Food - The Heart

When we planned this trip, we deliberately made our arrangements so that we could cook for ourselves most of the time (although the amazing variety of food in L’viv for remarkably low prices by USD standards has tempted us to restaurants more often, most recently the wonder that is salmon strudel). We’ve mostly shopped for ourselves in each place and put at least two meals, if not three, on the table for our family of six each day. Since most of the kitchens in our lodgings are not really equipped for significant cooking, the task requires a reasonable portion of ingenuity, creativity, forethought, and grit. Kind of like working a puzzle. But we’ve been able to pull off mostly tasty meals. 

One of many family meals - this one in Malenovice, Czech Republic

Traveling in Central and Eastern Europe in late June and July is a dream. The fresh fruits and vegetables are coming from villages into supermarkets, markets, and impromptu ‘sidewalk markets’ where individuals sell a few items. We’ve had wonderful cherries, raspberries, currants, and a few late strawberries. The summer vegetables — squash, cucumbers, and the first tomatoes — are starting to show up in Ukrainian markets. 

If there is a staple to our diet, it is what I call ‘summer salad,’ a mixture of chopped tomatoes, cucumbers, and white peppers, often with fresh dill or parsley, sometimes with feta or other strong cheese, and almost always with the freshness of unrefined sunflower oil. At least two of these ingredients, cucumbers and white peppers, cost pennies a pound. One would think we’d grow tired of this, but we don’t seem to. Since we arrived in Ukraine, the salad has often included mayonnaise in one of its many forms (where else but East Slavic lands does one find an entire aisle of mayonnaise?). 

Dill - our constant companion

When I lived in Russia in the 1990s, I did almost all of my shopping in rynky, markets located in either dedicated buildings with stalls or sometimes in the open air. There were few grocery stores, and the quality and price were usually better in the market. I still remember Liudmila, the lady who sold eggs in front of the Sports Palace in Nizhnii Novgorod in 1997-1998. My memory (perhaps faulty) suggests that Nizhnii Novgorod had only one true ‘supermarket,’ a place called ‘Evropa’ (Europe) on the city’s main square (I doubt a Russian supermarket would be called ‘Europe’ today…). This was the sort of place where one could find ‘delicacies' like salsa and soy sauce and shrimp for frightful prices. 

Two staples - white peppers (paprika) and cucumbers

I’m glad the girls have had a chance to experience supermarkets, markets, and other random places to buy food. They’ve seen me haggle over currants and raspberries from an old lady on the sidewalk, watched as we figured out produce weighing in grocery stores, and witnessed some confusion over Hungarian dairy products (is it sour cream or is it yogurt?). They’ve been surprisingly adventurous in their tastes (although Sophia has declared herring a no-go for her — she’s the family minority on this one). They’ve discovered whole new worlds of foods — bewildering variety of dried and salted fish, fermented milk products, endless varieties of fresh bread. And of course, an alcohol department that seems to span half the store. It’s a good reminder that food is, in so many ways, the heart of culture. 

And of course, Ukrainian chocolate composes another entire food group... 

'Smile and Wave'

Although I’ve probably driven in 20 countries, I suspect I drove more kilometers on this trip than in all my others combined. We drove from Prague to Vienna to Salzburg to Budapest to Banska Bystrica to NE Czech Republic and a couple of side trips into Poland. Here in Ukraine, I’ve made three trips into Kyiv from the outskirts of the city, my first time driving in Ukraine. 

Roads ranged from excellent (the highway across Hungary from the Austrian border to Budapest is as nice as any I’ve experienced) to positively terrifying (a couple of switch-backs in the Alps above Salzburg). In many ways, there is far more in common with driving in the US than there is difference. Yet there are a few things that really stand out. 

turning in what the girls called our 'bus' in Prague

The further east you move on the continent, the more you move from defense to offense. As crazy as Kyiv traffic can be, I found people quite willing to cede space when a sudden lane change was needed (about every 5 minutes in my experience!). If you wait for the traffic to clear, you might well wait all day. It requires a bit of boldness. This Ukrainian boldness pails, of course, to the boldness one needs to drive in Cairo or Kampala or Mumbai. 

