| The Other
Place ~ Un-touristy Ukraine |
| Benidorm,
Spain, you know -- like all the rest -- a mini Manhattan for the tourist,
with two-drinks-for-one Happy Hour.
The other place?
Get your atlas out and look in that big space called Ukraine in Eastern
Europe, go west of the capital, Kiev, and, dropped into the borders of
endless pine forests in Old Poland, you have Rivne. A 'city' of about 220,000
souls, although it seemed less to me, lacking the density of a comparable
English town.
Those who visit
The Ukraine might be grouped in three categories: the businessman headed
to Kiev; the tourist, also headed to Kiev; and last, an odd collection
of people with particular, off-the-beaten- track reasons to visit cities
like Rivne in that former Soviet Socialist Republic. This last category
might include evangelical protestants, western men seeking internet brides,
or just the eccentric traveller going to the provinces. (Here is a good site for
Kiev apartments accommodation.)
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I'd place
myself in the last definition (and not with a tinge of regret, the second
to last). Previous visits to Rivne had been for business reasons; well,
ostensibly so. In straight profit terms, my interest in the place overuled
a shaky bottom line. For this last visit, 'I'll kept it simple,' said I.
'I'm on holiday!'
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During my stay,
I'd given a talk to an English class at one of the city's secondary schools.
A girl had asked, 'Do you like Ukraine?' Probably just a standard question,
but it made me hesitate for a moment. |
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| I answered
that I could have visited many other places in the world, but I'd chosen
their city, instead. A flattering answer, but also true, one that made
me consider why I had in fact chosen such an un-touristy place. Normally,
the idea of a holiday is associated with attractive images.
The idea of
a warm and sunny place usually comes first, then the details such as a
swimming pool, good hotel service, facilities for the kids and so on. The
place can be cold and sunny as in skiing holidays; but you're still warm,
and the services are up to a familiar standard, including English, of course.
After the physical comfort, intellectual stimulation can rate highly; all
those cathedrals and quaint old towns. But Rivne. Errrrr ....
Climate?
. . . Brrrrr . . . rather like biting-cold England, with a more extreme
downside. |
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Offshore
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| Hotel?
. . . Gee! . . . the one in the centre of town, the inappropriately named
'Star', had no running water, just cockroach poison when I stayed in it
seven years ago. I passed by it a few weeks ago, and the outside looked
just the same. It's a good location for an urbanized, Eastern European
Bates Motel horror film.
Getting
around? . . . Uh! . . . the basic written environment of signs are
in an unfamiliar alphabet and all well away from the comfort zone. You
feel lost and could get physically lost. You soon develop a dog like association
with your friend/translator/minder. He gets up, so do you. He smiles, ditto.
However, good friends and readers, my smiling mechanism received in fact
a much needed boost after a long spell in England.
The City?
. . . Well, yes! . . . Rivne falls well short on nearly all what I'll call
the Bendidorm reference chart. Although, at this point, fairness compells
mention of improvements over my last visit. Shiny new petrol stations have
opened. as well as one or two modern restaurants and bars and a couple
of western style supermarkets, but still isolated pinpoints of light in
an otherwise still dark landscape. Literally dark, as the council couldn't
afford the electricity to keep street lights on. |
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| The Upside?
. . . A.O.K. . . . to list the shortcomings of this place misses the point.
It is this abnormal situation that attracts. I don't want an English speaking,
package holiday service. I've done the Greek islands and Benidorm, where
one could not shake off a feeling of anonymity. Where the few locals see
you as a walking room number, easily replaceable. They have little inclination
to really see the individual. And fellow holidaymakers abide by the mantra
'to have a good time', generosity of spirit literally expressed in another
round of liquor filled glasses. At times, banality has its place.
But oftenwise, there is a need to as an E. M. Foster preface says, to 'only
connect'.
Wages still
remain low, not exceeding a dollar an hour for most workers. My friend's
pensioner parents get only about $8 a month joint income and rely on his
unstinting support. For other old women, it's standing on a pavement all
day to try and sell a handful of berries or the grandchild's used clothes. |
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| A stark environment
in which to relate, one that gives a perspective on life at home and to
better see how our cradle to grave welfare has damaged people's interdependency.
And Health & Safety rules. What a joke! I saw a bitumen pipe
coating company that would have given a British clipboard inspector apoplexy.
All strangely
liberating. May be that's what the Wild west was like. Feeling this might
be a little tiring physically, but memorable. It's odd how discomfort and
a certain brutality make strong memories, like my boarding school days.
However, it
wasn't just a grim learning experience, but funny too at times, in a darkish,
crazy way. Like finding a restaurant bill ten times less than expected.
Or the business meeting with the brother of a big business owner and his
son, in his small office to the side of a delicatessen type shop he owned.
It resembled a scene from a ganster film, with dark complexioned men dressed
entirely in black squeezed on chairs against the wall. Are they discussing
some ruthless business action? Then plates of food and drink brought by
a definitely pre-politically correct secretary. And, incredibly, a special
vegetarian option for me. Another round of handshakes and good bye.
Doubtless,
after a number of ebb and flows, the tide of rising Western standards
of living will cross Poland to reach Ukraine. Even the Euro zone may survive
and take this country into its smudging embrace. But it will never be a
Benidorm. If they had a Happy Hour there, the bars would go bust in a night.
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