Hitchhiking
to the Motherland of Trams.
-
Good morning, may we join you to the Kiev flyover by the MCAR?
- Get in, certainly, and generally where you go?
- To
Motherland of trams.
-
We-e-e-e-ell…
(A typical dialogue on the road)
"Well, where the Hell are all they, where do they
only disappear" - approximately so I think, each time jumping on rails
waiting for a cheerfully roaring wheel miracle with desired number to come. And
behold, in next time reaching by the city hitchhiking, I thought - "Well,
where they disappear it is not clearly. But whence they appear, there is a
label - "CKD Praha". Well, there we shall go.
Beginning.
- The execution of a combat mission is defined, first of all, by the psychological and moral-political readiness of the staff…
( " The Book of the Officer ",
Politizdat, 1989)
- And I say, it is faster and shorter to go by Ì1
Route!
- Well, let it be shorter, but in Kiev I have an
accommodation flat, and there is warmer there!
- Well, go down by the Kiev main road, if you’re such
a smart!
- Well, I should, I’d do without you…
Approximately by such talks I exchanged with my girl-partner
two hours before departure assigned on 6:00 A.M. However, two hours of sleeping
did their business - we decided to go together, via Kiev - Lvov - Uzhgorod,
having stipulated to get separated, if it is difficult together - not by way of
movement, and by way of compatibility. By the way, it turned out like this - we
separated in 11 days in Orsha, on way back, were parting for 15 minutes long at
a parking tranzit MAZ and remained, as I hope, the best friends forever. But
about it a bit later, and now – the first Underground train, up to the MCAR on
feet, a first car - everything as usual. Above Moscow there are the January
snows, on the MCAR shamrock – the puddles up to ankle. Behold, a young guy in
the microbus:
- Well, I wish
I could go to Kiev today… So trip should have been more cheerful…
After some 2-3 cars – a Ukrainian woman in a shabby
LADA:
- Well, I tell you, that I am from Kiev, but now I
live here, in Aprelevka, during one day by this car I make three runs with the
goods, I’m known by all local road cops… Wow, again I drove on red light,
chattered a lot with you!
The gloomy taxi driver:
- Where we go?
- Sorry, but we go hitchhiking, we don’t need money.
- Am I asking you about money?
We get in, for all road long (about one hour) – we
didn’t hear from the driver not a word. Parting, in reply on my "Thanks,
good luck in everything!" still gloomy, silently he raised up his palm…
As a whole, certainly, the route is as life – everyone
has its own one. Some should fly it by for some half-day by a transit Mercedes,
some should go for two days long, having changed some 20 cars. Who of them was
lucky more it was not known. Well, everyone goes for his own reason. In total
for the road to Prague we had to change nearly a hundred cars, so, about a
hundred drivers, a hundred people, in each of whom there is his own world, his
own thoughts and problems. And communications with them, understanding and
learning their world seem to me not less important result of road, than the
Czech beer and the ancient castles of Europe.
Approximately by such
philosophical sentences I "got round" Uliss (by the way, meet my
partner, a probationer of the Petersburg Guild of Hitchhiking). And what should
we suppose to do, if there’s a dark in the street, there are actually no any
car, despite of time - 7 o'clock P.M. - and up to the Ukrainian customs house,
our "program - minimum" for today, there are 40 km. This place – a
town of Sevsk, a Traffic Police Dept. (TPD), a pub for drivers who are absent.
Having seen an approaching "Scania" with Moldavian reg numbers, I
come up to it. The driver of some forty, gray-haired, disappears in cafe.
Having come in, suddenly I see a noisy booze-up – tis strange for up to the
town it is rather far, and there are no cars outside… But actually it is not so
important - the driver of "Scania", fatherly having looked at me,
said: - "Certainly, I’d take you, sonny. Even up to Kishinev. Go to the
truck, you have nothing to do here". I go to the truck, jumping up in pleasure.
Matter of fact, that though I hitchhike rather for a long time, I’ve never ever
gone for a ride by the foreign large trucks – I rode just by KAMAZes and by
passenger cars. And behold, it seems, the dream soon should become true. I get
in to a high cab, electrical glass-lifter, car walkie-talkie - all as it should
be. But to take a ride it was possible only for 200 meters – the driver sharply
changes his mind: - "No, sorry, I’d not take the two - ahead is the
customs house, the TPD, I’d be ravaged on fines".
Well, here, Vadim, is an occasion to apply your
philosophical chattering to yourself. On that day we didn’t manage to move
anywhere more, stood still one hour more and went to spend the night in Sevsk –
a point on the map, proudly named as the town. Because of whether the darkness
all around, or some weariness inside our bodies, we failed to find out any sign
of the municipal infrastructure such as: urban transport, crowds of people, and
mainly, the multi-storey houses. Accordingly, the hope on accommodation in a
warm house entrance, which seemed to me at that moment by a top of achievable
comfort, was gone. We had to ask the driver of a passing by "LADA",
where it should be desirably available to spend the night. Having revealed a
comprehension, unusual for the natives, he said that if there was no money,
we’d better go on the checkpoint of a factory. There they should let us in to
have a night rest.
The checkpoint appeared to be a small lodge, in which
there contained the watchman of the pension age in a set with the old woman
named Makarovna (a female father’s name,
originated from a male name Makar)
- his woman-friend. The lodge was getting heated by the small stove. We
entered:
- Good evening, may we ask you to give us some boiled
water, we are the students, go hitchhiking from Moscow to Kiev, now there are
no cars, and in the morning we’d move further. If it is possible, we’d spend
the night with you.
Not especially having been surprised by our request to
spend the night, the watchman informed that he didn’t have any boiled water,
there also were no devices for its manufacturing, and also any container for
carrying of available boiled water from Makarovna, living nearby. A bit later a
saucepan was found, I made a perfect pedestrian marching run for the boiled
water, however, our hope to eat was not come true, as at Makarovna’s house,
except for a bag of moulded buckwheat and a bank of home-brew there was nothing
more. We at that moment, unfortunately, did not have even bread in our
rucksacks as well, which, undoubtedly, should be left for that hungry
pensioners. Having drunk the boiled water with the Chinese noodles, we sweetly
got out into the noosphere.
Ukraine
Meets By Clothes
"The
PLAS uniform is a clothe of sports kind
(The
Charter of the PLAS – The Peter(sburg) League of Hitchhiking)
Still in darkness, having waked up the nicely snoring
all night long old watchman, we come back on to such a familiar since the
evening before TPD post. In 10 minutes the trip bus stopped, even with some
bewilderment listened to my reasons about absence of money – let’s say, who the
Hell has them now? Get in... And here, in 6 o’clock in the morning we are on
"nobody's" territory – the newly-baked Russian-Ukrainian border looks
quite solidly: the fenced territory, a half-ten of bars, every possible lodges
and huts, the most exotic of them: "The Radiation Control". We walk
to and fro along the neutral strip. To come on to Ukraine on foot is possible,
but we do not hurry up - the place is very convenient for conversation with the
drivers who are passing through the customs procedures. The very first car is a
magnificent "Toyota". I come up to the driver:
- Morning, excuse me, please, do you go to Kiev?
