Ukraine and Crimea 1994

The following missive was written in 1994 following my first trip to Ukraine. It's written in part with tongue planted firmly in cheek. The trip was an experience I shall never forget...29 hours on an old school bus the windows of which would not open. The bus ride came immediately after a quick flight from Denmark to Kiev. I don't know what Ukraine is like today but in 1994 there were no roadside places to eat. In 29 hours were found one tent on the side of the road occupied by Gipsies who were selling drinks and snacks. Thank was the extent of food. Fortunately, they sold great bread and lovely white cheese. Without further comment, here are my comments.

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Over the past 5 years or so I have traveled extensively by commercial air line. Admittedly, by the standards of the “professional” business traveler, the number of flights I have taken is rather modest. I take perhaps a dozen or more commercial flights a year but some of these are, by any standard, long. Since I am absolutely terrified of flying, I thought that perhaps comments on one of my more memorable trips might make for amusing reading. The following travel experience occurred in 1995.

Unlike most of my overseas trips with my co-worker, we arrived at San Francisco International Airport more than two hours before our jet was to depart for London. I had been to London before and while I was dreading the trip I was looking forward to getting there. My co-worker is one of those people who is perpetually late. It doesn’t matter what the event or when and where it occurs; he will manage to make the trip interesting if not frantic. So I was more than a little surprised that when we picked him up at his apartment he was for once ready.

The trip to San Francisco International Airport was uneventful. I was accompanied by my wife and three children. My kids have a firm rule: whenever Dad travels on lengthy excursions they have to accompany him to the airport and watch the plane take off. In that this was to my longest and perhaps most “dangerous” trip, the need to accompany Dad took on even greater significance, especially for my 11 year old. Eleven year old girls are in love with their fathers and my daughter is no exception. It makes dealing with the day-to-day routine of parenthood a joy! I knew that she had real concerns about my traveling so far away and for so long a period of time—more than five weeks. She was, however, resigned to the fact that I was going to make the trip.

If you have ever traveled overseas on a commercial airline, then you know that a trip through U. S. and foreign Customs can be either a breeze or a huge pain in the you know where. When a person carries as much equipment as I do, the term pain is truly understated; it becomes, as I was to learn, a real trial. Most Americans do not appreciate the fact that our Customs agents are professional, efficient, and courteous. It takes dealing with foreign customs agents to appreciate this. On this particular trip, the U.S. Customs agents were perplexed by the amount and array of equipment being carried by two people. It hardly seemed possible that two people could use so much gear. While their job is not to question the reasons why United States citizens do certain things, they do take serious their obligations to find out what individuals carry abroad and occasionally ask why, and to make sure ALL paper work is in order. They certainly do all of that!

We were traveling to the Ukraine with four large personal bags, two carryon lap top computers, two small back packs, shoulder cameras, belt pouches, and five very large boxes of computer and surveying equipment. All of the gear was itemized on what is known to international businessmen as an International Carne’. A Carne’ is a recognized legal document--at least in most of the developed countries of the world; it lists equipment that will be used on a temporary basis outside of their country of origin. It is used to differentiate equipment used for work and carried in and out of a particular country as opposed to items imported for sale. Items listed on a carne’ are not subject to any import duties because it is assumed that they will leave with the owner. U.S. Customs Agents check the equipment upon departure from the United States, and as a person travels through various counties, foreign Customs Agents check the equipment as it enters and leaves their various points of entry. Theoretically, when a person returns to their point of origin, in my case San Francisco, the Carne’ lists all of the counties entered and exited. U.S. Customs Agents then check to see if all of the listed equipment is present.

Now if this sounds complicated, I can attest to the fact that this is well beyond complicated—incomprehensible or even Byzantine would be far more accurate. The Carne’ comes with the a set of “instructions” that are at best confusing and at worst incoherent, to the point whereby a novice Carne’ user can get themselves into serious trouble with U.S. and foreign customs. So…although the trip through U.S. Customs took some time, the Customs agent merely asked a half a million polite questions, felt our boxes, reviewed our paper work, and then let us pass with a look that said “good luck”. We moved onto the luggage check in are of Trans World Airlines.

The experienced tourist always travels with little gear. The novice tourist, on the other hand, always brings more gear then they could ever use. A business traveler, especially one involved in a high technology field, generally must carry everything he or she needs to perform his work. I can imagine what the ground attendant at the TWA check in area thought when they saw us roll up three carts of boxes and bags. Between my co-worker and I we nine check in bags, four carry on bags, and cameras. The attendant looked regretfully at me and announced that we had entirely too much luggage and that I would be required to pay and extra $800.00 for the privilege of letting TWA transport it all to London. I grumbled but just a bit and then paid the money—extortion I thought.

We got assigned seats and had an hour or so until departure. As I do on every plane flight, I sought a bar and drank a double martini or two. I joined my family in a nearby snack bar and grabbed a quick bite to eat. I took a couple of tranquilizers to make the take off a little easier. Like clock work, it is precisely at this time that my anxiety attacks begin in earnest. I looked at my family and thought how much they meant to me. I spent the next hour in physical contact with them all, especially my wife. She doesn’t complain about my travels too much, although I realize she would rather that I didn’t make them. They put a tremendous strain on her. I am very fortunate to have her. She is truly amazing and while I am gone I haven’t the slightest concern that everything that needs to be taken care of will be dealt with efficiently and timely. She is organized and can be extremely focused. Without her abilities I would not be able to travel abroad.

We began a slow walk to the security check point. I took off my backpack, my belt pouch, my vest, my camera belt, and slipped off my laptop shoulder bag, putting all of the gear on the conveyor belt. Walking though the metal detector I heard the alarm sound—as usual; it always goes off for me. Think dummy, what was I wearing that had metal. It would have been easier to list what I wasn’t wearing with metal. The security officer used a hand metal detector and found metal studs all over my Levis. My shoes had metal plates in the sole. My watch was metal. When the security agent was satisfied that I wasn’t a Middle Eastern terrorist, he let me pass. I picked up my gear, dutifully putting back on each item in its proper order. My co-worker walked through customs without a hitch as did the rest of my family. We walked down the corridor to the gate where the plane would depart and sat down. The flight would be boarding in about 15 minutes. Time for a few more snuggles.

I was very nervous. Like I said, flying for me is a bit like taking those last 13 steps to the scaffold. I held my wife’s hands and hugged each of my kids in turn, and then did it again just for good measure. I talk softly to my wife telling her a few details that I thought might be important when she received news that my plane had blown up in mid air. Like a psychologist listening to an neurotic patient, she listened respectfully and intently. I knew she thought I was crazy. Finally, it was boarding time. I remember standing in line and feeling the double martini and the tranquilizers “hitting bottom.” I also felt lonely and sad at leaving my family behind. I managed to fumble for my passport and tickets and gave each member of my family what I thought was surely a last goodbye; turned and walked down what seemed like a very long ramp to the entrance of the plane. As I walked approached the entrance to the plane to executioner, er flight attendant, greeted us with a friendly smile.

I managed to find my seat and stow my gear appropriately. I seated myself and discovered once again why I really detest flying. In a world full of creativity, the designers of aircraft seats have managed to create a product that puts every part of your body to sleep except that part really in need of rest—your head. I tried to get comfortable and thought--just how long is eleven and a half hours? The doors to this flying “chamber of death” were closed and the plane slowly taxied away from the ramp—and then stopped!

