the street than I did in during all of last year. The Chinese are incredibly friendly people. I’ve already made pals with the woman who sells produce down our lane, the guy who works at Toby Good Eats, a quaint food kiosk across the street, and a very talented cobbler who I bought a gorgeous pair of shoes from this afternoon. (The cobbler and I strolled down the street arm in arm in the rain discussing his learning to make shoes as a child in a leather factory operated by his father.)

So I’m off to a good start here in China and I’m looking forward to what’s still to come. But I’ll never forget the good times I had in Ukraine, the friendships made, the vodka shared, the borsch eaten, nor will I forget the many trials and tribulations. It’ll all forever be with me.

Consider this my last blog post here at The Borderland Chronicles. In the not-so-distant future I hope to start a separate blog for my adventures in China, as well as a new personal website highlighting my written and photographed work. If you’ve enjoyed this blog over the past two years, keep your eyes peeled for these news sites soon to come. I’ll post links on Twitter and Facebook once they’re up and running.

Posted in Artemovsk, Chernobyl, Crimea, Culture, Donetsk, Food, History, Journalism, Kiev, Life, Lvov, Odesa, Peace Corps, Public Transportation, Russian, Soviet Union, Trains, Travel, Ukraine |

With the end of my Peace Corps service staring me in the face, I decided to do a bit of traveling in hopes of seeing a few more places in this country that I’ve come to care so deeply about. The fact that other PCVs wanted to do the same, and that the annual humor festival was going on in Odessa – a city I’ve longed to see but have never visited – only added to my yearning to hit the road.

And so I set off, first to Donetsk, a city I’ve spent quite a bit of time in, and then to Odessa – the famed city by the sea. It took an overnight train ride to get there. Luckily I did it with four other friends, making this train ride particularly enjoyable. After settling in we enjoyed some in-transit vodka shots and a couple of beers. Our train was filled with university students on their way back to Odessa, and so we weren’t the only ones imbibing. Sometime late in the evening we got acquainted with the group of young folk in the cabin nearest to us. One of the guys with them had a guitar, which he used to play American hits from the 90s, including Nirvana’s “Rape me”, which we may or may not have sang at the top of our lungs in an open car.

The rain came down in buckets the morning we arrived in Odessa, and it didn’t stop. By the time we’d made it to the hostel we were soaked nearly all the way through. There’s nothing like a good shower and a lie down after a long train ride, which is exactly what we all did. Soon, though, more friends arrived, and the hostel turned into somewhat of an American party.

Some catching up with friends ensued, and then we all went out to some divey basement pub near the city center. It was dark and smokey there, and being Funk Night, the DJ had James Brown on heavy rotation. I sipped a beer near the dance floor with a couple of friends while watching Ukrainians do their best to imitate the great funk legend. After some more drinks and a few games of cards, we called it a night.

Saturday was spent exploring the city. We strolled down Deribasovskaya Street, the city’s famous pedestrian walkway, where cafes, parks, public squares and food kiosks abound. We popped in to see the Passage Hotel’s gorgeous century-old courtyard, popped off to a Greek restaurant for a gyro and then made our way toward the sea.

When you approach the neo-baroque styled opera house, with its archways and metallic dome, you immediately understand its prominence. Supposedly a whisper from its stage can be heard from anywhere in the concert hall.

Walking further, across a small square and through a hilltop parkway, we reached what might be Odessa’s most famous symbol: the Potemkin Stairs.

The Potemkin Stairs were made famous in one my favorite films, Sergei Eisenstein’s 1925 silent film, The Battleship Potemkin. In the film armed soldiers open fire on people on the stairs. While the film is a work on fiction, a similar massacre did occur in 1905.

Supposedly the stairs were designed to create an optical illusion. When viewing the stairs from the top only the landings are visible, while viewing them from the bottom allows one to see only the steps. Testing this on my own, I found this to be nearly true.