- Hi, I’m on my way to Odessa, and what?
- Take us up to Kiev, we go hitchhiking from Moscow,
it should be very much successful for us, since the car goes up to Kiev.
About half of a minute the driver attentively looks at
me and Masha and answers: - "Good, wait on exit area from the customs
house." We go down 100 meters towards Ukraine, I still do not absolutely
believe to the good luck – yes, he agreed, but it was at personal contact, from
the car to give up is easier – what if he simply goes by? However, the fears of
mine were vain, the car stopped, the driver helped to load our rucksacks into
his boot, and we went down. Over a pair of kilometers one more post is getting
found out, "our" driver goes to curse the customs officers
("Looking for lard in sausage"), and for us he turns on a video -
some clip about unsuccessful love of Elton John to a young nice customs service
lady. Yes, even with his British passport there are possible some breakdowns at
customs houses…
Here, all bribes to the Ukrainian customs officers are
given, the last minutes of night, we fly on dark, still empty road to Kiev. I
am again adjusting on philosophical tune: you don’t say so, two hours back we
spent the night in the house, where even the sugar to tea seemed as luxury, and
now the driver tells us that he has two Jeeps home, for trips along Ukraine.
The travel enables to feel the complete freedom of transfer, and not only
between cities, but also between the social layers, nations, languages… As if
as a confirmation of my words the driver explains:
- You know, you see, I too since my childhood dreamed
to travel. But all the time was engaged by another business: at first studied,
then it was necessary to work, to launch my business. If frankly, I envy you:
went on to the route, and go where the eyes look.
- And what prevents you to act so?
- Wow, wow, wow, you do not know the laws of the big
biz. To leave it is even more difficult, than to enter. If I now shall forsake
all, I should simply “expose” too many people, they will not forgive me it.
Besides, I’ve got two wives, two wives have children, behold, the senior
daughter is going to enter university this year - certainly, the department for
money…
So, it was one of the few drivers, met by me, who not
only had understood a sense of free travels, but also had envied us. Here, will
you trust those anecdotes about "the new Russians": by the external
formal characteristix this man quite suited this category, but in his
essence - nothing of the kind. And are
there anywhere in life, all these mythical "new Russians"? I recall,
as nearby the town of Gorokhovets I have been taken up to the city of Nizhniy
Novgorod by a skin-headed guy in "Mercedes". That trip has
over-pleased me: the driver has appeared surprisingly clever and erudite man,
we had time to discuss crisis in a psychological science, questions of
theoretical physics and astronomy, a phenomenon of "freedom of will"
by Kant … And, my interlocutor has surprised me with ability to listen, so rare
in people: when I answered his, frequently rather not simple questions, he
attentively listened, sometimes asking for explanations and specifications. I
am sure, that this discussion has enriched both of us. It is not always that a
short-cut nape and a good car speak about primitivism of the owner, however, as
well as on the contrary.
Up to Kiev it
is already near, "our" driver starts conversation about our
yellow-black uniform with light-reflecting strips: - "I shouldn’t have let
you in," - the driver says to me, - "and here I see, that clothes is
special, rucksacks, and I believed that you are not the gangsters". Well,
hitchhiking is the one of many spheres of activity, where they meet by
dressing… It left for us to hope, that we have been seen off by our mind.
Longest
Electric Train In the World.
"And
many forever have been lost
on open spaces of our immense country -
the
first railway power in the world…"
(Oleg
Kuvayev, "Territory")
Kiev met us by heat. The tender Ukrainian sunny made
us a little to decrease a number of sweaters put on each traveller. Having
waved a hand to yesterday's "Scania" (by fast passenger car we caught
it up – a usual matter), having looked at the great Dnieper and not less famous
metro bridge, we walked down to the relatives of Masha, where we expected to
find the night rest. The relatives were at home, a letter brought by Masha, was
accepted, however, on the request to provide the night rest they raised their
eyebrows up in surprise: - "Hotel is opposite! If you have no money -
spend the night at the railway station!" Having orientated, I asked permission
to call my friends. Frankly, I’ve never ever had friends in Kiev, however, I
had a crumpled sheet of paper with scribes of a type of: "Vasya
Blissbreaker, from Pasha the Devil - 2234675, Moura the Lying, from Kir from
Poltava - 9878765", and about ten of similar spells. With enthusiasm of
true herbalife dealer I began calling by the list:
- Hi, call Petya…. It is Petya Breakdowner? Hi, we’re
the hitchhikers from Peter(sburg),
someone Freckle from Tver has given us your telephone. Won’t you accommodate
us? And what you may advise? So, OK, now I’d call there…
Someone Vasily has been remembered, who said in the
phone:
- And my wife does not want to go hitchhiking, prefers
the fourth class carriage.
- Well, it’s not too bad either.
- No! What you say? It’s absolutely wrong… That is
quite another matter – Left your home and go wherever you want…
Yes, the main road is freedom, freedom from the plans
and tickets, It’s wind and snow, it’s the new people and old friends… Well,
much things more, go and you’d know. But the main road should be tomorrow, but
now I stand in the Kiev anteroom and proceed dialing…
Somebody’s telephone has been changed, someone’s got
married, one has got steady down and has stopped to present accommodation to
the travelling people. However, people try to help, give telephones numbers of
those who, in their opinion, could have let us in for one night. After
approximately fifteen callings I heard in the receiver:
- Hitchhiking to Prague? Cool! Certainly, come, write
down the address.
While I get a paper and a pen, from the room there
comes out a the owner of the apartment and, chewing sandwich, begins slowly,
lazyly to explain me that time now is difficult, nobody should not let in to
spend the night even his friend, and furthermore the man, whom another man sees
for the first time. Simultaneously I nod to him and I write down the address…
Till evening we still had a lot of time, and we went
to stroll along the city. I simply was admired with the Ukrainian language,
announcement in the Underground, price labels - all became a subject of my
biased studying. Finally, I stole a tablet from the door of a shop "Bud’
laska, zatchinite dveri (Please, close the doors)". May be, it had an
effect that I by my roots am the Ukrainian, but the Ukrainian language very
much impressed me, there is some melody in it, something diminutive -
affectionating, as in the small baby or in a puppet. Making a walk along the
evening city, we came across the abandoned ancient multi-storey house. Uliss
immediately wanted to penetrate inside there, I followed it… Dark, high
ceilings, dust on the floor, smashed panes… Light penetrates from street lamps
in the street. We decide to rise on the top floor. Stepping up the stairway,
suddenly I feel an inflow of inexplicable fear. I stop, listen: silence,
really, there’s no anything alive, only the noise of the cars outside is
audible. I pass another stair-well - again the inflow of fear. Uliss, crawling
slightly ahead, stops too:
- Vadik, let's go back!