The flight attendants began their ritual dance, explaining to the passengers what to do in case of an emergency. I dutifully listened or at least thought I did. I always think to myself in case of a disaster place your head firmly between your legs and kiss you ass goodbye. I then remember the pilot announcing that there was to be a “slight delay” due to a backlog of jets trying to takeoff. We would be on the runway for about a half hour. He was sorry for the inconvenience. Yea right. Well, so much for eleven and half hour trips I thought. Twelve hours at least. That was my last thought for about 5 hours. It was at that point that I passed out. Never mix martinis and tranquilizers!

When I woke up, we were in the air and somewhere over Canada and had been in the air for about five hours. I started to calculate—525 miles per hour multiplied by 5 was about 2000+ miles. Looking at a map of North America in the back of the TWA magazine, I figured we were approaching the southwestern part of Hudson Bay. Hudson Bay was someplace I was pretty familiar with. Discovered by Henry Hudson in the 1610s, it was a focal point of British fur trade 200 years ago. In fact, York Factory, the headquarters of the Hudson’s Bay Company, was probably somewhere 43,000 feet below us right now. I thought about that figure and tried to estimate how long it would take a person to fall that distance. I gave up, accepting the fact that it would take a long time indeed. I tried to look out the window leaning over my neighbors, but the ground was obscured by a thick cloud cover. Oh well, so much for a view. At that point I thought about food for the first time and realized that I was very hungry. I waved to a flight attendant who was scurrying around and asked about breakfast. She politely told me that I had missed breakfast. I was sleeping so soundly that she decided not to wake me up. She told me with a smile that they had saved me something to eat; a second meal would be served in about 2 hours. Would I like something to drink? At that point the though of alcohol was sickening but a Coke sounded just fine. She brought me what was left of breakfast and a drink. I scarified it up—some bread, fruit, and cereal with milk. I then carried the remains back to the galley and decided to stay for a while and chat with the flight attendants.

For the most part, I have found flight attendants to be really nice. They have a difficult job and most do it with professionalism and dignity. I pity them for what they have to go thought to earn a paycheck. The thought of my wife as a flight attendant was so distasteful that I put the thought right out off my head. On an earlier flight several years ago I made up my mind to treat flight attendants exceedingly nice knowing that most were married with children and that they deserved the same treatment that I would expect my wife to receive if she were so unfortunate to have the job.

The rest of the flight was, as usual, uneventful. We ate our second meal and I read a lot; mostly about where I was going: the Crimea. For most westerners, the Crimea is a mysterious place in an unknown part of the world. I wondered how many Americans had been to where I was going? Just getting permission for the trip was an ordeal according to our travel agent. We needed a passport of course. A Visa to get into the Ukraine. A second Visa to get into the Crimean Autonomous Republic. Finally, a third Visa to get into Sebastopol (Sevastopol to almost everyone else except the English and the Americans). What I read about the Crimea was mostly public consumption material; it told me little about the people and the culture and a fair amount about the history. It occurred to me that, I had no real idea what to expect. I was traveling to the “Evil Empire”, a place that in the early 1980s President Reagan thought was the source of most of the world’s evils. I was going to this place? The only real direct knowledge that I had about the Soviet Union was from a college friend who visited the country in the early 1980s. He came back with stories of how dreadful and dreary the place was. Then he was a typical “ugly American” type tourist I thought; always trying to judge other counties by the values of his home. Very unanthropological for sure and tried to keep an open mind.

The last few hours of the flight went by quickly. The pilot announced happily that we had picked up a nice tail wind and had made up the 30 minutes we had lost on the San Francisco International tarmac. I imagined that the pilot was as anxious to get off of this plane as I was! We began our decent over the Irish Sea and before long we were flying over London. The landing at Heathrow International—any airprot for that matter--was as always terrifying. I expected the wheels to give way at any time and feel the belly of the jet hit the tarmac and then perhaps blowup. As always, the landing went according to established procedures. We deplaned and headed into Terminal 4. Fortunately, this is the best of the 4 terminals at Heathrow. We had a 6 hour lay over before we caught an SAS flight to Copenhagen, Denmark. We had been to Heathrow several times in the past 3 years. I headed for a restaurant that specialized in fish and chips. I ate a satisfying but expensive lunch and walked to the other end of the terminal in search of a really nice English Pub. I found that Mark had beat me there.

With about 5 hours left, I managed to down about 6 pints of bitter and Scottish ale. I felt in fine spirits. We paid the tab; again not cheap, I thought, but the atmosphere was excellent and the beer even better. Well worth the expense I thought. We meandered our way back through the crowded terminal to the security area. Anyone who has ever been to Heathrow has experienced excellent airport security. The procedures are rigidly enforced by scores of diligent professionals. Nothing escapes their watchful eye. We queued up and waited to go through the initial metal detector scan. Then it was on to the individual scans. I have never been able to figure out how the security staff selects people for “special” treatment. On this trip it was Mark’s turn to be singled out. Understand that Mark is a redhead and has the look of a wild-eyed Irish terrorist (actually his family roots are in the “borderlands” of northern England). He was first frisked. Then selected parts of his carry on luggage were inspected. After what seemed like an eternity he was cleared and sent on his way. No curteous thank you; nothing--just move along! Mark never gets indignant about things like that but I was a bit annoyed for him. We did have a flight to catch, however, and thinking about the situation I thought that it would be foolish to protest. They might subject me to an even more intensive check; the thought of having my body cavities examined by British airport security was sufficient to move me along towards the check in area.

The flight to Copenhagen was over quickly. Thank god! I was really looking forward to this stop. We would be in Copenhagen for two whole days before we met up with the rest of our group: some 40 American students and faculty. I had 48 hours to myself in Copenhagen. I was determined to make the best of it. As we approached the runway all of my usual anxieties surfaced. I held my breath, the wheels hit the tarmac and we landed safely as usual. I wondered if I would get over my fear of take off and landings and of flying at 40,000 feet. Probably never I thought.

Copenhagen

We deplaned and went to the baggage collection area. The airport at Copenhagen is neat and efficient. Not as opulent as Terminal 4 Heathrow. There was no Harod’s Department store outlet nor an extensive selection of duty free shops. The airport, however, had a nice feel and I took an immediate liking to the Danes. They are happy and friendly. The language is somewhat similar to German so I was able to read many of the signs. Our first stop was to get a luggage cart and then collect our baggage. We went to Customs. Much to my delight, individuals traveling with Carne’s get special treatment in E.C. countries. We were treated like royalty. We went into a room and were waited upon by two very friendly agents who spoke perfect English. They looked at us, the baggage, and the Carne’. He opened the Carne’ and stamped the appropriate spot. He closed the Carne’ and handed it back to me. I asked him if that was all. He said that was all. Not the Mexican border by any stretch of the imagination I thought. We next sought a place to store most of our baggage. In most of the major airports of Europe, it is possible to store baggage for a few days. Since we would have no need out our equipment in Copenhagen, we left all of our computer items in the airport, except our laptops, which we clung to carefully. Storing equipment is never cheap but when you travel a lot you quickly learn that storage always is better then carrying it around. We next sought a money exchange—easy to find they are everywhere. Finally, we walked out of the airport in to the bright sunshine. The first I had experienced in almost 24 hours. It felt good. I wasn’t a bit tired either. Thank god for tranquilizers I thought. We looked for a cab and to our dismay discovered that it would cost $25.00 to ride into the city. Neither of us wanted a cab ride that bad. We went in search of a bus and found that for the not so modest fee of $5.00 we could ride public transportation into the heart of the city—Hans Christian Anderson Square. The bus depot was three blocks from our hotel. As we were riding into the city I thought to myself that, if it cost $5.00 to ride into the city the cost of living must be high. I wondered how anyone could afford to live there. Only later did I learn that Danes pay a fraction of what we paid. Danes are smart—they get tourists to subsidize their day-to-day needs.