Past the stairs is the port area. While the view wasn’t anything to write home about, it was nice just being near the sea. Being landlocked for months at a time in the Ukrainian steppe can take a toll on a person.

We migrated from the port toward the city center, where a few of us broke off to dine in luxury at a swanky steak house, where a waiter visited our table with a large plank of raw meat and asked which we’d like to enjoy. I chose the bacon-wrapped filet mignon. It’d been ages since I’d treated myself to anything of the sort. It cost me nearly four times what I spend on food for one week here, but I enjoyed every bite. Besides, after two years doing perhaps the most challenging job I’ve ever done, I deserved it, damnit.

We went big that night. After all, it was Saturday, and the eve of “Yumorina,” or Odessa’s famous Day of Humor celebration, which happens every April 1. As a group we went to a club called “Shkaf,” which translates to “cupboard” or “wardrobe” or “closet” in English. And the place felt somewhat like a cupboard, all worn-in wood floors and dark brick walls. Despite that, the atmosphere was great. On a back wall a large projector showed a game of Mortal Combat. Shouts of “Aroogun!” echoed throughout the place. After ordering at the bar we found our way to another room, which housed the DJ and dance floor. Electronic music pulsed so loud I could feel the hairs on my head vibrate. The scene was like something out of a movie: everyone dancing as if they hadn’t a care in the world. I barely got halfway through my first drink before my friends dragged me onto the dance floor.

Hot, sweaty, drunk and happy, we danced and laughed and lived it up until early morning. On the way home some people popped over to all-hours food carts to satisfy their hunger. The rest of us sang songs in the street as we hobbled on back to the hostel.

The next day was “Yumorina.” At noon we all went out to find a place along the street to take in the parade. Thousands of people turned out. And while it was interesting to see so many people in such a small city center area, all donning wigs, mustaches, oversized glasses and goofy hats, the parade was a bust. For whatever reason, it was all regional football teams who marched, along with their signs and a few flamboyantly-dressed supporters. Still, it made for an entertaining environment.

The weather was the best part of Sunday. Having not seen much of the sun these past few months, I couldn’t soak up enough of it. Along with some friends, I explored more of the city, wandering down streets at random in hopes of uncovering something fascinating. Together we found some interesting monuments, though none that were particularly remarkable, and a dilapidated building once home to Nikolai Gogol, the famous playwright and novelist.

On Monday we slept in, caught up on sleep and gathered our things before feasting at a legitimate Chinese food restaurant. Having not had much in the way of ethnic for during the past two years, that was a real treat.

We boarded a train that evening, myself and three friends, made our beds and turned in for the night. In the morning we arrived in Ternopil, a larger city in western Ukraine.

Arriving anywhere in Ukraine at 3:30 a.m. means having to wait for a couple of hours until the buses start running to get anywhere. We could have taken a taxi to Terebovlya, our final destination, but it would have cost us three times the price of a bus. Plus, we weren’t sure our host, another PCV, would be awake that early. So we sat at the train station for an hour before making our way to the city’s bus station, where we sat another hour before boarding a bus to Terebovlya.

On the bus we all fell asleep. It wasn’t until another passenger nudged and woke us up that we realized we’d arrived in Terebovlya. Upon exiting the bus, we received some peculiar looks, looks that seemed to say, “What the hell are you doing here?”

Most people haven’t heard of Terebovlya, and most never will. Outside of the fact that it has a thousand-year-old fortress, there really isn’t much there. But the town, which is home to a little less than 10,000 people, has a hell of a lot of charm. Despite the fact that I speak only Russian and this part of Ukraine speaks Ukrainian as their first language, no one minded me speaking the language of the east. Mind you, they responded in Ukrainian, but they were all smiles, very pleased to interact with a foreigner.