- Well, I’m not against, but I’m interested: you see,
we’re with a hand lamp, I’m the healthy man, atheist - what should we
objectively scare of? And, you see, you too obviously have been frightened, as
well as me. Why? And why in such convenient place there are no traces of night
rest of the scums, punks or booze-ups of the teenagers?
- Yeah, all this is strange, but let's get out off
here!
Frankly, I too didn’t want to climb up higher. Till
now I am surprised to that my state, I’ve never ever come across scaring of
mystical things, but I failed to find an objective danger, threaten to us. We
descend up to the second floor, leave on the balcony. The street rustles below,
opposite is a rather vivid apartment house.
- Uliss, I recollected, what it looks like. The Zone,
as by the Strugatsky Brothers (The Soviet science fiction writers) in
"Picnic On The Roadside". There too the borderline of applicability
of usual logic has been passing directly across the city and has been
designated only by a fence. However, what exactly we have got frightened of, I
still do not understand – and, you see, we did it simultaneously!
- Yes, it somehow reminds me of yellow St. Petersburg
of Dostoyevsky… We’d better go to Yuri, for accommodation.
Perfectly having spent the night, having washed and,
what is important, having wonderfully talked to the owner of the flat, we
decided temporarily to change a kind of the main road - cars were changed by
the electric trains. After the night conversations we wanted to sleep enough,
but on the main road you’d hardly do it… So, in the morning we take an electric
train up to the station of Zdolbunov - as I’ve been told, therefrom at about
two o'clock in the afternoon there goes the electric train to Lvov - our
today's destination. How long will it take us up to Zdolbunov we failed to find
out, so we go somehow "at random", hoping, that seven hours which left up to departure of the Lvov
electric train, sould be enough. At departure from Kiev the electrain looks like
the Moscow suburb electric ones: they trade the small power batteries,
newspapers, ice-cream, some people read. With pleasure I lie down on the bench
and I fall asleep…
Having waked up over three hours, I find out some
changes in the surrounding people: clothes is much poorer, they sell not the
batteries, but hot tea, sausage, chocolate sweets. Having got used that the
average time of driving without changes by one electrain seldom happens to be
more than five hours, I ask when Zdolbunov should be? A surprised woman next to
me on a mix of Russian and Ukrainian languages explains, what still it is too
long yet. How many, then? – About five hours. Behold, damn it all, what a super
long ranger is this electrain! Because of such news I can’t sleep any more, I
get the pen, a paper and I am getting settled myself to write the letters home
– it will be the philatelic rarity, and the mail from here is cheaper, than
from Czechia. On the third letter, having got tired of repeating, I notice that the sellers, en masse walking along the
carriages, are getting repeated also. Only now I understand - sellers are the
same, for five hours! they go with us from Zhitomir, Ukraine, and all the road
they go along the carriagies, offering the goods the same passengers. Such
marketing move simply admired me - I at my lectures on psychology of
advertising tell to the students, that the efficiency of advertising influence
directly depends on number of presentations, but the Ukrainian trade
grandmothers for a long time apply it. Folk say not in vain, the wisdom lives
in the people …
In this case we were not wise – the electrain to Lvov
already has left, and all of us sat in this one, already having been slept
enough, having written the letters, having eaten and simply not knowing, what
to do. But all in the world comes to the end, here our electrain, having
covered 350 kilometres for 8 hours, arrived on to the terminal station. Having
convinced in absence of today’s electrains to Lvov, we took the Diesel electric
train bound to Rovno - there we hope to come out on the main road, in spite of
later time – it’s 4:00 o’clock P.M., obviously it should be hardly possible to
reach Lvov today. Forcedly whistling, the Diesel electrain flies at the speed
of 20 km/hours. The woman, providing the tickets again is lazy to gather money
from the passengers – a man, sitting opposite to us, offers her 70 copecks
instead of 80 – the official price of the ticket. Proud having refused, the
woman passes by, having left the man’s copecks to him. Our copecks stayed at us
all the more.
…That,
like a free stoker, I’m sailing
A-hitching
them by my guitar
(Yuri
Visbore)
Having left the carriage at the station, we completely
fairly, having paid (wow!) 50 Ukrainian copecks, got into a routing taxi. Got
some bread having been bought in Zdolbunov, just got bitten one slice off - the
two young guys, with a guitar entered and sat beside:
- Whence are you?
- I’m from Siberia, and my girl is from Peter(sburg), we go hitchhiking to Lvov today,
and generally we are on our way to Prague.
- It is interesting! And I’ve studied in Peter(sburg), but I’ve never travelled
hitch-hiking.
- Take a chance, it’s not so difficult.
After a small conversation concerning hitch-hiking,
Stas takes a guitar and we sing songs of the DDT (a Russian popular rock-group of St.-Petersburg)
in the routing taxi, the song by Chizh (Siskin)
& Co (another rock-group),
something else… Behold, here is their time to get out:
- Bye, guys, good luck!
- Good luck to you, if you fail to leave - come, we
should be here, in this house, - they wave a hand towards a five-storey house.
- What flat?
- The third doorway … - Stas murmurs and disappears in
twilight.
Yes, it’s getting dark here early – it’s still 4:30
P.M., and already the street lamps have lit. The petrol station, though rather
weakly, but is lightened, from our side of the road there’s a small cafe. In
half an hour we make the first-and-last-for-today car stop – the
cargo-passenger microbus. I gently call the cars of such type as "small
sheds": to go inside them is pleasantly, legs are kept not tight, there
always is a place where it is available to put rucksack, and with a vacant
place there are no problem. The driver talks to the partner, we look into the
window and here I am surprised of abundance of trucks, which we overtake: I
precisely remember, they haven’t overtaken us! And you see, we’ve been told
that the petrol station were on the main road… I ask the driver for
confirmation of the suspicions:
- And what, the petrol station, where you’ve taken us,
is not on the very Lvov main road?
- Well, no, it is on the route, but the cargo trucks
are prohibited to move there…
It’s clear, it means, in Rovno there is a By-pass
road, if to trucks it is forbidden to go by the petrol station, where we’ve
been standing thumbs-up. But I failed to notice where it flows in to the main
road. Soon the driver turns off, and we get out into the warm, though winter,
Ukrainian night. Up to Lvov it is about two hundred kilometres.
The
traveller is not a scum?
If
it’s hard to make out border of road with skies in afore -
("Hitchhiking",
a song by I. Belyi)
Night, street, a street lamp… (A beginning of the famous poem by A. Blok “Night, street, a street lamp
and a drugstore…”). Instead of drugstore there’s a roadside cafe – small
carriage. Behold, another headlights got seemed afar… So, to stand under this
weak bulb, a smile, a sure gesture… As usually at night hitching, the car
reduces speed, the driver surveys me – ain’t it a traffic cop? – then, like
wind it flies us by. Plus, and so we stand for two hours. And before it, it was
necessary to wait when an officer in the form of not clear kind of the Ukrainian
troops. This character had this in personal usage a police staff, with what he
shook before glasses of cars infrequent here. I get a cup, leave Uliss to guard
the cars, which were not present, and go into an empty cafe.