The ride into the city took about twenty minutes. We crossed over a few waterways and drove mostly on city streets. I looked out of the window and noted that the airport was in a newer part of the city. The further we drove the older the city got. As we approached the bus depot, the city took on a positively Medieval feel. I was enthralled by the sense of antiquity in the buildings. The bus depot is a relatively modern feature, made of brick, located directly across the street from Tivoli Garden, a famous tourist trap, er spot. It was not located in the seedy part of the city. We got off the bus and began our short walk to the hotel. For me the walk turned into a trek. I never thought to pack a light bag for my two day stay in Copenhagen. I found myself lugging a 60 pound duffle bag along with another bag, a backpack, a laptop computer, and camera case; after a long block I began to drag my duffle. Fortunately, the hotel was only three blocks away!

The Mayfair Hotel! That’s where we were headed. According to my travel agent, Copenhagen was a god-awful place to find a hotel for less than $250.00 a night. That was quite a bit beyond our budget, so we settled for what Chip called a third class hotel in a less desirable part of the city (whatever that meant). So with baggage in tow, Mark and I headed for the Mayfair, which according to a map of the city I purchased in the United States, was located some three blocks south of the bus depot and then one block to the west. According to the travel agent it was on the edge of the ‘Red Light District.”

Now when someone describes a place as a Red Light District I think of sexy and sultry women sitting in large bay windows trying to entice men to purchase their sexual favors. Such is the case in Hamburg and Amsterdam; I figured Copenhagen would be no different. I was amazed that such an area as the “District” would be located so close to Hans Christian Anderson Square and Tivoli Gardens, which are main tourist meccas in the city. As I discovered, then the Red Light District in Copenhagen is not like the ones in Amsterdam and Hamburg. I guess I was expecting a sort of seedy little dive of a hotel. I mean given the location and a third class rating.

We turned the corner and looked down the street. It seemed like others in the area--clean and quiet. There was a sex shop on the corner. Unlike its American counterparts, these people openly displayed what could be found inside. The displays were very graphic to say the least. I was sort of disappointed that there were no live women on display anywhere and we were right on the edge of the District. I was perplexed????? But there was time to figure that out later. We probably had to walk further to the south. We continued our walk down the narrow side street towards our hotel. We were nearing the end of the street and approaching one of the main north-south streets in the old city when we came across the hotel marquee. I was again surprised….This hotel was nice. Really nice. We walked up the short flight of marble steps and into the lobby….This was a nice place! It wasn’t the Plaza or the Hilton but it had real character, not a facade. The lobby was well appointed with antiques. Behind the main desk stood a very beautiful and extremely friendly and courteous Danish women in her mid-20s. I dropped my luggage and leaned up against the counter exhausted. The women rang a bell and a tall young fellow instantly appeared from a small room situated behind the counter. He was dressed a uniform; easily recognizable as a bell man. He stood by diligently while the women checked us in. She gave our keys to the man, who placed all of our luggage on a cart. We walked to the nearby elevator and went up to the third floor. The door opened and I was again amazed. The hallway of the hotel was also decked out in antiques. Everything was perfect so far. We got to our room and the bell man opened the door. We walked inside. The room was a bit stuffy but it too was decorated in beautiful antiques, including a huge mahogany entertainment center. It even had a wet bar and a small refrigerator filled with wine, beer, and other things to eat and drink. At only a $150.00 a night a real bargain!

We tipped the bell man and relaxed on our beds for a while. By now Marked looked really exhausted. He was asleep in a few minutes. With Mark it was always easy to tell when he is asleep. Mark is a world class snorer. His snoring can literally wake the dead. When we travel I use ear plugs or it is impossible to get to sleep. Mark was snoring loudly. I was not the least tired. I was grungy and hungry. First, a quick shower and a change of cloths. Then I would be off alone to explore the city.

It was about 6:00 PM when I left the hotel. For my night on the town I figured that dinner and drinks might run $50.00 or $60.00. So I brought $100.00 and my credit cards. Having no idea what to do or where to go, I stopped off at the front desk to ask some questions. The women who had checked us in was gone, being replaced by an even more beautify lady. I pulled out my map and approached her. She spoke perfect English. She showed me where I was. She pointed out, very matter of factly the boundaries of the Red Light District, noting that the place wasn’t what it used to be. She also showed me the location of the main outdoor shopping area—the Strogart--as well as where live music could be found. All of these places were, I was assured, within easy walking distance of my hotel. This seemed almost too simple. I turned around and walked out the door. Out on the sidewalk, I saw the bell man. I asked him about the Red Light District. He told me that it was more or less non-existent. A few strip bars and some bookstores but that was about it. Not much to see he advised. Oh well, I thought, but then I didn’t come to Copenhagen to look at naked women in a window. However, after having a good look at many of the ladies in this city I began to have second thoughts. Seeing some of them au naturale’ might be nice. I left that thought at the door of the hotel, walked around up the street to the west and around the corner to the north towards Hans Christian Anderson Square.

Approached from the south, Hans Christian Anderson Square appears as a large, more or less rectangular, open area where several major streets intersect. The main bus depot is located in the southeastern corner of the area. Tivoli Gardens encompass almost the entire eastern part. The southwestern side is occupied by a very large English pub with a large open air sitting area. The northern portion of the square marks the start of the Strogart, a narrow, winding, street that is devoted to pedestrian traffic only. It is a major shopping area in the city. Where Strogart enters Hans Christian Anderson Square, two icons of American pop culture have taken root: the Golden Arches and the Burger King Crown. As one walks across the square, Tivoli Gardens looms invitingly on the right. It is a beautiful and majestic suit of brick buildings with awnings and gardens surrounded by a high wrought iron fence. It cost a lot of money to get into Tivoli and I decided that they didn’t need my money just yet. I walked on towards Strogart. Basically, I am a shop-a-holic.

As I said, the Square is large with many intersecting streets. It seemed that on every corner, a street vendor had set up a cart. I walked over to one and observed the scene. Interestingly enough, the cart, as well as all of the others in the square, were selling various types of sausages—they actually looked a lot like American hot dogs. I walked up to the cart, looked at the menu board, and had no trouble deciphering precisely what I wanted. I ordered a sausage on a roll with mustard and a tasty looking topping, the content of which I had not the slightest idea. The man put the sausage on the roll, added the condiments, and gave it to me on a piece of waxed paper. It smelled delicious and tasted even better—all for about $2.50. I crossed the northern-most street in the Square, which incidentally is also the location of one of the largest taxi stands I have ever seen, and stood at the southern entrance of Strogart. I munched on my sausage and looked ruefully at the Golden Arches to my left. I walked over to the window and stared inside at a menu. I was shocked to see that a Big Mac “Value Meal” cost more than 35 Kroner—roughly $5.50. What value I thought, and began walking north again.

Strogart is one of the most interesting outdoor shopping areas I had ever visited. It is lined with shops of every variety, and the walkway itself is of ancient cobblestone; it has obviously been around for a long time. The most common stores sold clothing, with the tee shirt ubiquitous. There were also unique silver shops and jewelry stores specializing in amber, and several very large tobacconist outlets, specializing in cigars and pipe tobacco. It hadn’t occurred to me until I saw these stores that smoking is very common in Denmark. There were also a numerous taverns and eateries, ice cream shops, and other specialty and souvenir stores. The Strogart was crowded, and as I stopped to listen to the cacophony of voices in the background I became aware of music and wondered about its origin.

