... tylko we Lwowie: Lviv part II

Rynek Główny, Lviv, shortly before seven in the morning:

Picture the scene: early-morning sunshine floods the cobbled market square. Barely a soul is in sight. The only sound is the swish-swish of elderly street-sweepers, clad in neon tabards and wielding I-kid-you-not actual broomsticks.

Chairs are stacked upside-down on top of tables on cafe terraces, and no bar or restaurant shows any sign of opening its doors before the clock strikes nine.

Two Polish guys and one British girl stand at one corner of the square, with rucksacks, staring up at the kamienice and blinking in the sunlight.

- Hej! Do you know why they only have three windows?

A slim, dark-haired man in a threadbare jumper, asks us conversationally, in Ukrainian. He has the weathered tan of someone who spends a more time than most people outdoors.

- Could you repeat please?
- Ah, you're Polish. Do you know why some of the buildings have only three windows and others six?
- No, but...

He picks up speed, gesturing extravagantly and peppering his speech with Ukrainian expressions which I am unable to understand.
... did you know there used to be a tax on windows and balconies, so the more windows you built, the more wealthy your family would appear... Come on, come on, this way!

Our Lwowian gentleman of leisure leads us off the main square down a side street. I hesitate, but one of the guys gestures to me to follow - it's ok.

On the left, we pass a bar, which I later learn is called Gas Lamp. Sticking out of the wall is a bronze statue of a man sitting beside a desk, with a spare chair.
- Look! Sit down, take pictures!

Before we can stop him, our new friend has crossed the street and is standing at one of the big wooden gates leading to a Lviv courtyard. He presses the code and a small door clicks open.
- Come in! Come in! Look!
He opens up a small hatch in the wall to reveal an old iron electricity box, dirt-encrusted and laced with cobwebs. The embossed letters read: 'Własność Miejskiej Elektrowni'.
- Polski! Look! Polish!

Obediently we take photos. Suddenly, a lady in overalls bursts out of the courtyard and shoos us angrily back out of the door. As we trip over the kerb, our guide points down. We peer at the gutter.
- Polish drains! Look! Take pictures!

Before we know it, he's urging us down the street again, further into the cobbled heart of Lviv's town centre, to a small crossroads, where he stops and points up at the tall town house on the opposite corner.
- Look, 'rudy kot', czerwony kot: see the Masonic signs.
We squint up at the building and note pentacles on the wrought-iron balcony. I am sure there are more Masonic signs to be picked out, because our friend expands at great length, but I am unable to understand the wild swerves of his fast Polish, which careens in and out of the Ukrainian language.

Eventually he pauses for breath and looks back at us, shyly, a strange canny look in his eye:
- I don't suppose Państwo would find it in themselves to make a small contribution to a mere humble...

We slip him a couple of notes.

Just for the entertainment value, he was worth it.

to be continued. Even more...

Wschód słońca - Lviv part I

Health warning: This post is not recommended for anyone answering to the description of 'Pinolona's Mum'. Any such readers are advised that... - oh look over there, the kettle's boiling!

Ukraine-Poland border, some time between 2 and 4 am:

The night bus to Lviv has been waiting at the border for approximately eleven years. Suddenly and painfully the cabin lights snap on.

Pani Ukrainian Border Guard slowly makes her way up the aisle of the bus, carrying a stack of passports in one hand, systematically staring each passenger hard in the eyes, scrutinizing the passport photo, and glaring once again at the unfortunate traveller, before finally handing back the document.

She reaches my seat, and looks at me long and hard. Then she looks at my passport again, and looks back at me for what seems like an age. Although I have nothing to declare and absolutely nothing to hide - that I can remember - I start to feel nervous.

- Okulary!

She asks me to remove my glasses, in heavily Ukrainian-influenced Polish that I find hard to understand. I never wear contact lenses when travelling and I never wear glasses when having my photo taken, so I suppose I bring these things upon myself.

Pani Ukrainian Border Guard stares at me again, and back at the photo.