- Good evening, will you give us some boiled water?
- Hitchhikers? Sit down, now I’d make tea.
Quietly I can not sit: the cafe is in hundred meters from the road, periodically it is necessary to look out at the street – if anyting has benn hitched? And to leave the girl alone amidst the night… Uliss by gestures shows - relax, all the same there’s nobody. I drink boiled water with bread, fill another cup, deliver it to the partner. We stir sugar, share bread, have supper. Uliss points out on to a tablet "No digging " nearby the road - while I’ve been hitching, she with the help of the marker pen turned the tablet into the real masterpiece of the hitchhiking "bottle mail": here is an information about us, who we are, where and whence we go, for how long we "hang", wishes of good luck to all people of the Earth, and also greetings with name-by-name enumeration of our friends – the hitchhikers. I get the camera and a flash lamp, take pictures: in this way the greetings should reach faster, though who knows... During the period of our eating and the subsequent manipulations with camera not a single car in the direction, necessary to us, haven’t passed. Again with the rucksacks are on the backs, we go to spend the night into a town of Dubno, which fires shine not far. The town is small, it’s about 9:00 P.M., it is convenient to be asked to the local inhabitants for night rest, but somehow it’s got lazy. We climb up on to the attic of two-storeyed building of the hut style, unpack and unroll the sleeping bags, prepare for sleeping and get into slumbers.
All
of us are the miserable slaves of stomach. Do not be eager
to
be moral and fair, friends!
Attentively
care of your stomach,
feed
it with understanding and caress.
Then
satisfaction and virtue should reign in
Your
heart without any efforts of you;
You
should become the kind citizen, the loving husband,
the
tender father – the noble, pious
man.
(Jerome
K. Jerome. Three men in a boat)
Take counsel with your pillow - in 6:00 A.M. we are on
the road and the first car is getting hitched:
- Get in, kids, join us till Lvov!
Should we refuse? On the road, using that fact that
the driver speaks not with me, but with the friend sitting aside, we fill what
we haven’t got on the attic – proceed drowsing. The car runs quickly, the road
is fine, already at 11:00 A.M. we get out at the entrance of the Lvov Bypass
Road. Yes, we lag behind the schedule: we planned to be here yesterday, in Lvov
we have friends, at which it should be available to be accommadated, at the
same time we‘d be glad to meet Lvov. But I am attacked by some unjustified
haste: forward, to Uzhgorod! Uliss seems to be against, but somehow inactively,
it seems, she too would have liked faster to leave the CIS. On her gesture
there stops a routing "Ikarus" with windshield tablet:
"Lutsk-Lvov". I understand not absolutely, where now it follows, but
the driver, having heard the words "hitchhiking" and
"Uzhgorod", so confidentially orders to get in that there is no tme
for clarifications. In the bus I get the map, examine: the bus goes to Lvov,
but for some reason before it the bus bypasses all the city along the Bypass
Road - almost thirty superfluous kilometres. Wish it was available to set such
a bus along the Novgorod Bypass! Having thanked the driver, soon we move on
into a direction of Uzhgorod. After two or three changes we appear on a rather
mean position – the road climbs up the mountain. Having climbed up on foot up
to the top, we find out an abrupt turn. Having separated with my partner, I
stood at the turn, she - slightly lower, on the straight cut. Half an hour - no
result. I assume that it’s because of the nice scarecrows, in plenty having
installed by the Carpathian inhabitants on vegetable gardens contiguous to a
road. Well, if we became looking like scarecrows - it is time for lunch! We
come into a village - "Where it is available here to buy some bread?"
An indicated dumpling roadhouse is closed, but the bread kiosk located directly
in the court yard of a prosperous Ukrainian hut. We buy a bun, share it at once
half-and-half and stuff down.
- Be so kind, please, the two of such ones more.
- Oh, kids, whence you are, such multi-coloured and
hungry?
- We are from Russia, go hitchhiking. My surname’s
Nazarenko, but I’ve always lived in Siberia, now here for the first time I came
to Ukraine, my historical native land.
-
Yes, Nazarenko is a Ukrainian surname … So
you’re have arrived from Russia by fellow-travelling cars? It’s such afar!
Well, come in, now I’d treat you with coffee.
The coffee is getting changed by the Ukrainian
red-beet soup, the red-beet soup by pampoushkas, the pampoushkas by tort. We
find out that today is a religious holiday – Vodokhryastiye (Water
Consecration), or Epiphany in Russian. In Western Ukraine the religious
calendar is much more popular, than in Russia: we find out that many companies
do not work, in spite of the fact that in the official calendar this day is not
a holiday. "It’s there, in Kiev, they have a working day, and we do not
work in the holiday - and that’s all!" – the woman cheerfully explains. In
our turn, we satisfy thirst of the information about the Russian life, we
congratulate on the holiday and leave her, having purchased a pair of buns
more. In five minutes we load ourselves onto the old tire covers in the next
"small shed" and with a light wind go up to the Carpathian city of
Scole. The sparkling sun, the mountain river Stryi behind window, abrupt bends
of the road and a pleasant load of the red-beet soup in a stomach - here it is,
Happiness! Having landed in Scole, we start taking pictures all around, however
to express beauty of the Carpathian mountains covered by the January sun no
film allows. There’re not so many cars, with a forced roaring a KAMAZ -
petrol-carrier crawls by, the driver shows - I can, as if, to take you, but I
refuse – it’s faster on foot. The day declines to evening, I pensively think of
a perfect night by the fire in Carpathian mountains, even estimate that there
are a lot of fire wood in the forest, near by the road there is a springs. A
scratch of brakes returns me from the pensive – blessed state:
- What are you, the cosmonauts?
- No, we are from Russia, go hitchhiking to Uzhgorod,
if it is by your way, bring us up, please.
- Get in, but we’re only up to Mukatchevo.
By this car we were fated to cover only ten
kilometres: having seen the routing bus to Uzhgorod, overtaking us, the driver
himself stopped it for us. In spite of my suspicions there was no any speech
about payment for travel. Having overslept for three hours, we got out off it
in the night Uzhgorod. It smelled by Europe.
All world is theatre, and peoples in it are the actors.
W.
Shakespear
- And you want to say, somebody should open the doors
to you?! You better look at yourself! I don’t believe!
Above Zacarpathie there was a night, seemed to be even
more dark at absence of snow and street lamps. Uliss crumples a sheet of paper
with numbers of the Uzhgorod telephones in her hand.
- And what to do? It is necessary to call somehow!
- You have been doing so in Siberia and they opened?
- Yes, and not only in Siberia.
- Don’t believe!
The matter is only to knock at the first door and to
ask using the telephone. No, not to carry the telephone away with yourself but
only to call. In my opinion, nothing special, well, a little bit late already -
about 11:00 P.M. We decide to try knocking at ten doors, then to spend the
night at the railway station. "Only you should talk to the tenants!"