The PCV we stayed with there had an incredible four-bedroom village-style house, without a doubt the best living quarters of any PCV I know in Ukraine. After a brief nap we joined our host at his school for three class lessons, during which we interacted with young students, discussing hobbies, family, geography and more. We had to endure dozens of photographs with students and teachers before being released for the day.

That afternoon we went for a walk through the forest. After living in the industrial east, an area known as the Donbass, which is marked with slag heaps and smoke stacks, my lungs were happy to breath in the fresh air of the west. What’s more, at the end of our stroll we were rewarded with remnants of an old monastery and fortress that overlooked fields and village homes as far as the eye could see. It was gorgeous.

That evening we cooked our first shashlik (barbecue) of the year. Two kilos of meat, some onions, tomatoes and more all cooked over an open pit. It was pure bliss. At night we enjoyed some locally brewed beer, talked and played “durak,” the Eastern European card game.

The next day we needed to be on a bus by 1 p.m. So rose early to cook a large egg breakfast before going out to explore the fortress on the hill.

I don’t know much about the history of the fortress, only that it’s around 1,000 years old and has been sacked about 15 times by multiple armies. Most recently it was taken over by the Nazi’s during WWII when they occupied Terebovlya. To mark their territory they inset a large tablet into the side of the fortress, which remains today.

From the top of the fortress I looked out over the entire town and to the hills beyond it. Where I live in the east is mostly flat. Slag heaps are the highest points visible. So this was refreshing.

We split up in Terebovlya. Some of us needed to get back home, back out east. Others went on for a few more days. One of my pals and I headed back to Ternopil, where we spent the remainder of the day strolling around the city before our train at 8 p.m. that evening.

I was pleasantly surprised by Ternopil, a city I knew nothing about before going there. Young people were everywhere, as were cafes, bars, parks and shops. I even managed to find a burrito place. And the burritos tasted like actual burritos.

An endearing moment came when I wandered into a souvenir shop to pick up a magnet for my roommate. Looking around I noticed there were a lot of photos of a large lake. So I asked the woman, was there a lake nearby?

“Oh, yes!” she answered emphatically. “I can show you.”

Reaching into the glass case housing the various magnets she pulled out six of them and proceeded to describe to me the path to the lake using each magnet’s pictured landmark.

“You’ll enjoy it,” she insisted. “Good luck.”

With that, my friend and I set off to find the lake.

The woman was right, I enjoyed it. The sun was out, a slight breeze made ripples atop the water, and further out two windsurfers glided along. We took it all in on a bench.

That evening we began what would be a 20-hour train ride back east. It was definitely among the longest I’ve endured since moving here. But we made it home, exhausted, slightly sore and stinking.

It was a good time, like many of the other trips I’ve taken during my two years here in Ukraine. But something about this one in particular had a certain finality about it. During the ride back to site I couldn’t shake thoughts of finishing my service here in just six weeks, and that during that six weeks I’d be busy with all of my Close of Service tasks required by Peace Corps, packing and saying goodbye to everyone who’s been a part of my life over the past two years. I wouldn’t have time to do much else – this trip would be the last of its kind in Ukraine.

Posted in Culture, Donetsk, History, Odesa, Peace Corps, Public Transportation, Russian, Trains, Travel, Ukraine |

The drunk deaf boy squirmed and moaned in his aisle-side bunk above the devoutly religious woman with the white head wrap, who was sleeping below. His three friends had literally thrown him up there just five minutes earlier, then they went to have a cigarette in the back of the wagon.

Five young female students with two parental chaperones, on their way back from a weekend excursion in Kiev, sat on the two bunks below me, talking about the boy and his friends. The four boys, or perhaps young men – all must have been between 16 and 18 years of age, their pubescent faces marked with zits – and also deaf, had been drinking Obolon beer since the train left Kiev Pas station five hours earlier.