Every several hundred yards, a cobblestone side street intersected with the main, and here the scene could best be described as utter chaos--people walking in four different directions converging into a unified mass. In spite of the crowd, there was no pushing or shoving. People simply were not in a hurry and everyone appeared to be having a delightful time. A typical corner had at least one or two outdoor cafes, each playing different music. There were also street musicians and jugglers. I had discovered the source of the music previously mentioned! The musicians played both American folk and classical music. The cafes played mostly popular music. I vividly remember a young women playing a beautiful violin concerto—Greig I believe. The entire Strogart scene was captivating and charming. All at once it reminded of the Plaka in Athens and the open street markets of Jerusalem--with one difference: the atmosphere did not seem at all alien to me. I thought about this for a minute and realized the obvious; that as an American, I had a lot more in common culturally with the Danes then I did with the Greeks or people living in the Middle East. This was in no way a judgmental conclusion, as I love the Plaka and Jerusalem as much as Strogart. I was, however, enjoying the differences between them all. I walked a little further and saw an inviting little store selling waffles and ice cream. I was drawn towards this place, partly because the delicious smell of baked Belgian waffles and partly because of the smiling lady scooping ice cream.

It has long been a personal policy of mine to never eat dairy food when in foreign climes. The policy has severed me well over the years as I have never suffered the kinds of stomach problems so typically experienced by Americans. This was Denmark, however, and I was well acquainted with their cheeses and their renown for dairy products in general. In fact, the Holstein dairy cow was first raised in southern Denmark. I walked up to the waffle counter, behind which stood yet another icon of Danish beauty. She spoke perfect English and asked me in a very friendly manner what I would like. I asked her to suggest something especially tasty. She recommended the thick waffle with a scope of vanilla ice cream, a few strawberries, and some whipped cream. Throwing caution to the wind, I ordered her suggestion and soon was leaning up against the nearby wall thinking that this desert was perhaps the tastiest I had ever eaten. The ice cream put to shame the best commercial ice creams in California. The berries were, of course, fresh, and the whipped cream was piled high and as tasty as the ice cream.

After consuming my desert I reported back to my server that I thought her suggestion was perfect. Across the street from the waffle stand was an interesting looking amber store. Since I love amber I walked into the shop to have a look around. Denmark is one of the major western sources of Baltic Sea amber. This amber is approximately 40 million years old and is found along the Baltic Sea coast line. The precise locations along the coast are closely guarded secrets. Amber is not only beautiful but it is expensive.

I purchased a pair of earrings for my wife and, after a great deal of deliberation, bought an amber ring for myself. I could have easily spent several hundred dollars in this store but thought better of it and left before I lost my self control. I loitered around Strogart for while as it began to get dark. It was approaching 8:00 PM, and although I had eaten a sausage and a waffle I was still famished. Next decision, what to eat for dinner. I continued my walk down Strogart in search of a meal. I wound up at the next intersection looking at yet another sausage vendor. Since I hadn’t seen anything else that looked inviting, I ordered two different types of sausage. I then walked over to a café and order a beer. Here I got my first real shock. A beer cost me $6.00 a bottle. I ordered a bottle. I found a table and enjoyed the food and the atmosphere. Night was coming pretty quickly now, and many of the shops were closing; the streets did not clear of people. I wondered why.

After finishing my dinner, I walked some more and it was only then that I realized how many taverns and bars there were along Strogart and the streets intersecting it. Live music, usually rock and roll, was coming out of every establishment. I kept walking towards no place in particular and realized that I was approaching the end of Strogart. The northern end of this walkway opens onto a beautiful tree-lined square overlooking the old waterfront called Nyhaven. This was the area that my hotel clerk told me was a good place to find live music. The drop from the end of Strogart to Nyhaven is not steep but it is a long gradual downhill walk. Out on the small square, no longer surrounded by the buildings lining Strogart, I noticed that it was getting cool out. I was glad I brought a light jacket along with me. I walked down to the docks and came across an even more dense crowd of people then I encountered anywhere along Strogart.

Nyhaven! It is the name of a street located adjacent to a canal of the same name. It also happens to be the informal name of a small district where there is a strip of well-appointed taverns. I arrived at Nyhaven around 9:00 PM; the night life was already in full swing. Each establishment had a large sitting area setup directly in front of their business that was used in the evenings for sort of an open air beer garden. This was sensible as it greatly increased the number of patrons that could be served—and there were a lot of patrons!. As I was soon to discover, these outdoor areas also enabled the few non-smokers to breath fresh air.

I walked to the end of Nyhaven and found on the last corner a British Pub. A British Pub in Copenhagen? I walked in and found a large tavern with three separate rooms. All were dimly lit and very smoky. The first and largest room had a bar and numerous tables along with a small stage on which an man was playing American folk music. The second room was smaller and contained another, smaller, bar. The third room was simply an extension of the second and contained several small tables. I reconnoitered the tavern and found a seat at the bar in the first room. To my astonishment the bartender was an Englishman. We struck up a conversation about beer. He pointed out that they had two English bitters, several Scottish ales, Guinness ale, and at least 8 varieties of Carlsberg and 8 varieties of Tuborg. I was familiar with both Carlsberg and Tuborg but was completely unaware of the fact that there were so many different varieties under each label. I started off with one of the English bitters. A pint cost nearly $8.00 American! After I drank this I began to sample the varieties of Carlsberg and Tuborg with the assistance of my English bartender, who carefully explained the differences between them all.

I was on my third or fourth pint when a Dane standing next to me at the bar struck up a conversation. He said he had been to America several times and liked the country. He thought Americans and Danes had much in common. As I was to learn, what he really meant was that European Americans had much in common with Danes. He was a merchant seaman and was at the tavern with is girlfriend and several friends. He invited me to join them. We walked back to his table and I met several women and two other men. He introduced me, I sat down, and we began to talk about different topics. By that time I was into my fifth or sixth pint, and the conversation just sort of flowed—in a rather garbled way. I was grateful that the way back to the hotel was easy to navigate! After a while I found myself talking almost exclusively with the Danish seaman and his girlfriend. They were both really friendly and very interested in everything I had to say. Neither of them lived in Copenhagen. They lived in a small village along the coast. They explained the differences between rural Denmark and the city; Copenhagen was artificially expensive for purposes of capturing tourist money. The women, an attractive blonde, didn’t drink much; the merchant seaman and I, however, had a grand time buying each other drinks. I think I was into my eighth pint when he suggested that we find another establishment; the English pub was closing—it was midnight. We walked several door down the street to a Danish tavern and picked up our conversation where we left off. We drank several more pints—by now the seaman was buying all of the drinks. The young women sat by in bemusement, while the two if us proceeded to get pretty drunk. At 1:30 AM the bar began to close and we agreed that it was probably time to call it a night. I shook the man’s hand and asked him if he would be offended if I gave his girlfriend a hug. He said to go ahead. To my surprise I got not only a hug but also a kiss. I trundled off to the bathroom and when I came back my two friends had left. I walked slowly out of the bar into the cool night air and was immediately refreshed by the crisp clean air. I took in the scene before me. All of the taverns were closing and the crowd had dwindled greatly. I thought that the Danes gave up on Friday night awfully early.