- declares Uliss. Well, naturlich… Here’s a door, from cracks the light is
seen.
- Rat-tat!
- Who’s there?
- Hi, we’re the travellers from Moscow, may we call
from you?
- No, I’d not open to any travellers in the middle of
the night!
- Sorry for disturbance, good night.
In the next two flats there are no telephones. Or they
say that there are no… At last, a young woman opens her door:
- Come in.
- We just need to call, you better bring the
telephone.
- Well, come in, the wire is short.
The good-furnished flat, a baby bed… Why don’t they
scare to open the door at night to the unfamiliar man? I don’t know myself… But
there are such people always and everywhere, I trust in it. And now Uliss has
believed as well.
I call, presented myself - at once a question:
- So, where you are?
- We’re in the district of the railway station.
- Fine, stand still under the street clock, we’d take
you in half an hour.
Having reached up the railway station, we find out the
company of the backpackers. I addressed them in Russian – they don’t get me. I
proceed in English: - revival in eyes, they get out a map, show us. It appears
it is the company of the Swedish students, they go by local trip buses and
electrains from Sweden to India. Neither Russian, nor Ukrainian they do not
know, therefore stand on the platform and watch for the electrain bound to
Chernovtsy. I stroll up to the time-table, find out that up to the electrain
there are 3 hours more, I explain to the guys, what is what, simultaneously
write them the names of their transit stations in Russian and in Ukrainian. I
tell about hitchhiking, exchanging the addresses - for the future. At this
moment Alexei approaches, correctly identifies us by bright jackets and we go
to spend the night. We pass along the narrow lanes and drives, stretched during
the Austo-Hungary Empire, we overcome a former (at one time) boundary river Uzh
by the small bridge erected by the Poles. Alexei tells that on different coast
of the river it is possible to see completely different architecture - on one
coast the Austrians built, on another – the Poles. The facades of buildings,
having embodied at one time two states, look against each other through the
river hardly from meters in ten by width. On Western coast, in the ancient
house of miracleous architecture, we also are turned out for night. We fail to
sleep well – the long tea-parties, stories about our travel, about life in
Uzhgorod, again it is necessary to be washed from the road - to leave abroad,
only! We fall asleep far for midnight …
"And
totally
by the frontier guard Karatsjupa
and
his faithful dog Argus there were detained
375
trespassers of the Frontier of the USSR"
History
book of for 7 Form of secondary school, 1976.
In the morning we got up early, I’m a little bit
worry: the first time I should cross the border of the former Soviet Empire. In
my head some histories about ploughed-up strips, patrols with dogs, barb wire
under current … Becoming transfixed of such impudence (they’d blame me in
espionage), I ask Alexei: - "Won’t you prompt me, where is the frontier
here?" Reaction is completely quiet: - "Ah, you need the Slovak one?
It is here, nearby, you need to pass hundred meters up to the school number 4,
there about a kilometer along the street - and there should be the frontier.
And if into Hungary it is far, 15 km from here, in Chop". I don’t believe
that we’ve spent the night less than in two kilometers from border - where are
the patrols, the frontier area and all the rest? Well, now we should look at
the frontier poles a-close. We pass the school number four, the vivid street
leads to the West. Having passed a half-kilometre, we see a woman, selling home
milk. We purchase milk, sweets, bread and buns with potatoes on the spared
grivnas. And here is the frontier - the street turns to the right, straight
ahead is the bar, behind there is a hut of the frontiers’ guard. On foot they
do not permit to pass. There stops a red "Alfa-Romeo" with the Slovak
reg numbers:
- Hi, it is possible to move with you over the border?
- Get in. Have passports?
We give our passports to the driver, I in all my eyes
look into the window - try not miss, where one country ends and another begins.
Here’s one more lodge – a driver stretches the passport into the window, the
frontier guard studies our persons faces, verifying with photos. We leave the
car:
- Drugs, weapon, tobacco, alcohol?
Altogether we shake our heads - no.
- Good luck!
What? And that is all? And where is the vigilant
customs officers, X-raying ours rucksacks? And the trained spaniels, smelling
drugs? In this way it is available to carry the elephant by… In reply to my
bewilderment the driver laughs:
- Do not worry, they carry. And not only elephants.
Having got home, the driver is obviously pleased,
actuates the tape recorder, presses accelerator tighter. The bright, absolutely
summer sun shines on us into our backs, from East, the magnificent car flies
above the road accompanied with roaring of disco from loud-speakers. The clean villages, remaining aside, the
advertising boards in unfamiliar (not for a while yet) language do not make us
doubt - we are in East Europe.
Of proximity of the former Soviet Empire only the
plenty of tanks Ò-34, arranged in the most unexpected places: on mountain
passings, along the roads, at entrances into cities, remind. The driver assumes
that after the war the Russians simply didn’t know what to do with these tanks,
so they have arranged them along the road.
- Yes, me as the tanker of the reserve I may inform that we have a lot of this shit that it should have been possible to place it all over the Europe, - I answer. Strangely enough, the joke succeeds, everyone laugh…
(In
the former Soviet Union
during
the times of Iron Curtain
under
the slang word “Knoll”
the
Russians implied all
that
was behind
the
Western Frontier of SU)
(An
unknown author)
An interesting feature of the east-European cities:
the By-pass roads for transit transport usual for Russia, is rarity here. So,
thus, in the town of Koshice we get out almost in the centre, under the road
sign "Preshov – 35 km". The blocks of nine-storied panel buildings
spread by up to horizon, in a courtyard of the nearest one there is a baby
area. Here I recollect that I want to eat, and in my rucksack I have a
three-day store of meal from Ukraine what is not desirable to hug. We settle
down at the baby area: Uliss swings on a swing, and I eat curd tarts and sour
cream, drinking milk after. At the same time I read the chapter
"Slovakia" in the book by Valery Shanin "Europe For All ".
No any book may replace the live dialogue: having
picked up the slightly unloaded rucksacks, we go out on the road. To go on foot
via the town is far, we ask two men of pension age how to reach the exit
towards Preshov.
-
Ah, hitchhiking! - he replies, - Take this bus,
over the four stops you ought to get out, pass the flyover and therefrom start
moving! You’d get luck, because your girl is very beautiful! Yes, who could
expect such awareness in questions of hitchhiking from the Slovak pensioner …
May be, his grandson is a hitchhiker, and may be he is a hitchhiker himself…
Strictly
having fulfilled the recommendations of the old man-hitchhiker, we go out on
the main road and we get hanging: the road covering is fine, the position is
high-speed, nobody hurries up to take us. In half an hour we change: Uliss sits
on the rucksack, I hitch. Behold, a passenger car stops:
- Get in, I ride to Preshov.
- Thanks!
We stamp our full bellies and thin rucksacks into the
car. The driver obviously wants to talk:
- Whence you are?
- The girl’s from Peter(sburg), and I’m from Siberia,
the city of Barnaul. The driver gets vivid:
- Barnaul! I was in Altai three years back, traveled
with a group of the Czech climbers on Belukha (The highest mountain of Altai). The very beautiful places.
