Day Trip to Kiev

Just another day in the capital, Kiev.

Russian Orthodox church.

Government buildings, so impressive!

Svetlana and I had to go to Kiev to have a document notarized at the American Embassy's consulate building, and again at the Ukrainian Ministry of Foreign Affairs office. These two buildings are about twenty-five to thirty minutes apart, if walking. The embassy is about a thirty-minute walk from the train station; the Ministry of Foreign Affairs is about forty-five minutes from the train station by foot. We learned all of this via Google Maps before we began our journey.

To our great joy, both services are set up to complete the process in one day. As is normally the case, there is one glitch in the plan. The embassy was set up to complete the notary process within thirty minutes, for which I had a 9 AM appointment. But, the Ministry took applications only between 9 AM and 12 noon, returning them only between 4 and 5 PM of the same day. It looked to me like a very long day, requiring a night of sleep in Kiev. When I shared this information with Sveta, she pleasantly said, "Hurrah, we can arrive in the morning and return the same day!" Once again, I was introduced to how things happen in Ukraine, and the urgency of life here.

So our journey began. Svetlana bought train tickets, two-second class top bunk were all that were available, for Monday evening. Still in Illichevsk on Friday, we would travel by bus to Nikolayev within the hour. We arrived in Nikolayev at 4:30 PM, departed the bus about four or five blocks from the translator’s office, and proceeded to find the office, which would close at 5 PM. We had come to have my documents for the civil wedding ceremony translated into Ukrainian. After going over the details, we paid the man and would return on Monday at noon when they would be ready to be received.

After a couple of days rest, we returned for our documents at noon. After ironing out a few mistakes in what had to be the same as the visa in my passport, we move on with our plan for the day, to visit Svetlana's daughter, Olga. By five o'clock, I was ready to go back to Svetlana's flat and rest. As we walked back, she reminded me that we would go to Kiev by train in two hours. So much for rest.

We took the train to Kiev, arriving at 5:30 AM. I had not slept at all. We had a leisurely breakfast at McDonalds and then headed to the American embassy. Arriving at 8:30 for my 9 o'clock appointment, I was genuinely surprised to see a line of about fifty people waiting outside of the embassy gates.

Svetlana received information from a woman in line who said that we should tell the guard that I had an appointment. The guard looked at my passport and directed me to the next man who checked for my name on the appointment list. I was ushered into the security area where I passed through the metal detector area. They secured my phone and camera until my return. I continued to the American Citizen Services room. I was treated very courteously, helped to go through the process, and was on my way by 9 AM.

            Svetlana and I continued on our journey to the next destination. When we arrived at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, located in the back of this very large building, we entered a room filled with many people, all anxiously trying to figure out how to fill in the particular forms required. Within about thirty minutes, Svetlana had completed the forms and returned them to the appropriate person. Now, we had five hours to wait for the document to be process.

We walked six blocks to a different McDonalds, had some lunch, and made our plans with new directions back to the train station. Heading back to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs early, we were not the only ones waiting outside in the cold. Invited in to the building at 3:15, the population and the tension grew, until finally at 4:15, the woman arrived with all of the papers to hand out. From that point on, all rules of behavior disappeared and chaos flourished. We quickly received our document, stashed it in our folder, and left the building.

Beginning the last leg of our foot trek at 4:30, our task was now to arrive at the train station as soon as possible and see if any tickets were available for the 7:30 train to Nikolayev. It was very fortunate that the longest part of our travel was on one street without a name change. The rest was close to where we had walked from the train station early in the morning.

We secured second-class tickets by 5:20, one up, one down, and made our way to McDonalds where we had eaten breakfast, to eat supper and rest until the train was ready for us. As we ate, our poor feet began to talk to us. Exhausted, we dragged ourselves to the train at 7 PM and slept until our arrival in Nikolayev at 5:30 AM. This ended our thirty-four hour day trip to Kiev.