The Wonders of Traveling

When I say 'wonders', what I really mean is, it's a wonder anyone ever travels out of Ukraine. Or gets back in.

Starting  way back on March, I began gathering information on how to buy international train tickets. I tried registering on the Official Ukraine train site, but for some crazy reason it didn't take my password. I had two different people call the main desk for information and received two sets of instructions...the last one being so absolutely rude I thought my friend was going to cry. As April stretched in May I was nearly out of my mind and then June rolled in and I finally decided to bring in the BIG guns...the travel expert who works in the Peace Corps office in Kiev. Of course, prior to this I didn't know this person exisited. Lyudmila is wonderful!!!! She did some research, made some calls and voila! I received the correct information and I was armed and ready for the next step...purchasing tickets.

I considered myself extremely lucky that I could buy international tickets in Dnepropetrovsk because the first round of phone calls informed me I had to travel all the way to Kiev to do this. I was ready with my friend and community counterpart Julia...I was taking no chances at this point. I had my money, my passport, and all the pertinent information and off we went. We found the ticket office and talked to a very nice young lady, who was very happy to sell me a train ticket to Romania...but that was all. She could not provide me with a return ticket. She said to comeback on Monday to speak with the manager.

I had to go to plan B.  Well I didn't have a plan B but I needed one, and fast. I was leaving soon and I couldn't leave Ukraine until I bought a return ticket...the reason being is because I also needed to buy a return ticket to Dnepropestrovsk from Kiev...a hard-to-come-by ticket if you are trying to purchase a same-day seat. I can't think of anything worse that being stuck in the Kiev train station. I had a near miss last year and it was not fun, I can tell you.

So, I came home without tickets and e-mailed Lyudmila in the office and also I e-mailed my friend Daniela in Bucharest to see if she could purchase a ticket for me. While I waited for their replies, I looked up the Moscow-Sofia train on-line and wouldn't you know they had a great user-friendly English language website that operated very much like an airline's site...you could book online for your exact dates and use a credit card (yippee!) and print out the tickets. WOW.  Or so I thought.

The cost of a train ticket from Bucharest to Kiev is $242 . This is a one way ticket! Horrified, I waited to hear back from someone. That evening Daniela e-mailed me to tell me she had purchased the return ticket for me. In the end the total cost for round trip tickets: $182.  Bingo!

SO, I decided that I might need some spending money for train travel. I figured I would get some Euros to tide me over because the train trip is 27 hours and I will probably need something to eat that isn't bread, cheese, or water. I couldn't imagine anyone accepting Ukrainian Hryvnya so I took my personal Visa card to the bank and asked if I could get some Euros. The cashier said yes and asked for my passport. The card machine wouln't process my Visa for some reason and I was told to try another bank. I went outside and decided to just use my card in the ATM to extract some money and return to do what I thought would be a simple exchange. NOT.

I went back inside the bank to another cashier and she refused my passport. She said I needed a Ukrainian passport to exchange money. I left there not a little confused because how the hell can people visit here without local currency? I was not happy. I knew something was not right so I came home and called my travel expert Lyudmila and explained what happened. She told me that perhaps the cashier did not understand and to try another bank so I went out again to a new bank and the same thing happened. Huh.  I did get help this time, however, because a customer in the bank understood my problem and exchanged my Hryvna for Euros using her passport. (She was exchanging money for a friend who was from Moldova)

After all the aggravation I have gone through for a simple train trip to the next country over, I think I can say I have been given a new insight into what it means to be Ukrainian and want to visit someplace outside the borders of Ukraine. The iron curtain fell 21 years ago and these good people should have more personal freedom for themselves. If I am having this many problems trying to accomplish the little things, I can just imagine a Ukrainian national trying to apply for a visa of some kind. It makes me sad. These people deserve better. Much better.

Post Script
I had e-mailed the Moscow-Sofia train site to ask about the kinds of currency they would except on the train but did not hear from them until just now. Turns out they do except Ukrainian money so I went though all that exchange nonsense for nothing. huh.

I received a call from travel guru Lyudmila in the PC office and she dug a little deeper into the mystery of how to exchange money in Ukraine. When a visitor first arrives here and exchanges money, they must save this receipt, because without it, they cannot exchange any Ukrainian money back into another currency. It's like presenting proof of where you got this Ukrainian money. I can imagine a visitor coming here and having hundreds of UAH left over because who saves those receipts anyway? Strange.