- Yes, in summer I work as the mountain climbing
instructor, three years back I too was on Altai, unfortunately, in the other
area. Now here I hope to see the Tatry.
- To the Tatry I invited the guys from Siberia, with
whom I’ve climbed, but nobody has arrived.
What a cramped world! I recollect, who of ours worked
three years back in alpcamp under Belukha, I mention names, the driver nods -
yes, they are. I promise to give our driver’s regards to them on my arrival. In
Preshov they carry us to show the town: our new friend works as the architect,
so the quality of the guide is higher than any praises. As if by chance, he
shows some shopping centers constructed under his design. In the end of
excursion they deliver us to fuel station:
- From here you should easily start to Poprad – the
center of High Tatry. I’ve been doing so several times. Good luck!
The proximity of mountains is felt, rather, not by
landscape, but by the road: each second car carries ski or snowboard on its
roof. I anticipate continuation of conversation about mountains, but we are
being picked up by a man, far from mountain climbing. He is simply a man who
comes back home, to Poprad.
The road is very beautiful, but narrow - the going
ahead tank collects behind itself a huge snake of the passenger cars, slowly
creeping along the zigzag mountain roads. It’s well though, that in Czechia and
Slovakia practically there are no huge trucks, habitual on our and Polish roads
– the geographical position of these countries is such that the transit cars do
not almost enter them. For the same reason, the traffic on long-distance lines
at night comes nearer to zero: - "Why to go at night, if it is possible to
reach everywhere in the afternoon? - the driver is surprised. Hereby all
country is passed by the car during five hours, it is necessary only to agree
with him. The ancient castle is seen on a high hill on the right. There comes
an idea: to get out here, carefully to climb up this Citadel, and then to sleet
the coming night over here, having satisfied a thirst of adventures. The driver
confirms that the castle is not guarded, the entrance is free, but while we
solve finally, we cover already some ten kilometers. Well, t’means, we’d get
out in Poprad. The Tatry hang above the town, surprising by sizes: really, the
pocket mountains, small, but completely real – the rocky walls are visible even
from the main road. In spite of the fact that it’s three o'clock in the
afternoon, we solve to spend the night here, so it is possible to skip all
country and nothing to see. Weather promotes relaxing: the sun warms up
perfectly appreciable, Uliss lies down to sleep on the rucksack, from my
rucksack I get out home salty lard…
In the evening we go walking along the town streets -
numerous shops with mountain climbing equipment, at doors of one of them I see
the announcement informing, that the hut-shelter of the climbers in the Tatry
has been burnt down. The account is specified below, on which it is possible to
transfer money to restoration. Yes, our "Shelter to the Eleven" has
been burnt down, it is not just known, when it should be will restored. In the
town a half of passers-by is dressed in bright Parkas and the capron
trousers-selfdroppers, almost everyone behind his back has a rucksack, so I
look quite naturally. Also in the spirit of mountain cities we spend the night
at the magnificent three-storied railway station terminal, having spread the
sleeping bags in a secluded corner. A certain young man from the expecting
passengers appeared, at once disappeared, and in 5 minutes the police came – it
turned out to be the informer... Confidently having told, that in the morning
we go to Prague by train of 6:50 A.M., presented the documents and laid down to
sleep. Nobody disturbed after it, only Uliss was being bothered by a woman,
announcing all through the night the departure of trains in some language not
clear to her.
The
man who doesn’t know
where
he goes should be very much surprised,
having
found himself not there where he wanted
Mark
Twain
In
the morning the empty railway station seemed even huger. From the third floor,
where we slept, it seems, there go the special trams bound for mountains,
unfortunately, with the revisers. There, on the platform I saw a hut of the
switchman, where it would be available to ask for boiled water, but we didn’t
want to eat. The snow-covered Tatry see us off, when we go to exit fuel
station. Uliss makes a tablet, and I actually come on to the station: to shave,
to wash and, in general, to find out situation. I get an impression, that I’ve
got into the paradise: the doors in the free-of-charge WC are locked
automatically, a toilet paper, a towel, hot water from the luxury sanitary
engineering facilities… I shave myself, wash my head, if we were not in a
hurry, I should have washed myself completely. I actually go out to the fuel
filling pumps, happily squinting in the Sun.
Out of the two cars there come the young drivers,
appearance of whom is very similar to us, may be, their overalls are cooler
than ours. They talk to the workers of the fuel station, who too are dressed
into yellow - green uniform with light-reflecting strips – such number of
overall-dressed people at one time I saw only at meeting in Izhitsy. The dream
of the traveler, having been told to me by a certain Lyova in Kazan, is
recollected: - " I sleep and I see in dreams, that there are no absolutely
normal people - all are the hitchhikers. So I make a KAMAZ stop in my
Cheboksary, and inside there at the steering wheel there sits a guy in overall
and with the light reflected glass. We go with him up to Tsivilsk, and there he
stops, gets out and says:
- Sorry, brother, from this place I should go
hitchhiking to Volgograd… Sit down at the steering wheel, well, who then should
lift people to Kazan, if there is nobody at the steering wheel…
And behold, I sit at the rudder, ride, pick up another
folks… And wake up".
In this case the situation slightly differed: the
people in overalls agreed to take us, but they went to opposite side. We need
to be exposed on the road with a tablet "Zilina" – it’s a town, up to
which it is approximately 200 km, close to the Chech-slovak autotransition.
Therefrom we assume to turn to the right till highway Å65, heading to the Czech
city Brno, and therefrom - to Prague. Trying to hitch with the tablet, I find
out, that the drivers show me anything - to the right, to the left and even
upwards - only not to Zilina. Try to take the tablet away. My favorite soft
corner - a van - stops: a microbus, with a young guy at the steering wheel:
- Good day, - I speak in Slovak, - may we join you
straight ahead to Zilina?
- Speak Russian, I understand. Only I go to Nitra, I
shall turn southward in Ruzhemberok.
- Well, we agree at least up to Ruzhemberok.
On the way it is found out that the guy lives in
Bratislava, now works in Poprad on preparation for the World Student Sports Games.
Having found out that we head to Prague, he actively starts advising: what road
to choose for the better. We stop in Ruzhemberok, pull out our road atlas, he
takes up his own, for a long time we move fingers across the map:
- Behold, there’s a reason for you to go with me up to
Zvolen, and there to go to the right, there, there is a direct road to Zilina.