I began my walk back across the open square up to the Strogart. A short way into Strogart I heard some music from down a narrow side street. I decided to explore a bit. While I never found the source of the music I did discover a small pizza restaurant from which I grabbed a slice of pepperoni pizza. Eating some food felt very good! By now I felt almost completely sober.

I walked back to Strogart and turned right towards my hotel. Most of the cafes and taverns had closed. Several taverns, however, were still open and they were hawking karaoke of all things. I was tired but I promised myself that I would explore these places some other time. Hans Christian Anderson Square was nearly deserted. I walked the last four blocks to my hotel. I arrived only to discover the front door locked. As if the night clerk had read my mind, he walked out of the room behind the front desk, to the door and let me in. I made to it to bed. It was 3:00 AM and Mark was still snoring away.

We slept in on Saturday waking up around 10:30 AM. After showering and getting dressed, we made it downstairs in time for brunch. European hotels have a delightful tradition of including breakfast with their standard room charge. The breakfast typically is served buffet style, and it includes an array of breakfast items, such eggs and potatoes, as well lunch fair, such as cheese and meats. There are also fruit and vegetables and different pastries. I had experienced buffet brunches all over Europe, and this particular meal rivaled the best of them. The buffet included sumptuous Danish pastries, several types of Harvarti cheese, Danish boiled ham, eggs, breads, and on and on. All of the dairy items were exquisite, especially the cheeses. We ate and drank our fill and wandered out into the lobby. We socialized for a while with the desk staff and then walked out into the bright sunlight. So much to do and so little time!

We put in a long day exploring the city up and down Strogart and all of the adjoining streets as far north as Nyhaven. We stopped in numerous cafes for cold drinks. I even humbled myself by going into the MacDonalds on Hans Christian Anderson Square to buy a large Coke. It tasted exactly like Coke but the drink had almost no ice—a major disappointment. Europeans do not like their soft drinks icy cold—that was an American phenomenon. Mark wanted to buy some “good” cigars so we found one of the exclusive tobacco shops along Strogart. We went inside and he paid $8.00 each for several Dominican cigars. They had numerous varieties of Cuban cigars but they were nearly $20.00 for the cheapest brand. I guess he didn’t like “good” cigars all that much.

For most of the day we just wandered around aimlessly discovering what there was to discover. We came across the Museum of Pornography, which appeared intriguing. Unfortunately it was late in the day when we found it, and had no time to visit it properly. Perhaps we wound visit it on our return trip? We found a quiet outdoor café and ate a sumptuous dinner—the cost only $30.00 American each. The beers cost an additional $25.00. We wound up down at Nyhaven around 9:00 PM and things were pretty much as they had been evening previous--lots of people milling around having a good time. We walked back to the hotel arriving at our room around 11:00 PM. Mark went to bed while I read.

I reflected on the past few days and decided that Copenhagen is a delightful place. The people are very informal and uniformly friendly. The food is excellent and so is the beer. If I had any complaint it was the price of goods and services. It would cost a lot of money to vacation in Copenhagen.

Tomorrow would no doubt prove to be an interesting day. We had to be at the airport before 1:00 PM to meet the rest of our group. I had only met one person in the group, and that had been 2 years previous. I thought about the people I would be spending the next 5 weeks with and had a difficult time imagining what the experience would be like. I’d find out soon enough.

We awoke relatively early and had another terrific brunch at the hotel. We regretfully packed our bags and began the short walk to the bus depot. Once again, the weight of my bags made the walk seem like the Bataan Death March. I arrived at the bus depot exhausted and sweating. We picked up a few last minute odds and ends for the trip,, including candy, toiletry items, and some water. We boarded the bus and arrived at the airport within 20 minutes. We retrieved our gear and went through customs in no time. It was approximately 1:00 PM. Our group would be arriving in a short while. We found a bar, sat down and had a beer. We didn’t have to wait long for the SAS flight from New York to arrive. We wandered over to the arrival area and waited for a familiar face. Finding a group of 40 Americans in the Copenhagen airport was not difficult. We found the directors of the group and formal introductions were made. It appeared that the group was composed of approximately 25 women and 10 men, with 5 male supervisors/directors, 2 female public relations people, and a male doctor. We had no time to get aquatinted with any of them as the flight to Kiev was boarding shortly. I thought quickly what I might need in the next 24 hours—more water, I decided, maybe a few Cokes, and some snacks. I bought two liter bottles of water and two cans of Coke, along with several snack food items; as it turned out these were godsends and I wish that I had bought more! Fortunately, I had lots of snacks in my baggage. There was time for a quick beer before boarding. I slammed down the beer and thought to myself that I was actually getting ready to fly into the “Evil Empire—the Lion’s Den,” that hell on Earth demonized by former President Reagan as the source of all of the worlds ills. I tried to imagine what the place would be like and came up totally blank. All I had to reflect upon were a few ethnocentric comments passed along by a college friend in the early 1980s. He had traveled to the USSR in the early 1980s to see a total solar eclipse and said that the place was drab and rundown—a dismal place full of unhappy people. As it turned, out his comments were partly true but mostly overstated. The plane was boarding and it was time to leave.

Into the Evil Empire

As I bordered the jet in Copenhagen, all of the usual fears of flying flooded my mind—plane crash, the long slow fall into the abyss…. Security was a breeze—Heathrow it wasn’t. We had a large group, and it took quite some time to get through ticketing and the baggage check. At the suggestion of a helpful clerk, we spread our gear among the group. We discovered passengers on flights originating from within the European Community are allowed a maximum of 60 kilograms of luggage person. Extra baggage is subject to an expensive surcharge. Fortunately, the baggage people were sympathetic and were more than willing to assist us in distributing our baggage to avoid extra charges.

I had ingested a few tranquilizers along with my beer and by the time I sat down a drug-induced calm set in. The plane was small; a Folke Wolffe—I thought it odd that a company involved in the manufacture of high performance fighter planes for the Luftewaffe in World War II, more than 50 years ago, would still be in the aircraft business. Ever the capitalists those Germans! I found my seat without delay, stowed my gear, and sat down waiting for the inevitable “liftoff.” The flight attendants gave us the usual talk about safety. Like a good passenger I listened and promised not to panic when the plane burst into flames. I leaned back and tried to relax as the jet flew off towards the east.

My seating companion was a distinguished-looking Austrian gentleman perhaps in his early 60s. He told me that he spoke seven languages fluently. How many did I speak? I told him, almost apologetically, that I only spoke English. He looked at me ruefully and shook his head. I had heard that Austrian were snobs and I wondered if this fellow was typical. We didn’t speak again for the next two hours.

The flight itself was over quickly. SAS served a light meal with beverages; the cheese—Danish of course-- was excellent. After the meal, the pilot announced our approach to Kiev air space and that the decent would begin shortly. Since I had never taken my seat belt off it didn’t require much effort on my part to prepare for landing. I leaned back and sort of tensed waiting for the loss of power to occur and the inevitable nose dive into the ground. As always, the plane landed without incident. We taxied to the terminal and deplaned.

The Kiev terminal was not what I expected; but then I really didn’t know what to expect, so that statement is non sequiter. I guess I expected a major airport. Kiev is, after all, the capital of the Ukraine. I figured the airport would be commensurate with the city’s importance within the country. In spite of the dilapidated condition of the terminal, this statement proved to be quite accurate relative to other Ukrainian airport terminals. Unfortunately, Ukraine is a very poor country and the airport in Kiev is the best that they have. Compared to western European standards it is was a pretty shabby place indeed. It reminded me a bit of Ben Gurion airport in Tel Aviv or perhaps the airport in Athens except more run down. There were no umbilicals enabling passengers to enter the terminal without walking on the tarmac. We walked down a set of moveable stairs and waited on the tarmac for a tram to take us to the terminal. There were a lot of people, and it took two trips for the tram to carry us off the runway. At least it wasn’t hot.

