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tikistitch
OK, so, here's roughly what happened to us in Kiev. We'll have to backtrack and write up our Moldovian experience, but suffice to say, it was hectic - one of those times when the stupid American tradition of being stingy about vacation days giving to hardworking folks forced us to take overnight trains both to and from the destination, so we had but 24 hours in the country.
On the train out of Moldova, we had our first experience with Ukrainian hospitality: no less than three separate representatives of the latter sovereign nation woke us up, in sequence, at 3 am-ish to scrutinize our passports and read us the riot act regarding our decision to impinge upon their country. They especially quizzed Mr. Tiki regarding our itinerary to assure themselves we indeed had plans to leave their glorious nation at some point, and were not on vacation intending to leave our good jobs, large home and fancy cars in the USA in order to make a career of squatting in what must have been the armpit of the former Soviet Union.
So, the morning after, we woke up from the travel, grabbed our packs, and slogged out through what is actually a fairly impressive old train station, and, sleep-deprived and well past needing a shower, stumbled into the Metro station. Now, we are not inexperienced travelers, and so, know to keep and eye out for suspicious characters (the Kiev train station abounds). We are rightly wary of crowded situations. But, we needed to pile on the train to get to our hotel in the middle of town.
It was around noontime, and the station was fairly crowded, so we were already nervous about maneuvering 4 travelers with packs into the same car without losing anybody. We made a mild note at the time that there seemed to be a number of skeevy guys lurking also at the station.
The trouble started as the subway car arrived. We piled towards one door, only to see several dozen Ukranians blocking our way. At the last minute, our party scampered (well, as near as one might scamper whilst a 30-lb pack is in tow) to a different door. That's when things started to get odd. We thought we'd literally be the last people to make the car, but instead, a veritable Who concert full of men - they were all men - suddenly ran behind us and pushed us through and pinned us to the back wall of the car. We were in the middle of the car, near no handrail, completely blocked from turning. We think now that the guys pushing us in were all in on the scam.
Things immediately went from bad to worse. "One of the guys has his hand in my back pocket!" Mr. Tiki screamed! Both of us felt hands scrambling at our pack zippers, and both continued to shout, Thief! But, absolutely NO ONE in the crowded car made any kind of move to help. The Ukrainians, including a nearby UNIFORMED OFFICER, just stood mute. I kept ahold of my purse, notincing that the zippers were both partly pulled back, even though, from experience, I keep nothing there but Kleenex. We kept shouting, and blocking the men's hands where we could, but they wouldn't stop, and no one came to our aid. At length, we tried to push out at our stop, only to find the same guys who'd pushed us in now blocked the door.
We somehow pushed out the door and found our way into the hallway, and realized that every single zipper on our packs had indeed been unzipped. We sorted through the damage, and found that my camera, the single thing of value in my pack, had indeed gone away. Fortunately, after all the effort on the part of the motherfucking thieves, (we suspect 4 to 6 guys were involved), that was the only loss, as we keep all money and passports and the like in money belts. And, it was a cheap ass camera.
The sad thing is, we hadn't downloaded our pix from Moldova yet, so all of my stuff from there is gone. And it was extremely upsetting to be subjected to this violation - it literally must have gone on for 10 minutes - and see the natives of the country witness it and stay mute. It's pretty clear this society either condones or perhaps is amused by the violation of tourists. Which is to say, if you've ever had a yen to go to Kiev, we'd suggest, steer clear until those bozos have cleaned up their act.
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Date: 2008-03-21 12:03 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-03-21 12:04 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-03-21 12:07 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-03-21 03:09 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-03-21 06:13 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-03-21 09:47 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-03-21 02:18 pm (UTC)My French teacher told us stories of being pickpocketed by gypsies on the subway in Paris during a class trip.
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Date: 2008-03-21 02:48 pm (UTC)Agh.
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Date: 2008-03-21 05:44 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-03-21 06:17 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-03-22 03:16 pm (UTC)kiev
Date: 2008-10-27 08:48 pm (UTC)Re: kiev
Date: 2008-10-27 11:02 pm (UTC)There's actually a couple of neat touristy spots, like the mummy monks. But we found the citizenry fairly repellant.