We decide to do so. The road is extraordinary is
beautiful, a mountain river, valleys covered by wood, all is very small,
domestic, but because of it not less than perfect. The sun warms up, I regret
that have not taken sun-proof glasses. The car rides on to a small passing, on
the right the snow slopes, filled with the sun, lifts and skiers are visible. A
covering of the road itself is of the very high quality, no snow, however,
everywhere there blink the headers "Check up brakes!", "Do not
exceed speed!", etc. Having overtaken a Polish truck smartly, we descend
to a valley. I praise the car - for the "van", really, it is a good
speed and stability – on the level of the passenger car. "Yes, this car in
hands is for three days, so I should ride it for half-year - then it should be
clear, whether it is good or no. Those Poles manufacture them under the
license, so it is not known, how it should behave". I ask his opinion
about the GAZelles being manufactured in Russia – the cars of the approximately
same class. No, he’d never seen, and does not know at all, what automobiles are
being made in Russia now. While talking we begin to get worried: where’s Zvolen? "That is not a
small place", - declared the driver, "we could not miss it". At
last, we see not Zvolen itself, but the pointer on the turn towards the city.
But we need the turn to Zilina it is to the right, yes, it is not seen yet.
Having seen a road restaurant, the driver sighs with relief:
- Well, here we shall ask for road. Wanna eat?
- Well, in general, we have had breakfast today …
- Let’s go! I invite you!
We
come into a restaurant, the waiter brings the menu. The names of dishes are in
the Slovak language appear to be unexpectedly difficult, I arrange to myself a
kind of the Slovak language coarse, trying to understand at least anything from
the three sheets of the text. Only the prices are clear, but it does not worry
us at the given moment… At last, we order a soup with meat, bread and cakes.
Our benefactor archly complains, rummages in his plate – as if, they cook
badly. To us, not having ate the hot meal already the second day, all is good.
There comes the waiter having been sent to find out, where is the road to
Zilina – it turns out, this road is popular a little, nobody rides to Zilina
along it, and everyone rides through Bratislava – though it is more distant,
but the road is better. Well, we ride by that van up to Nitra, as we do not want
to part with such a remarkable driver. I give my address to him, he gives me
his one - how knows, may be, we’d come across one more time.
I am
a sick Karlson in the world …
Only
a cake with whipped cream
is capable to heal me.
À.
Lyndren "A Baby and Karlson"
In
Nitra I find out that Uliss, it appears, is very much sick. Her martyr
appearance is close to make me cry. And in the car such joyful she’s been…
- May be, we shall not go anywhere?
- No, we need to… Only you should thumb-up.
We crawl to exit from the town, I begin hitching.
Uliss sits on the rucksack aside, showing by all her appearance, how awfully
this world has done with the innocent girl. In half an hour she, not losing her
martyr view, digs into the rucksack for the pies stored there since Ukraine.
"Well, if she wants, ‘tmeans, she feels better" - I think and in this
moment a passing LADA-2104, having blinked by the right turning lamp, slowly
parks to the roadside in some hundred meters down the car stream. I run to it,
feeling by my back, as Uliss clasps the rucksack, preparing to carry it to the
car.
- Will you give us a lift up to Bratislava?
- With pleasure! - in the car there’s a guy with a
girl, garlanded by the hippie fenkas (a
Russian slang notion of some attributes of the hippies including glass beads
bracelets and necklaces, thin leather stripes as a fringe), they smile. I
look back … Uliss still not in a hurry, sitting by a back to the road, eats her
pie with potato. Coolness, worthy to Zeus…
Then, already in the car, she told that it was
necessary to bring it into the history of the Guild. I bring it in.
The guy and his girl, who have taken us, are lively
interested in the process of our travel: the students, they have never hitched,
but always lift those as we were. I make a compliment to the car:
- On the Russian roads "LADA" is hardly
accelerated up to 130, and if you do it, you fall out of the cabin because of
jolting.
- Wow! And we thought that we drove slowly. The car’s
old, it’s 5 years old, more speed is hardly reachable…
- And where you go?
- To friends, the architectural faculty of the
Bratislava University, there is a presentation of the course works today.
Here
Uliss recalled about her architectural education, and the conversation
proceeded so briskly that we have not noticed, how entered Bratislava. Having
eaten that pie, we went to meet the city, into which we have got almost
casually - you see, we were on our way to Zilina…
And
if you get studying poorly -
I’d
buy you a green "Volga",
(A
Typical Soviet Anecdote About a Student)
The approach to the trams’ Motherland is appreciable
already here: one of the sights of the city – a two-kilometer tram tunnel under
the Bratislava castle. The castle stands on a high hill on the bend of the
Danube, the city from the castle wall looks simply magical: a wide ribbon of
the Danube, a bridge, sparkling by lights, the residental areas from here
reminding of small heaps of coal, scattered across the hills. Strolling across
the center, we find out obviously inhabited accommodation area under the
bridge: between the bearing and actually the bridge, in the secluded place, the
heap of old cloths, glass, a small pan, a pack of boullion cubes lay. Vagrancy
– the international phenomenon…
Though the day is getting finished, we decide to try
all the same to leave today. On the city exit there is a large stream of cars,
but mostly - towards Vienna, up to which from here it is only 40 km. Oh, it is
a pity, that we haven’t made visas… Uliss reminds of the story of the Slovak in
the "van", that the Austrian frontier practically is not protected,
tries to persuade me on illegal passing. No, somehow scaring all the same, and
it would not be desirable to begin the first visit to Europe from deporting out
there. We come on to a fuel station, sit on our sacks aside. I fix a norm to
myself: ask 50 cars and go to sleep till morning. The matter moves languidly:
it is not so many cars, some go to the city, some – not far, it’s senselessly
to go with them. The police car comes up, habitually present documents, but the
cop passes by me into a cafe, where drinks beer the next half an hour. Strange,
he at the service… Evening passes into the night, the car stream floods a little.
Here comes a huge "Scoda-Octavia" with the Prague reg numbers. In the
car two men in magnificent black costumes. I decide for myself – the last
chance…
- Evening, you go to Prague?
The driver obviously suspects the smell of such
questions, but reluctantly nods.
- Be so kind to take me with the girl, we are from
Russia, you should very much have helped us…
Again a grimace of meditation on the driver’s face… I
proceed:
- It’s night, the road is long, and we should
entertain you by conversations, you hardly fall asleep at the steering wheel.
Our passports are in order, all is fine.
Well, seems like I have persuaded him: the driver
nods, leaves his car, helps Uliss to load her rucksack, while I run for mine.
Having driven off a little, we land a man from the fore seat, I get over
forward. Anton, our driver, is the adviser for the finance works in the Czech
branch "Andersen consulting". I say that I run practice in Moscow by
a direction of psychological consulting of organizations. It is as always getting
started a brisk conversation about work, crisis in Russia, prices, salaries,
prospects there and here. The car flies above the ideal relatively empty
motorway, there are getting flash the lights on poles of protection, speed is
under 200. Anton tells about himself: - " I live in Slovakia, in Zilina,
and to work I need in Prague – they pay more there. Can’t deliver my family, so
I shuttle to here and there twice or thrice a week, it’s good, the car and
petrol is at the expense of the company. Our head representatives is in Moscow,
earlier it was very prestigious and favorable to get to work in Moscow, I even
specially have studied Russian – it’s good, that I’ve met you, a nice chance to
train myself, and without practice the language is getting quickly forgotten".
