My Russian Diary - Day 27

Day 27 – April 15, Sunday, Kiev

The Aeroflot plane was small with 28  passengers only and no check-in baggage. Arrived in Kiev in one hour. First impression of the city was good. Clean, inclined streets, more beautiful buildings. Checked in at Hotel Ukraine. From the outside, it looks simple but inside, it was magnificent. After check-in and breakfast, off we go for sight-seeing. This is the first order of the day in all our travels in different places.

Kiev, the old and third largest city of Soviet Union is like San Francisco, hilly. It is the capital of Ukraine, second largest and most prosperous of the 15 republics. It has many parks, 150 in all and many memorials and monuments. Soviet cities are known for this. I guess this makes up for lack of entertainment places. Many streets were made of cobble stones. Visited the Arc of Friendship, site where Kiev was founded. Panoramic view overlooking the famous Dneiper River. Visited Prince Andrew Cathedral, a 100,000 capacity sports complex, the grave of the unknown soldier, Czar’s Palace, Ukrainian Parliament, Chekovsky University, etc. Afternoon, we were at the Exposition of Industry in Ukraine – a 300 hectare pavilion telling the story of the place. Soviets are particular of this. They have a very rich and ancient culture and they really preserved it.

Kiev, April 15, 1984

My Motherland Statue

Kiev Subway Train Station

Almost a month after we settled down in Zaporozhye, we arrived in Kiev on a beautiful spring morning of Palm Sunday, 25 years ago today, for a 4-day visit to this capital of Ukraine, then the 2nd most prosperous among the 15 republics of the USSR.

Having obviously lost contact with the outside world, I didn't even remember it was already Holy Week. Booked at Hotel Ukraine, our first impression of the city was good. It was clean, with more beautiful buildings and sloping, hilly streets, some of cobble stones

St. Andrews Cathedral, Kiev

Kiev is an old city, and the 3rd largest city of the Soviet Union after Moscow and Leningrad. It is a city of parks (there were 150 of them all), monuments and memorials, just like any other city there. Places we visited were the Arc of Friendship (where Kiev was founded) overlooking the famous Dneiper River, Prince Andrew Cathedral, the Marinsky Palace of the Czar, War Memorial, Ukrainian Parliament, Chekovsky University, a 100,000 sports complex (home of the Kiev Dynamo Football Club), and the vast Exposition of the Industry of the Ukraine. There were no plant visits this time; it was a purely social and cultural trip, which we liked.

But we equally enjoyed our "on our own" adventures in the city, mingling with the people, drinking in bars and cafe's or just standing idly along the street pavements, enjoying the sites of people passing and couples kissing.

At dinner on our first night, we were delighted to hear for the first time, attendants greeting us "Dobre Becher" (Good Evening!). Service however was still the same. Slow.

St. Sofia Cathedral, Kiev

Kiev was more urban, in fact quite Western in some ways, with more foreign tourists roaming , mostly though from the European Eastern Bloc nations.

It was an eventful visit. Events in later years would prove historic for this seat of Ukrainian power after the disintegration of the mighty Union of Soviet Socialist Republics.

The Russia-Ukraine Gas Row and My Russian Diary

The recent feud on gas supply between the Moscow and Kiev governments which threatened and affected Europe's own gas supply amid the cold winter season evoke memories of my unforgettable experience in this once mighty superpower called the Union of Soviet Socialist Republic (USSR). I once attended the 27th UNIDO (UNDP) Training for Iron and Steel engineers in Zaporozhye, (Ukraine), USSR from March to July 1984. I was with a group of 17 other engineers from 10 developing countries and one of the two Filipino engineers representing our country.

It was post Brezhnev and pre-Gorbachev time. Glasnost and Perestroika were then unheard. It was Tavareesh(Comrade) Chernenko's era. When I arrived Moscow on a cold freezing day of March in 1984, I couldn't forget the voice of the stewardess of out Aerofloat flight originating from Singapore with New Delhi as stopover.

"Ladies and gentlemen, we have just landed at the Shereyetmevo International Airport. Ground temperature is 10 degrees below zero.Welcome to Moscow."

In our taxi to our hotel, (the Rossia Hotel, just overlooking the Red Square, at that time was reportedly Europe's largest hotel with 3000 rooms), I was complaining to Oleg, the UNIDO guy who fetched me. "Mr. Oleg, but I thought it's already spring as per the aide memoir!" His answer was strikingly remarkable, as it dawned on me that not all people in the USSR were Russians. "Mr. Delid, to the Ukrainians, it's still winter time. To the Muscovites, it's now spring."

We were based in Zaporozhye, a large industrial city in the southwestern part of Ukraine, with Zaporohtahl Iron and Steel Works as our base plant. This was an integrated steel complex with about 20,000 workers. All throughout our 4-month stay however, we traveled far and wide the soviet territory to such cities as Kiev, Krivoi Rog, Zdhanov, and Odessa, all parts of Ukraine and Moscow, Liepitz, Cherepovets, and Leningrad, all parts of Russia. Many of the largest steel mills in the world were found in these cities. In all of these visits, one of the things that stuck to our minds was the abundance of gas and minerals. So abundant that even in our written and verbal reports and informed discussions, we would then report that there was no such thing as energy conservation there. There was no need for it. They had lots of it; excess in fact. And we were not referring only to our usual enercon programs of shutting down lights and airconditioning when not in use. We were talking about energy usages on big and various reheating furnaces, etc.

I bid goodbye to Russia on a warm sunny afternoon in July 1884. But as I looked out of the plane's window, trying to catch a last glimpse of this beautiful city by the river, I could then sense that in not too far future, something big will happen that will transform again this country, something in the scale when the October Revolution of the early 1900 took place. Finally, when all I could see was a blurred vision of the city, I closed my eyes, took a long deep breath, and silently told myself; "Doshbedanya, Russia. Spaseeba. Spaseeba Bolshoi." (Goodbye, Russia. Thank you. thank you very much.")

That was 25 years ago. Now they have split up into two different nations under different leaders. Obviously, they have to split up too these resources. But they are still interconnected with pipelines that stretch far and wide to Europe. Fortunately enough before the dispute erupted into a full blown crisis, diplomacy worked and the situation hopefully will return to normal as before.