Once in the terminal, the situation rapidly deteriorated into a melee. People were everywhere and chaos reigned supreme. I made sure I positioned myself very close to the location where the baggage would be brought. There were no fancy conveyor belts or luggage carousels and security seemed non-existent! A tram carried the luggage from the plane and dumped it unceremoniously onto the floor of the terminal. Passengers were responsible for sorting though the pile and collecting what was theirs. Although the group’s baggage represented quite a large pile, we found it all in no time. I pulled my gear from the group pile; next stop customs. While we were waiting for the customs people to deal with us, I had an opportunity to look around. The terminal was very run down. The tile floor hadn’t been cleaned or polished in quite some time; some of the tiles were broken or missing. The walls were a drab light brown or perhaps a faded beige. Water stains were present. The ceiling was composed of acoustic squares but they were sagging and water stained. Obviously, the roof leaked and no one had bother to fix the problem or replace the damaged squares.

While we were waiting for the customs people an attractive young student (actually beautiful would be a more accurate description), told me that she had had some recent experiences in Russia and Ukraine. She cautioned that I should guard with my life ANY piece of paper given to me by ANY government official. We were met in the terminal by a representative of the bus line that was to provide our transportation to the Crimea. This man was well dressed and apparently knew his way around the terminal. He herded groups of students to separate queues. In that I had a large amount of gear, and would probably have the most difficulty in clearing customs, I was to go first. Great I thought a guinea pig!

I tried my best to be humble and very polite. The customs area was no doubt intended to be intimidating. It consisted of a series of 6 small compartments each inhabited by one customs uniformed agent. The compartments were composed of faded green ply wood. The customs agents were separated from passengers by a small window on which metal bars had been installed. There was an opening at the bottom of the bars through which the agent and passenger could exchange documents. Each agent was dressed in a dark green uniform—almost military I thought. On his shoulders were red ribbons; each man wore a hat. None of them smiled! None of them spoke a word of English. Fortunately, we did have a few interpreters.

I handed over my passport. The agents looked it over and decided that was document was OK. Then they asked about luggage. My interpreter explained my “situation” and showed them the pile of gear I had. They looked at the gear and then at me. They were still not smiling. I pulled out my Carne’, thinking that it might help. The agent looked at the Carne’ and asked me to wait. He disappeared for perhaps 5 minutes. When he returned, he brought a supervisor. The supervisor acted as if he knew all about Carne’s , like he’d seen them all of the time. He gave me a small form to complete—a list of all of my equipment and belongings not shown on the Carne’. He ordered the underling to copy the Carne and attach it to the small form I filled out. He then stamped both and gave them back to me. Remembering what the attractive young lady had said about “official documents I placed them with my most precious valuables. The agent never inspected any of the boxes. He stamped my passport and told me to move along. The entire process took perhaps 25 minutes. Once through customs I located what appeared to be a sort of money exchange. I obtained $10.00 in Ukrainian coupons. The exchange rate was 141,000 coupons per dollar. To say the least, $10.00 got me a lot of coupons!

I was though. I was actually in the Ukraine. OK. Now how about the rest of the group? To clear 40 Americans though Ukrainian customs took approximately 2 hours. By the time we were ready to say goodbye to this place, it was after 6:00 PM. We walked out into the parking lot. Frankly, I was glad to get into the fresh air. The terminal was not only dismal but it smelled of mildew. Altogether a dreadful place I thought. We gathered our group into the parking lot and it began to rain slightly. It was both warm and extremely humid. At this point, I felt wretched. Unfortunately, the worse was yet to come! We looked around for our bus. With some 40 people and their gear plus equipment for the expedition, I expected to see a large bus on the order of a Greyhound type. Instead, we saw a dilapidated red silver school type bus perhaps 30 years old. We had an interesting problem: 40 of us plus the bus driver and his family of 4, not to mention all of our gear and a bus meant for perhaps 36 people and very little luggage.

None of the Ukrainians seemed phased by the situation. The bus driver opened up the baggage compartments, which were, as usual, located below the seating area and accessed though large doors on the outside of the vehicle. We loaded up my large boxes and then proceeded to pack in whatever would fit. In the final analysis, the compartment didn’t hold much. There we were: in the airport parking lot, nightfall approaching, with 44 people, 38 seats, and a huge pile of luggage and no more storage space. We began loading the luggage on to the floor of the bus. We put down one row of gear front to back. Then we laid down a second row. The baggage was now equal to the tops of the arm rests of the seats. We still had more gear. We piled it up along the back seat to within a few feet of the ceiling of the bus. We then filled up the rear door stairwell. We stored small bags in the very narrow overhead above the seating areas and we stuffed gear under seats. With luck, we managed to fit all of our gear into this bus. We had a row of people sitting on top of the luggage in the rear of the bus. Individuals took seats by crawling over the luggage in the aisle. The bus driver’s family sat in the front stairwell. Two people sat on a small jump seat that pulled down from the wall of the front stairwell and the drivers children simply sat on the floor. My god I thought, what if the bus didn’t have enough power to move?

We were all seated—sort of. The driver climbed in behind the wheel and fired up the engine. The bus actually started up on the first key turn. The driver engaged the clutch and we were off. I took three tranquilizers, drank some water, and thought it was going to be a very uncomfortable next 15 hours! It was still light out—there were no reading lights in the bus—so I pulled out a book and tried to read; I found myself far more interested in looking out of the window. We were in the middle of farmland with no city in sight. I wondered where Kiev was located. I never saw it. I sort of dozed off occasionally but as long as it was light I watched the countryside. It grew too dark to see. I put my book away. I thought the scenery didn’t look much different then the American mid-west. The central Ukraine, called the black soil zone, was in fact a whole lot like Iowa. Flat and full of agricultural fields. As it grew darker, I was aware of how dark it was. There were very few cars on the road and no street lamps. Houses were few and far between.

I was sitting next to a middle aged women by the name of Jan. She was a public relations person and was retained by Macalester College to make a video of the trip. She was from Minneapolis and fun to talk with. The pills were having their desired effect and I was having a hard time staying awake. Not that one could really sleep in the bus—it was hot and damp, crowded and noisy. Several of the directors who were lounging on the baggage in the back had broken out a couple of bottles of Arak, a Middle Eastern alcoholic beverage that tastes something like anise. I pushed my seat back as far as it would go, put in my ear plugs, pulled my hat down over my eyes and dozed off. My sleep lasted perhaps an hour.

