INSIDE AND OUT OF CHECHNYA VIA UKRAINE, Scott Alixander Sonders [e ink ebook reader .txt] 📗

can look at that same page in English! So with my miserable ability with the Russian language, my assistant, Natasha Yaroshenko, became my most valuable asset. And just so my readers can sound like they know something about that culture, if ever in this part of the world, her surname is Ukrainian, not Russian. People tend to get edgy if you mutate their genealogy.

Natasha and I get along, “if for no other reason,” as she says, “because we share the same birthday” – even if divided by 20 years. At least astrologically we “speak the same language” and, according to her, that’s what the art of translation is all about. Natasha told me that she “often translates from Russian to Russian for some of her clients.” She says, “speaking the same language is not the same as understanding one another.” Again, only a fool would argue with this.

Okay, Chechnya. Against all advice I tried first to hire a car to drive to the southern border of Russia and Chechyna. If you open an English language newspaper here, like the Kyiv Post, there are numerous classified ads offering cars with drivers. I called the first one. Sergei said, “sure, (he) has a late-model Peugeot 405 and 15 years experience that was available for only $35 for an eight hour day.” He also warned, “that doesn’t include parking in the Center.”

I’ve found most Ukrainian men to be candid if not somewhat lacking in financial finesse when discussing money. After all, parking is rarely more than a few Grivney, the local paper currency now valued at around 20 cents. In the West,
a proprietor would most likely include that within the 35-dollar purchase, as a token gift, a thank you perk to a paying customer.

Coyly, I asked Sergei if he would drive me south to another city on the Dnipro River named Dnepropetrovsk. He said, “sure but that’s a 24-hour day and you’d have to pay me $100 per day plus expenses. I won’t sleep in my car like other drivers,” he added. “My wife doesn’t like if I do that.”

Having set what I thought was a sly trap, I then said, “Well, that’s not a problem. I will set aside your expenses (this is their phrase) for an overnight in a reasonably priced hotel.”

Sergei said, “No problem then, when do you want to leave?

I thought I had him. I paused, then almost yawningly said, “Well, before we go to Dnepropetrovsk, I need to first go for a few days to Stavropol.”

I barely put a period on my sentence before Sergei nervously interjected. “You said Stavropol, that’s in the south of Russia…”

By now I’d heard it before so I tried to salvage the shot with a distraction, “Sergei, it’s even closer than Dnepropetrovsk. You do have your Dokumenti, don’t you?”

“Of course I have a Passport – that’s not it. But I’m not sumashehtshyj. Are you? There are bandits on those roads. They’ll take you, me, the car, chop it all up and sell everything back in Chechnya.” I could tell he was nervous; car parts I could understand – but human body parts don’t even make good dog food. I don’t know. Maybe the bandits would come with little Igloo ice chests and preserve our barely cold internal organs long enough to sell them to some desperate rich guy. But how many rich guys are there in Chechnya?

Sergei was out. I tried five others. They had a variety of opening prices that were related to the quality of the car I’d wanted, but the same response once I mentioned going anywhere near the tranquil green mountains on the Russian border of Chechnya. If a car is difficult, why not fly? Arriving by plane is awkward. There is no direct flight from here to there. First you must fly east and north to Moscow from Kyiv. Then you must change planes AND airports, before flying “backward” and south to Stavropol.

Changing airports is the worst part. In Moscow, most airport taxi drivers pay a vyigrysh to the local Mafia. If you are an obvious Muscovite, you’ll pay about $35 to shuttle between disembarkation and re-embarkation. But even if you speak Russian and are obviously a yokel, you could spend a whole lot more. If you’re a naïve, non-Russian speaking tourist, I’d advise that you ask your travel agent to handle this transfer, and simply have a hired car waiting for you. It’s been known that many tourists in this situation have been ransomed, only after handing over in excess of a hundred dollars – for a cab ride!

So, I went to the central train station in Kyiv, with Natasha as my guide. We passed another McDonald’s, which is indeed the king of quickie burgers in all of Eastern Europe. But I opted for a Ukrainian version of this fast food chain. At Shvalko, I decided on the most expensive combo plate on the menu. For about $3.00, I ate a tasty schnitzel, a side of nicely prepared mixed sautéed vegetables (it would make Mom happy), some au gratin potatoes, an ice cream and an apple drink. I decided we could use the respite and also added two “pints” (500 deciliters) of palatable beer in a plastic disposable cup. Both beers cost about $1.50, USA. Oh, and some chewing gum. Maybe it’s a fetish with oral hygiene, but they always ask if you want gum.