People are also far more forgiving and tolerant of things that would bring major thoroughfares to the halt in the US. A truck double-parked on a major Kyiv prospekt? No problem. The need for a sudden u-turn when someone accidentally turns the wrong way on a one-way street in Budapest? No problem. The need to block the street for five minutes while you load your car in Prague? Only a minor problem. As a Hungarian friend assured me, ‘smile and wave.’ Indeed, this, along with foreign plates, seems to allow forgiveness of many a traffic gaffe. 

We drove for half an hour today on the ring road that runs along the western side of Kyiv. It is a three-four lane road in each direction, a combination of expressway and regular city street. You move at 80 km/hour for a while, sensing that you are on a freeway, before you come to a red light over a crosswalk filled with pedestrians. For much of the way, there are few markers defining lanes. Another lane occasionally forms. I’ve yet to be on the road this week when a break-down or an accident didn’t block at least one lane of traffic. But somehow, miraculously, it works, despite ongoing construction. 

I think this is the Kyiv ring road or one like it (I've never seen this little traffic)

In terms of inducing fear in my heart, chaotic near-freeways with no lane markings hold nothing over Central European parking garages. The four-floor descent from the Prague airport parking garage in our 'bus' was perhaps the most terrifying experience of the trip, navigating the tight switch-back curves of the descent ramp. Certainly, they deserve credit for using space more economically (and I'll not soon complain about the 'tight' parking at the Y in Grand Rapids again). Kyiv was in many ways far simpler, as people just park on the sidewalk. 

I still prefer public transport whenever possible, but I’m thankful for the opportunity to experience ‘another’ side of Kyiv this week, that from the driver’s seat. 

Some other things the girls observed on public transport:

1. The marshrutky (route taxis) that arose in the early 2000s (late 90s?) are a commanding force in Kyiv transport. These are commercial routes, privately run, yet still somehow part of the city transit system. Everyone pays on these, even students and pensioners who are free on most other forms of transit (I have seen the occasional pensioner haggle a free fare). No two marshrutky are alike. Some are rather cobbled-together affairs. But they tend to be fast and reliable and frequent and they’ve gotten bigger through the years. I doubt the girls will forget an altercation between a middle-aged man and a grandmother when the man chose to break the rule of not talking loudly on his mobile phone. Loosely translated, she asked him ‘have you no respect for anyone?’ While what was often called the ‘babushka patrol’ I experienced in 1990s Russia has lost a bit of its bite, you can still count on the older ladies to keep people in line. 
2. The girls were amazed by the escalators in the Kyiv metro. The ones in Prague and Budapest amazed them, but the ones in Kyiv, which are probably twice as deep, were almost unbelievable. Arsenal'na, the station near the Caves Monastery, is supposedly the deepest station in the world. Riding the rather speedy escalator down takes a full three minutes by my watch. You can barely see the bottom from the top. It must also be one of the world’s cheapest metros, with rides costing about US$ .12. 
3. The tram that comes to Pushcha-Voditsia on the edge of Kyiv is known as the ‘forest tram,’ as it travels for nearly twenty minutes through the forest zone that surrounds Kyiv before entering Pushcha. The line stretches all the way to Kontraktova Square in the lower city of Kyiv. The entire route takes about 1 hour and 10 minutes. In modest traffic, you can drive the route in about 40 minutes. But the tram allows you to see a panorama of Kyiv along the way — shops, wide boulevards, factories, open-air markets, and, of course, the forest, which is mesmerizing. And of course, the life that passes inside the tram is also of great interest. My Russian teacher in Nizhnii Novgorod told me many years ago that ‘trams are the slowest mode of transport, but they are also the most reliable.’ I find this remains true, 20 years later. 

The forest tram - from Wikipedia