By midnight all of the boys were drunk, slurring their signs and disturbing passengers trying to sleep. I imagine that it wasn’t their intention to be rude and to be loud. Given the fact that they were all deaf, they probably had no idea how obnoxious the slamming of glass beer bottles on the table could be. And given how drunk they all were, they most likely weren’t aware that their ricocheting off the ends of the beds as they stumbled down the aisle awoke people from their slumber.

I like to give people the benefit of the doubt, but these boys were, in fact, acting disrespectfully and pissing off everyone in the wagon, and it showed on the passengers’ faces. So when the police came by on a routine walk-through, cited the boys for smoking and drinking – both of which are illegal aboard Ukraine’s trains – and made them each pay 100 hryvnia (about $12.50), passengers erupted in a small round of applause.

The celebration, though, was interrupted by gurgling and moaning coming from the passed out boy on the top bunk. I knew what this sound meant, and I’m sure others did, too. I sat up to face the boy just as he vomited over the side of the bunk. The chunky, brownish-orange goop splashed onto the aisle floor, with some landing mere inches from the religious woman’s face. Passengers let out a collective, “Oooopa!” One of the girls sitting below me reached over and shook the leg of the religious woman to wake her up. Once the woman saw what had happened, she went for the police.

Two officers returned with the woman, with the boy’s friends in tow. Frantic signing ensued. The cops, unable to sign, simply shouted at the boys, “See what you’ve done! Look at this! Don’t you understand?” It took a minute for the officers to realize their messages weren’t getting through. So on a piece of paper one officer wrote something down.

The boys left after that, with the wagon attendent, and returned with a bucket of hot, soapy water. Then, with the help of one officer, they pulled the boy who’d vomited down from the bunk and told him to scrub the floor clean. When he finished, the boy was taken by another officer, and he didn’t return.

The train, meanwhile, had stopped at a station somewhere five hours east of Kiev, and it wouldn’t continue on its way to Donetsk until this problem was resolved. The police officers wanted the remaining three boys to come with them voluntarily. I couldn’t see what one officer had written down and shown the boys, but when the boys saw it they began frantically signing to one another and shaking their heads in a panicked sort of way. After about three minutes of back-and-forth between the officers and the boys, the officers grabbed the boys’ things and their arms and escorted them off the train.

At that point, I sort of felt bad for the boys. Yes, they’d screwed up, pissed everyone off and broke the law, but their punishment would probably end up being more severe than it ought to be. I turned to look out the window at them as they were dragged out into the darkness, toward a small shack illuminated only slightly by a small light positioned above the door. I was thinking about what fate awaited them in that dark shack, when the train lurched forward.

Despite the effort to clean up the mess on the floor, the wagon smelled like vomit the rest of the night. It was a sort of acidic and sour scent mixed with ammonia, from the cleaning products. Because of that, and because of the discussions passengers were having below me, I didn’t get much sleep.

A friend of mine who I spoke with about this said every train ride is like a dice roll. And this is true. While I’ve had poor experiences, such as this one, some of my fondest memories of my time in Ukraine will certainly be of conversations and interactions with people aboard the trains. But this last one is a ride I’m hoping to forget.

Posted in Artemovsk, Culture, Kiev, Public Transportation, Trains, Ukraine |

My uncle on a train from Kiev to Donetsk after our excursion of the Chernobyl exclusion zone in June 2011.

Besides being an affordable and comfortable alternative to buses and planes, trains are a great way to travel in Ukraine. Routes traverse the country in all directions – and often. The landscapes passing outside the windows, too – rolling steppes, seemingly endless fields of sunflowers – aren’t bad.

What’s tricky is purchasing tickets as a non-Russian or non-Ukrainian speaker.

Hiring a translator is a possibility (www.kiev-interpreter.net, www.handy.com.ua). Most have daily fixed rates, but some will offer hourly rates, which typically run about $25 per hour. They’ll help you purchase tickets, show you around the city, and pretty much help with whatever arrangements that you might otherwise have difficulty making.