Quickly we pass the boundary control - it is even not necessary to get out of
the car. Two hours of conversations more, and our black limousine flies into
the night Prague – the one-hundred-tower city. I ask to lift us up to the
railway station to spend the night, but instead Anton takes us to his home:
- Shall I not offend you, if I offer to spend the
night at my flat? I all the same live alone…
The apartment shocks by cleanliness and some moderate
emptiness: two huge rooms, among furniture there’s only a wardrobe, a TV set
and the two beds. One of them Anton gives to us at our disposal, shows his
bathroom. Having washed myself, I stare at the window on towers of the night
Prague. The late trams roar at the streets: in their Motherland they shuttle
around the clock, duplicating the subway closed at the night. Three thousand
kilometers are behind. We’ve done it…
vaddim@mail.ru
www.chat.ru/~vaddim
And we like
it very much
Though
it ain’t no beauty touch…
Hey,
commander!
Yu.Shevchouk
The huge red sun looked out of the green street board
with an inscription "Moskwa - 1193 km". The morning cold prevented
producing the cheerful smiles on our faces. In hundred meters ahead a woman of
uncertain age appeared being bungled in clothes. She awkwardly and nervously
waved her right hand, picking it up slightly higher her waist. After wanderings
across Europe for some reason we suddenly wanted home, and home was represented
as some abstract figure of mother Motherland who has prepared a warm meeting to
us at the frontier. A vain hope…
- Uliss, let's go only up to the frontier today, gonna
pass it tomorrow and at once accommodate - directly in Brest. Gonna cook some
potatoes, wash ourselves…
- We need to reach the frontier first. It’s cold here,
in their Poland, shit… Hallo, where are you, the kind Polish drivers?
- Don’t worry, somewhere our car already comes, we
only need to wait for it. How do you think, what it looks like?
- A passenger car named "Volvo" with a man
of some 50s. His grandson hitches too, therefore he takes lifting all… and
feeds… And you, probably, again about "a van" – a microbus you are
dreaming of?
Out from a
hill the convoy of the SuperMAZes with Moscow reg numbers appears, the drivers
diligently turn their faces away, search for something on the floor of the
cabin, stare at the fields on the left side of the road. I move farther, on the
roadside, for some reason even through the roar of the cars I hear, how ice
crackles under feet. Autumn weather, autumn mood – ‘tis not important, that on
the calendar it’s January 22.
- Well, they always do it… Too much wind, too much
noise and a little of sense – don’t take.
- Well, do not tell so, Vadim, I for many times rode
by such kinds. Though slowly, but warmly and drivers feed tasty.
-
We-e-e-ell… OK, I wish they could have lifted, and I should feed myself by
myself… Oh, I just recalled, I’ve been told in Izhitsy an interesting story: as if on the Ì10 Route a
certain KAMAZ, on which cabin it has been written "Hippie-carrier",
frequently has been seen. It has given a lift to all…
- And someone from ours told me, that in the region of
Velikije Louki he has been lifted by a tank truck of black color and with the
red letters "MALAKO" (A
misspelling of word “MOLOKO” (MILK) on its board. And behind the steering
wheel there was a guy with the hippie attributes and trinkets on hands and in
the kosukha (a slang notion of the black
leather jacket, which are worn by hippies, bikers and rockers. Named so because
of a skew run of zipper from down up to the shoulder (not to the throat)).
- Well, the letters such as "MALAKO" we now
should watch a lot: it’s in Belorussian. And this milk costs there about three
kopecks.
- Yes, I wish there was some milk now. But it is
necessary to reach it first still.
A luxurious "Ford", in reply to gesture of
my partner, gracefully parks to the roadside. The reg numbers are obviously not
Polish, some multi-colored, I see such kind for the first time. The Uliss’s
eyes get shining: here it is, the luck! I run up to the car, speak English,
German, French: - "Do you speak English? Deutch? Parlez-vous
Fransei?" - the driver, obviously surprised by such polyglotism,
diligently shakes his head. My God, whence did he come here? And how to explain
to him? Here I recall that it is necessary to try in Polish: - "Dzen
dobrszi, pan!" The driver, having sighed with relief, begins to chatter,
more precisely, to pshekat in Polish of something in the sense of that it is
pleasant to meet us here, whence did we come from and so forth. No it came my
turn to sigh with relief…
Essence of reg numbers, which have brought me down
from sense is found out later also: Kszisztof’s brother – it was a name of the
driver of this cool car - lives in the US, has prospered there in his business,
so he has presented the car to the younger brother, who has stayed in
Motherland. The junior has appeared not so lucky in business: no money for
payment of the customs tax for the royal gift of the senior, no money even for
petrol. Such a history about the poor relative…
By this car we
nevertheless failed to reached the frontier, Kszisztof went to his village,
however, rode us for about 10 superfluous kilometers, to the truck-drivers’
parking. He didn’t want to part with us so that he for a long time fed us by
tea in a cafe: for something to drink tea with he didn’t have money obviously,
there was no petrol also to bring us up further. However, there was no autumn
mood, as the sun already hung highly in the Polish sky, regularly, fairly and
gratis warming all living, driving and hitching under it.
To the frontier of the native CIS we were lifted by an
absolutely young pal.
- You work or study? - I ask
- Both study, and work, - with laughter he replies in
Polish. Gets the advertising sheets of his company, presents to us.
- And where you went to?
- We were in Prague, hitchhiking, now we go home, - I
prepare to his surprise, but it is me to be surprised:
- And why only up to Prague? I in the summer went
hitchhiking to Paris, so great, has reached for three days! The Germans take up
even on the motorways!
The absolutely other conversation begins: how have
spent the night, where is better to hitch in Western Europe, impressions.
Whatever you say, but it is pleasantly to meet the man, understanding you.
Certainly, we exchange by addresses, I invite to Altai, but the guy flatly
refuses: scares of the Russian mafia. We are so important for it, what should
it obtain from us… On the border this thesis is getting to be proved once
again: a short-cut headed guy in a shabby "Mercedes" at first demands
for crossing the border one dollar per person. Having known, who we are gives
us a lift gratis. The Polish frontier guards, even not having looked at all on
to the passport, wave hand: go-go, Russians, home, eastward! The sun shines
into the back – the evening. Mother Motherland arises in the person of the fat
Belorussian girl in the uniform of the frontier guard troops:
- Where have you come into Poland? When?
- In Harrachov, 24 hours back, last night.
- How have you crossed Poland?
- Hitchhiking, we go by hitchhiking home, to Moscow.
- OK, I now shall check up, – she disappears in a hut.
It’s interesting, what she can check up there? - I think. It turns out, she
studies a map of Poland.
- Harrachov from here is in six hundred kilometers.
You could not reach so quickly!
- Well what shall we do, if we have reached…
- Go…
Here we are almost at home… We move the bridge above
Neman, we drive into Brest – the native mown board fences, Russian speech at
the streets, exhausted ticket sellers in cheerfully roaring trolley buses… My
partner requires for meal - any and immediately. Good-bye, Poland. See you next
summer…