My multilingual aide had the Chicken Kiev combo meal, which was priced on the menu at a mere $1.63. (I grew up eating “Chicken Kiev” but never imagined that this dish actually originated in a place by the same name!) This included a side of vinaigrette cabbage salad, fries, an ice cream, and a lemon drink to wash it down. The total bill for me and my translator was almost eight dollars, but the calculator in my head had estimated just bit over $6.00. I asked Tasha to explain why it was almost higher than I’d expected. She explained it was because she didn’t like the salad that came on the Combo plate meal. Instead, she ordered a different one. Because of this, the counter girl had charged us for everything as if each dish had been ordered separately. I asked Tasha if she would be blasé about a 35% “surcharge,” if it were a pair of $100.00 shoes.

That lunch debacle cost Natasha a one-hour lecture on Western Economic Theory and the essential purpose for ordering “combo plates.” Unfortunately, I lost my audience somewhere between the topics of a “diving Dow Jones average and Alan Greenspan.” And I believe that everything she heard was only a little bird crying, “cheap, cheap, cheap.” This again is a cultural difference. In Russia and Ukraine, it is often thought that if someone has $500 in their pocket, then they have $500 to spend – and spend now.

As if in retaliation for my harangue, Natasha, almost in tears said, “Well, if you want to write journalistics, you should at least remember that it’s Kyiv, not Key’Ev. The sound is almost monosyllabic. It is not the heavily enunciated polysyllable sound of Key’Ev – which is what your Americans call our native chicken dish. If you are going to write correctly, then start speaking correctly.”

I should note here that many foreigners will be corrected (justifiably) about inappropriately referring to the country in two words as “the Ukraine,” instead of the single nominative of “Ukraine.” The first term implies a “region” whereas the second is a “country.” If you want to sound erudite, don’t make this mistake.

The train station was sprawling, nicely appointed, and mostly new. There was even a section where you could rent sleeping cabins while waiting between train transfers. The main hall graced us with the latest in computer generated billboards announcing the departure and arrival times and track locations of the trains for all major cities. For those who have succeeded in a program of speed reading, it even flashes these statistics in English for about three seconds. And there it was, Kislovodsk, a 31-hour train ride and the endpoint of my destination, plus another thirty kilometers and a three-hour bus ride south to Stavropol.

But even Natasha refused the invitation. Her best friend had been gang raped by drunken Muslims. But aren’t we told that “Muslim” and “drunk” is an oxymoron? She was fourteen at the time and spent the next two years in a mental hospital. At 29, she still eats the occasional antidepressant medication like candy.

So, I found someone younger and more naïve. Yana, at 22 and married, was working for the tourist rental agency from which the University had rented my flat. Upon our first meeting, Yana had proudly announced that she was my “colleague,” having also received her “higher education” (that’s what they call any degree garnered from five or more years of university) in English Philology. It seems that if you want to earn a better than average wage anywhere in the world now, you’d better be polishing your English skills. In my first three weeks here in the ex-Soviet republics, I received two nice offers to teach and one to assist a wealthy businessman who makes both chocolates and Jeeps.

Yana told me that she “asked her husband and even he thought my offer was generous.” I’d give her a month’s salary ($200.00) to accompany me on the train and to the southern Russian border for four days. No feminist would consider me a chauvinist, but I don’t think I’d want my attractive young wife locked in a private sleeping car with another guy for a few nights – but then who am I to argue sociology?

For me it was a great value. Yana would not only translate but watch my bags – which were worth over $2,000.00 just in clothes, camera, and Palm Pilot. When I needed to stretch my legs or attend to life’s necessities, these possessions would be at risk, if I were alone. Also, it’s not a grand idea to be speaking English on a train where impoverished people are crossing borders. One thing in my favor is one can not even buy a train ticket without first showing a passport. So, as a form of “insurance,” I’d also pay for her round trip train fare ($148.00) plus food and incidentals. This was a win-win situation. And the otherwise toilet-paperless and exhausting trip was made better by Yana’s keen acumen and witty repartee. As a self-confessed codger, the fact that an attractive young woman was my next-over bunkmate also didn’t diminish the experience.

I checked into the 3-star Intourist. It was clean, crisp and $35 a night. And that included the mineral baths they are famed for. Anzhela Beletseva was the manager and my next interview. I’d previously emailed her. And I’d expected a woman around forty years in age with forty pounds of stout around her middle.

The men and women from this geography are actually renowned for their lithesome figures and striking good looks, especially from the ages of 13 to 33.
Turkish and Persian princes of yore would send raiding parties to Cossack and Tatar villages to steal young girls for their hareem. But after 35, particularly the feminine gender gains about 5% in girth yearly, until they double in weight by age fifty. On all accounts, I’d guessed wrongly about Anzhela. In Los Angeles, it is uncommon to find a woman with sterling acumen, poise, and top-model looks working at a budget-class hotel.

The Governor General of the Stavropol region had been trying to keep “the border open” between Russia and the Georgian Republic. Until recent history, Georgia had been part