A cheaper alternative is purchasing train tickets online (www.e-kvytok.com.ua). The site requires you to register (it’s free), but after that it’s fairly easy to navigate. It also has an English language option.

When you are ready to plan that train trip, there are some other things to consider.

Tips:

Three days before I was expected by a group of friends to be in Crimea, I marched into the ticket office and asked politely for round-trip tickets to Dzhankoi. The woman working behind the counter insinuated that I must be crazy. “You leave in just three days – in August – and you think there will be tickets?”

Perhaps because I was an American who didn’t know better, having only been in Ukraine for a few months then, she humored me by showing screen after screen of full trains. At about the fourth screen, a late-night train she said would certainly be booked, though it could have something available, she found an empty seat.

“You won’t want this one,” she said. “It’s very bad. A top bunk, and next to the toilet.” Desperate to meet my friends at the Black Sea, I told her it would be fine, and booked it.

Three day’s later I wished I’d taken her advice. Stuck on a cramped top bunk in 100-degree heat, mere feet away from the toilet, I thought about what could be worse and came up with nothing.

I did make it to Crimea, though it was by far the most uncomfortable train ride I’ve had here.

1. Purchase tickets well in advance. You can do this online or at any train station in Ukraine. Tickets aren’t so difficult to come by in winter, except on weekends. But come May, everything through till October books up quickly. Also, it’s widely known here that the mafia buys up tickets to destinations like Lvov, Odessa, Kiev and everywhere in Crimea to later resell on the black market at higher prices. So keep this in mind when planning your summer trips.

*

As I mentioned before, I once got stuck with a seat near the toilet. Throughout the night the slamming of the door and the stench of stale piss constantly awakened me. Toilets are awful everywhere, true. But the train toilets here are made of steel, which in winter makes them cold as ice and in summer hot as hell. What’s more is that instead of sitting down on them they’re meant to be squatted over, as if you were using a proper squat toilet. Except these aren’t squat toilets, but normal looking bowls.

On a trip from Kiev to Donetsk, after eating a doner kebab that didn’t agree with my stomach, I spent 12 grueling hours hovering above one of these. With the train bouncing to and fro, many people miss their mark while doing their business, resulting in a festering mess around the bowl and on the floor. This is what you smell if your seat is too near. I wish I could tell you that my aim, unlike many others, is true. But that wouldn’t be the truth.

2. When purchasing train tickets you can choose your seat, so purchase tickets away from the toilets.  Lower numbered seats are toward the front of the car. I suggest seats between one and 24 to ensure a better smelling experience.

*

After a daylong excursion through the Chernobyl exclusion zone all I wanted to do was board my train, make my bed and pass out. Unfortunately, I’d stayed in the zone longer than expected and had to rush back to Kiev in order to make my train, sprinting all the way to the wagon. When I made it to my seat I was greeted by a family who’d arrived first and taken the liberty to spread their dinner out on the table. More than that, they’d filled the lower compartments meant for my luggage with theirs and occupied part of my seat, preventing me from making up my bed. They spent almost two hours eating and playing cards before resigning to their respective bunks. Only then was I able to catch some shut-eye.

3. Arrive early to your train. If you’re cathing a train from its originating city wagon attendants will often allow you to board 30 minutes or more in advance. This will allow you time to settle in and stow away your belongings before everyone else boards.

*

Only once did I board a train without anything to entertain me. I was leaving Donetsk for Kiev, a 13-hour ride, and I didn’t realize my mistake until it was too later. Luckily, I had some talkative bunkmates. An older woman and her daughter were traveling together to Kiev to see some relatives and, after hearing me speak to the conductor about a cup of tea, asked me where I was from.

“You’re not ours, are you?” the older woman asked.

“No,” I said. “American.”

“Opa!” she exclaimed. And for the three hours before lights out, as well as the three hours after waking the next morning, we spoke about life, culture, traveling and more. She even offered up a relative’s time to show me around. I politely thanked her and her daughter for their company when the train arrived. This time around, I thought, I got lucky.