It was around 9:30 PM and the bus began to slow down. I open my eyes in time to see the vehicle pull off of the road into what appeared to be a sort of roadside rest. No Golden Arches here! There was the remains of a small building, some trees and what appeared to be a small portable convenience store. Not a 7-11 mind you. It was more like a child’s lemonade stand. People began to scurry out of the bus. I was just about the last one off. I inquired what it is we were doing. One of the directors told me we were going to eat dinner. I was astonished. I looked around and asked my: where? The bus driver proceed to unload bags of stuff including vegetables, what appeared to be sausage, cheese, and bread. None of it looked especially appetizing to me. I wandered over to the “lemonade stand.” I bought a chocolate bar. And two bottles of locally brewed beer. The chocolate was perhaps $0.25 and the beer was maybe $0.12 a bottle. I opened the beer and walked back over to where people were eating. The food still looked unappealing. Many of the people wondered where I got the beer. Most hadn’t seen the lemonade stand. Some folks walked over and bought beers or soda, candy, and whatever else was for sale. Little did any of us know that the lemonade stand would be the last place we would be able to buy anything for more than 20 hours. I climbed back into the bus and found my bag with its large food stash. I grabbed some dried fruit, beef jerky, peanuts and almonds. I took some bread and vegetables from the bus driver as well as some fruit, and settled down to eat dinner. It was a simple meal yet quite satisfying and very filling. Our stop lasted perhaps an hour. Finally, we climbed back onto the bus and were off.

This part proved to be the drive from hell. Back in 1980 I traveled from San Francisco to Miami on a Greyhound Bus. It took four days and it was one of the most boring and tiring four days of my life. I was so exhausted by the time I arrived in Miami that I slept for nearly 20 hours and still was not fully recovered after the long sleep. I began to think of these poor students. I had two restful days in Copenhagen before I met the group at the airport. The students had flown from the United States to Denmark (with a stop in London (18 hours), and immediately boarded a plane to Kiev (3 more hours). All had been awake for more then 24 hours before the bus ride. In reality I had little to complain about. I took a few more happy pills and settled down for a nice nap. I slept for several hours. Awaking around 2:00 AM. What woke me up was the bumps. Bumps on a main road? It felt like we were driving over a dirt road. How could that be. I sat up and looked outside and sure enough we were on a dirt road. I never did figure out why we were driving on it. We appeared to be driving though some farmers field. Amazing I thought. We bounced around for about an hour. I was amazed that we didn’t break an axle with the load we were carrying. We did nearly get stuck in a large hole. After many of nasty bounces we made it back to what appeared to be a main road—in the Ukraine it was always difficult to tell the main roads from the back roads. There were no freeways, except, as I was to learn later, around the major cities like Kiev. All roads were two lane; the main ones had vehicular traffic the back roads did not. Once back on pavement, the excitement subsided and I dozed off again.

I awoke as the sun was rising. We were still heading south. I did a quick reconnoiter in my head and figured that we hadn’t even reached the Black Sea yet. I guess we had quite a ways to go yet. I woke up hungry and thirsty. I drank some water and ate some dried fruit and nuts. I had a few pieces of left over fruit from last night. I took a few more pills. We kept on driving. I wondered if this bus would ever run out of gas. I was later to lean that the bus driver carried extra 5 gallon gas cans in the front and on the back of the bus. Great we were a rolling fuel-air bomb. The rest of the group was waking up—all hungry and thirsty. There was no great quantity of water available so everyone simply shared what they had. I was very glad that I grabbed those 2 litters of water in Denmark and a third at the airport in Kiev. Around 8:00 AM the bus stopped. Everyone piled out and stretched their legs, brushed their teeth, went to the bathroom…..We were in the middle of a vast expense of flat agricultural fields. Beautiful and peaceful I thought. The air was clean. There was absolutely nothing moving anywhere except us. It felt good to be outside. I really wished that I had water to clean off my face. I was very sweaty and felt pretty groaty. I did find a clean shirt and put it on.

Back on the bus! The trek continued without let up, hour after hour….. At this point the entire affair began to get surreal. Most everyone was exhausted and hot and dirty. Around 12:00 PM we final intersected with a main road heading more or less east-west. I figured this to be the main road to Odessa. There were no signs anywhere in sight but the location seemed about right. We turned west and continued onward. Not longer after, we crossed over the Dneipper River. At this point, the Dnieper is a wide waterway indeed. The bridge was a rather unelaborated two-lane causeway affair almost a mile long. We were near to the place where Crimea connects to the mainland and after more than 20 hours on the road, we arrived in a city. This was literally the first developed place we had seen since we had left the Kiev airport—the lemonade stand not withstanding. We did not stop here however. We drove right through the city. After leaving this berg, the road came down close to the Black Sea. The view was nice but it was still hot outside and very hot inside a bus that smelled of human perspiration.

The peninsula that connects the mainland to the Crimea is narrow; it is bordered on the east by a wide expanse of marshland; on the west is the open expanse of the Black Sea. The Black Sea is a body of water that must be seen to be appreciated. Most people have heard about the beauty of the azure-colored Aegean Sea, the greenish blue of the Caribbean Sea, or the deep blue of the Coral Sea. Few people in the west have even heard of the Black Sea let alone seen it. The Black Sea is first of all very large: Nearly a 1000 miles long and 600 miles wide. It is also deep approaching a few thousand feet in some areas. It is also totally landlocked with a narrow opening to the Mediterranean Sea at the very well known Bosporus Strait. Most of the time the Black Sea is calm but it can be as treacherous as any large body of water. Today, however, the sea was like a sheet of black glass, perfectly calm and tranquil. The smell of salt was in the air. That struck me as odd because we were so far inland. The Black Sea, however, is really an extension of the world’s oceans and it is salty.

The history of the Bosporus is ancient. The place was well known to the Greeks as early as the Trojan War or even earlier. By the 5 century B.C.E., the Greeks had established a small city called Byzantium on a strategically located point at the western end of the Bosporus. From this tiny settlement arose the successor of Rome: Constantinople; today called Istanbul. Until the latter part of the Bronze Age, ca. 1200 B.C.E., ancient mariners were unable to easily access the Black Sea as the currents and prevailing winds blew in a westerly direction and the early navigators had sailing ships with a single sail. Ships with a single sail could navigate against the current and winds but they needed a lot of room to maneuver; something that the Bosporus Strait lacks. Therefore, for several thousand years, neither the Minoans nor Phoenicians, master sailors by anyone’s definition, could penetrate into the Black Sea. For the Greeks it was a sort of terra incognita. To Homer it was the location of the land of the Golden Fleece of Odyssey fame. There is some indication that Greek sailors had penetrated into the Black Sea by 1000 B.C.E. Certainly, by the 5 or 6 century Greek settlements had sprouted up all along the coast from modern day Bulgaria to Odessa, the Crimea, the eastern coast and northern Anatolia or modern Turkey. The two main Greek settlements on the Crimea were Chersoneses and Panticapaeum. The former is located on the southwestern tip and the later on a far eastern peninsula. Our destination was Chersoneses.

At the time Chersoneses was first settled, the entire northern shore of the Black Sea was part of a barbarian kingdom known as Scythia. The Greeks considered the Scythians to be barbarian but then they labeled all non-Greeks barbarian. Actually, the Scythians have left behind a marvelous record of artistic accomplishment, ranging from beautifully formed gold jewelry to highly ornate pottery and very elaborate burial sites. It is true that the Scythians lacked a written language, and certainly, by Greek standards, they were far less intellectual in their activities. They were superb horseman and superior warriors, and for a number of centuries caused the more settled groups of Eastern Europe nothing but problems. For the Greeks living along the coast of the Black Sea they found it more expeditious to pay the Scythian king tribute then engage him in battle. By the 3 century B.C.E., the Scythians had all but disappeared from the historical record. By that time, both Chersoneses and Panticapaeum had become very important trading ports. Chersoneses was surrounded by a walled city of immense proportion. As I learned later, Chersoneses survived well into the 13 century and in the early middle ages was a very important tributary city of Byzantium, with its own Hellenistic culture, complete with elaborate basilicas with mosaic floors, senate, and form of government. For many centuries, the city was used by the Emperor as a place of banishment for undesirable political figures, including a deposed Emperor and his family and at least two Popes.

