If you look at a diagram of the underground in Kiev, it is quite obviously a straightforward plan. There are only three lines, and only three main junction stations at which you can change lines. And in Kiev there are very, very, many “helpful” souls who will go out of their way to offer assistance. I know this because today I happened to run across several who went out of their way (and took me a long way out of my way), to help.
It was a bright, warm morning, and I was hoping to reach the Russian Embassy before nightfall, on an urgent mission, which of course is not really translatable into Russian. The word “urgent” looses much of its meaning after you que for an hour and a half, just to buy a train ticket, and think yourself lucky that the lady in the booth didn’t decide to close up shop for some undisclosed reason, just before you get to her.
The first lesson you should take from my experience on the Underground is never to trust your Fiancé. You must treat her as one of the enemy, who are conspiring to send you on a wild goose chase. Of course I thoroughly understand their reasoning in this matter. They have the understanding that if you end up covering the entire length of the three rail lines in Kiev, some more than once, that this is the fastest way to learn the "in's'" and "out's" of this relatively simple rabbit warren. And after all, it will only cost you ten cents to travel all day on the Underground, and the augmentation of your social and language skills, and character traits like patience and forbearance, are yours absolutely gratis, more or less as part of the happy plan.
So I set out with a few directions that appeared undemanding, and headed for the Marshrutka (Mini-bus). I knew this leg of the journey quite well, and it would take a very skilled “helpful” person to put me off-track here. I arrived at the first Underground station and found the right line, and was to get off at the second station, and change trains for my terminal station.
I decided to check with a young fellow, more to re-assure myself than anything else. But to my astonishment, he suggested I was not going in the right direction, and should get off one station further along, and change trains there. No sooner had I started following his advice than another young fellow, who had overheard the conversation, came up to me and assured me, in very good English, that I had gone too far, and needed actually to head in the opposite direction. Afterward I understood that he was one of my fiancé’s accomplices, as he suggested I should change trains at the same station she had suggested. If I looked at the map of the Underground, I could see this did not appear to be possible, but of course local knowledge is often far superior to simple logic.
I had traversed two of the lines by now, and was heading over the Dnieper River, which my gut feeling told me was definitely suspect. But then my gut had been churning for some time by then, and I wasn’t even comfortable trusting it anymore. Then a young woman understood my dilemma, and all but took me by the hand, led me hither and yon, put me on a platform, and told me to travel in this same direction another two stops, to my station.
I had started the morning thanking people heartily with a definite “spaceeba bolshoya,” which means ‘thank you very much’, but this had deteriorated into a timid ‘thank you,’ and then into a sort of smirking bewildered grimace, and an attempted utterance of some words of minimum courtesy.
Finally, I succumbed to logic, studied the Underground map again, and then the platform diagram, and determined I would never again ask a local for directions. I am convinced that the whole day was either part of some elaborate conspiracy, or that very few people in Kiev know anything about their own Underground, or can’t read, or perhaps there is another explanation that still eludes me. Of course, if you can’t read Russian, you may as well feign a heart attack and at least be carried out of there on a stretcher, in comfort, and then hand an address to a taxi driver to arrive home sane at least.
When I arrived home I was expecting some sort of apology or at least a recognition that I had been misled from the beginning, but alas, it appears I must grin and bear it, as a lesson learned. I now feel competent to traverse the Kiev Underground without fear, and will definitely never ask any favours of anyone.
Image: Soviet figures in Kyiv, by the author.
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