4. Bring something to help pass the time. Crossword puzzles, an iPod loaded with podcasts (my favorites include Radiolab, This American Life, The Moth, Slate’s Culture Gabfest, NPR’s Fresh Air and Foreign Dispatch Podcast, Real Time with Bill Mahr and the BBC World Service Documentary Archive) or a book.

*

Ukraine’s trains are mostly old and dirty. On top of that, they’re poorly cleaned. On a trip to Kharkov from Artemovsk I was removing my shoes before getting in bed. After doing so, I slid them beneath my bunk, like usual. But I’d forgotten a pillow, which was situated atop an empty bunk across the aisle. Without putting my shoes back on, I walked over to fetch it. That’s when a babushka reprimanded me.

“Young man,” she said. “This floor is dirty, and you could catch disease walking around like that.”

I told her I’d be fine, that I wouldn’t do it again. She responded to that by waving her finger at me and telling me I needed some slippers. “Like these,” she said, gesturing to hers.

5. Bring slippers or flip-flops, footwear easy to slide on and off. That’s what Ukrainians do. Best to fit in. Also, hand sanitizer. Pack it.

*

On a train from Kiev to Konstantinovka I watched as two women unpacked a plastic sack filled with sausages, cheese, bread, tomatoes, cucumbers, apples, varenyky and fried chicken onto the kupe table. They dined together for over an hour, washing everything down with a bottle of vodka and some juice. Staring at my Snickers bar and bottle of water, I wished I’d done the same.

6. Bring something to eat. Trains don’t offer much in the way of food. Wagon attendents do pass by, but not with much more than overpriced chips and nuts. You’re expected to bring your own.

*

On a train from Konstantinovka to Kiev I shared a kupe with a man who told me about his time in prison. Arrested for hooliganism, he spent nearly three years incarcerated in an eastern Ukrainian jail. Our conversation included a fascinating lesson on prison tattoos, culminating in a sort of show and tell. Before turning in we shared some bread and vodka. He even wished me goodnight.

7. Don’t be afraid to converse with fellow passengers. Some of the most fascinating conversations and lessons on Ukrainian culture I’ve had occurred while riding the rails. Plus, Ukrainians are great conversationalists.

*

A friend visiting from New York was on the train with me for the first time in Ukraine. We had no intention of drinking alcohol while aboard, having spent most of the previous night out doing just that. But three English-speaking Ukrainian men had other plans for us. They pulled bottles of beer from their packs to share with us, and we chatted well past lights out about cultural traditions, keeping one eye on the wagon door in case the police passed by.

8. Drinking aboard the train is great fun and an essential part of the experience. The secret is not to make it too obivous. Ukrainians often times hide vodka in flasks or juice bottles. You could also keep your beer at your side rather than on the table in plain view. Technically, it’s illegal to drink aboard the trains. But many people do it, and almost everyone tolerates it. Just don’t be an obnoxious tourist and all will be well.

*

In August of 2010, I had some friends over for the weekend at my apartment in Artemovsk. Over dinner and drinks, my pal Walter told me a funny story about a train he’d taken from Djankoi to Lugansk.

“It’s hot, right, because it’s summer and the trains are crammed full of people,” he said. “So I take off my pants, fold them and set them on top of my shoes next to the bed. Then I go to sleep. When I wake up in the morning, they’re gone. No idea where they ran off. I made it to Lugansk, but without any shoes and pants.”

9. Keep your bags tucked away and your valuables on your person. Having a bottom berth is best, since you can stow your luggage directly beneath you. Riding the trains in Ukraine isn’t particularly dangerous, nor is there a great risk of having your posessions stolen while you’re sleeping. But these things do happen from time to time. When it comes down to it, just use common sense.

Posted in Artemovsk, Culture, Donetsk, Public Transportation, Russian, Trains, Travel, Ukraine |