We were still, however, a long way from Chersoneses. The bus was still very hot—by now the air vent had broken and the windows could be lowered but a few inches. At least we were now on the Crimean Peninsula heading south to the main city of Sempheropol. I estimated that were several hours from this place. I sat back and watched the countryside roll by. Farmland steppe for the most part—reminded me of Oklahoma or the Texas Panhandle: very flat. The scenery hardly changed for more then 2 hours. It was approximately 3:00 PM when we arrived in Sempheropol. It seemed like a pleasant enough place. There were many trees. It was not a large city and it had no large buildings that I could see. We stopped at a sort of hotel/resort. All of us piled out of the bus and mobbed the lobby. It was difficult to imagine what the people working at this establishment thought of us. We were the first Americans they had ever seen. It really did seem like we were a million miles from home, in a very strange and exotic land, surrounded by people who did not speak English and had, so we thought, little knowledge of our customs.

The first thing I sought out was a money exchange. It was not hard to find, as it was a small hotel. They were not, however, equipped to deal with the kind of money exchange we had. I was only able to change a $10.00 bill. I bought a few beers and just enjoyed being outside of the wretched bus. The air was sweet smelling and clean. It was not too hot. After a 30-minute respite, we were told to reboard the bus. Like obedient slaves, we climbed aboard. The seat I was in was beginning to feel wet from sweat. We had perhaps two hours before we arrived in Sebastopol.

We were again on the road. The road between Sempheropol and Sebastopol was bumpy but the view improved considerably. We left the flat steppe behind and began to enter some hills. There were also more trees along this stretch of road.

About an hour out of Sempheropol, we came to what appeared to be an inspection station. We were informed that we were about to enter the Sevastopol Federal Area, a sort of federally run enclave within the Crimean Autonomous Region of the Ukraine. The inspection station was occupied by men in green uniforms and there was a line of vehicles waiting to pass through into the restricted area. The bus pulled off to the right and we piled out. The immediate vicinity was rather barren; the soil was whitish and the vegetation low and scrubby. As always, it was hot and there was not any shade in sight. Every passenger on the bus gave his passport to the project director in charge of administrative matters. Within our passports were visas. These documents, we were informed, would be very carefully matched against a list of “approved” guests. The list was on official letterhead from the Ukrainian consulate in New York. I figured that even with all of these official documents entry would not be easy no quick. I was correct in both assessments. Fortunately, we did have a number of people with us who spoke Russian; in fact, one of our party was a bona fide Ukrainian citizen from the city of . She was apparently able to translate various requests and provide adequate responses because in about an hour we were piling back on the bus. It appeared that all of our documents checked out and we were all permitted to enter a restricted area.

The Sevastopol Federal District was established around what was once the top-secret Russian Naval base by the same name. Known to the west as Sebastopol, the city was established by Catherine the Great in the late 1700s as the home for a Black Sea Fleet. It was from this port that the Russian Tsars hoped to accomplish their dream of capturing the Bosporus and Dardanelles straits and Constantinople and establish free access to warm ocean waters. In the 19 century, the British and the French supported the Ottoman Empire and thereby thwarted Russia’s attempts at this endeavor. In the early 1850s, English, French, and Turkish forces laid siege to the city for 9 months and fought several significant battles in the region. Perhaps the most famous and probably the least significant of these battles was the Battle of Balaclava, made famous by Tennyson’s “The Charge of the Light Brigade.” A battle of far more importance was that of the Battle of Inker man Hills. This battle may have been Russia’s last real chance to claim a victory in the so-called Crimean War. Russia maintained a major feet at Sevastopol throughout the 19 century and up to the time of the 1919 October Revolution, which brought the Communist Party into power. The Red Navy continued to use the old Naval Base. The city was besieged by the Wermacht led by General von Manstein in 1942 and after a lengthy fight fell with losses of over 150,000 soldiers and even more citizens. The city was almost demolished. After the war, the Russians re-established an even larger naval base in the city and set up severe restrictions excluding virtually all foreigners. In fact, we were the first large group of Americans to have ever visited the city.

As the bus passed through the inspection station, my thoughts turned to the Crimean War. I did not have a map to look at but I closed my eyes and was easily able to recreate a map of the region in my mind. Off to the right and into the distance was a long channel. At the end of the channel and to the south were the Inkerman Hills. We were driving through the very hills where the Russian army under Pavel Stepanovich Nakhimov and the British under Lord Raglan fought a bloody battle. The Russians, armed with smoothbore muskets of the Napoleonic period, fought bravely against a much smaller English force, which were armed with the new French rifled muskets. In some cases, the slaughter was significant. The Russians made no headway against the English and ultimately retreated behind the near impregnable fortifications of Sevastopol. For almost a year, the kept they allied armies at bay. Ultimately, diseases forced the allies to leave the Crimea forever. The Russian victory, however, was pyrrhic. The city was largely in ruins. Thousands of soldiers and citizens had starved to death or died of diseases. Finally, the magnificent harbor had been badly damaged—the Russians sank ships to keep out the Royal Navy. The losses for the allied armies were also great but the Russians paid a heavy price for what amounted to a strategic stalemate.

The Inkerman Hills immediately reminded me of the California Coast Range mountains. Like the Coast Ranges, the Inkerman Hills were nearly devoid of vegetation except for grasses burned brown by the sun with low scrubby bushes on south facing slope. The hills were generally rounded with very steep sides and deeply eroded dry arroyos, which often contained a few trees. The main road into the city was a two lane wide and it followed the contours of the hills in order to avoid creating unnecessarily steep road grades. While the road grade was not steep, the road path was extremely winding. The hills ended abruptly at the edge of the developed part of the city. While the outskirts could not be called flat, they we considerably less rolling then the terrain we had just left. The city of Sevastopol was built right on the edge of the Black Sea at the head of a beautiful harbor. The city is penetrated to its extreme inland limits by a natural channel, wide at its mouth and tapering to nearly a point at its end in the Inkerman Hills. This channel effectively divides the city into two distinct parts. The central part of the city is located to the south of the channel. The Russian navel base is located along the southern side of the harbor. Prior to the demise of the Soviet Union, the entire Black Sea fleet was based in Sevastopol Harbor. After the break up, the fleet was unevenly divided between Russian and Ukraine. The Russians more or less booted the Ukrainian part of the fleet out of the harbor and they relocated to Balaclava Harbor to the southeast.

Sevastopol was built to the north of the ancient city of Chersoneses, but over a period of more than a hundred years, the new city expanded to surround the ancient one. The Russian naval base is located immediately to the north of the Chersoneses preserve. The preserve is surrounded by residential areas and resorts for common working folk nearby. The way from the outskirts of the city to the Preserve is extremely convoluted, and I have never been able to figure out just how we drove through the city on that late afternoon in June. It took perhaps 45 minutes. The roads were bumpy and mostly narrow. Most of the city we drove through appeared relatively new—certainly post World War II. There were numerous unfinished buildings and many vacant lots with tall weeds. We came upon a large, open square occupied by hundreds of people and small vendor carts. We made a right hand turn and drove down a single lane street. This street terminated at the resort we would call home for the next 5 weeks. The bus pulled up to the entrance of the resort and with difficulty, it drove through the front gate. We piled out of the bus and began the task (some would call it an ordeal) to unload our gear. Gear stowed, my first task was to find a place with cold beer, which happened to be on the premises.