- Now the fringe!

In the photo I don't have a fringe. In real life I do. I suppose that is to be expected as well. My driving licence has a fringe. Obediently I push back the offending tresses.

Pani Ukrainian Border Guard frowns, concentrating hard.

- Now smile! Like in the photo!

It's all too much. I begin to giggle.

- Date of birth!

Now I don't know if you've ever tried to quote your date of birth in Polish at four in the morning. It's not the sort of thing that just trips off the tongue.

Suddenly I realise that I am a foreign girl with a funny accent, who can't even conjugate her own birthday, travelling across the border at night in the company of two Polish men. I would be suspicious of me too! Maybe I should be! Maybe I have done something wrong after all! I let slip another nervous giggle.

- Why is your passport so old? Why did you change it in 2001?

I try to explain that I used to be on my Mum's passport, and then I had my own for five years, and then I had to get a ten-year one, but she seems unconvinced.

- Repeat your date of birth!

I make slightly less of a hash of it this time, and remember to use genitive instead of locative.

- Dowod osobisty!
- umm... prawo jazdy?

I'm hoping she'll accept my driving licence as a personal ID card.

-Nie! Nie ma Pani dowodu?

You see - I try to explain - in the UK we don't use ID cards. We just don't have them.

-But what is your ID?

Well... my passport.

- No! That's your international ID. What do you use inside the country?

- We don't have them. Nie ma dowodów! Nie potrzebujemy.

At this point the Poles begin to chuckle. How can a British girl, in this part of the world, explain that she simply doesn't need to carry a personal ID card when she pops down the road for a pint of milk? For a brief moment I feel an unfamiliar flush of national pride.
I hand over my driving licence. Pani Ukrainian Border Guard examines it, compares it to my seven-year-old passport photo and - still appearing unconvinced - finally agrees to let it drop.

As she moves on to the seat behind mine, I try not to look at the pistol tucked into the back of her belt.

*******

Ukraine-Poland border, some - considerable - time after 4 am:

The bus finally pulls out of no-man's land and -somewhat jerkily - swings back onto the road.

We push back the curtains and a wan grey light seeps into the coach.

Rolling Ukrainian pastures stretch as far as the eye can see and the rising sun blushes shyly through the dove-soft clouds.

To be continued...

The modern young woman's guide to emergencies. Part 4: bus tickets

Overheard in the changing rooms at the salsa school:

- So, you've got your ticket [to Lviv] then?
Pino: - Yep! Right here!
rummages in rucksack
- definitely, somewhere in here...
starts to remove objects from bag
- right at the bottom, here...
takes out black-bound WHSmith diary, groaning at the seams: diary exhales cloud of old ATM receipts and email addresses on fast-food napkins, but no bus ticket
- just a second, maybe it's at the back somewhere

not Pino: - You do have it, right? I mean, I gave it to you... we're all adults, so I mean I thought it would be ok.

Pino: No, absolutely, I have it Right Here...
- maybe it's in my other bag
tries hard to disguise Serious Doubts
- I'm normally very responsible, I don't normally lose things (liar)

not Pino: I thought you had a different bag with you last night?

Pino: Yes, that's right, absolutely, it must be in that one...
not convincing anyone

- ... only... I don't want to worry you but... this morning I definitely cleared out some old papers from my bag. And then... I put them in the bin (train of thoughts spirals out of control) and then... I Took The Bin Out!
- Excuse-me-I-have-to-go!

On tram:

Pino's mind: Did I take the bin out? Wasn't the communal bin outside almost empty this morning? That means they'd only just collected the rubbish! That means they won't have come for today's yet! So there's a chance I might find it! Interrupted by visions of self diving head-first into communal bin to retrieve lost ticket.

Fifteen minutes later:

Stumbles up stairs, drops keys, opens door, crashes headlong into bedroom, spots handbag under pile of back issues of Polityka...



Ticket is in bag!!


Phew...


[Oh Crap I haven't packed yet!!!!]