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.

My Russian Diary - Day 3

Day 4 - March 23, Zaporozhye

Woke up at 6:30. Medical check-up is at 8. Not feeling well. Vodka and champagne last night. Outside, I could see only  few people on the streets.

At 8, people started to go out. Realized  that drivers of buses and trolley cars were women. Quite amusing. And hotel utility people were also women, mostly of late age and fat. But they were nice, cheerful and honest people. We call them our dear “babushkas”.

A funny thing happened during my check-up. Just when the lady doctor placed her stethoscope on my breast, my Citizen Ana-Digi watch chimed. Both the doctor and Lyudmilla, our interpreter, were stunned, the stethoscope falling out of the doctor’s hand. This technology has not yet come to their place. They could only laugh at their ignorance.

Went back to the hotel at 4 pm. Café and restaurant were closed. Had to go out with Cudra ( from Mozambique) to take some food. Found few eating places but many people were falling in line. This is a common thing here, queuing in cafes, open markets, shops, everywhere. Every morning at the hotel, we fall in line for breakfast. And the pace was so slow. Finally, found one place but there was nothing to choose. Service and quality are visibly absent here.

That night, Mumtaz (from Pakistan) brought us to a party inside the hotel in celebration of Pakistan Day. Many Pakistanis came, mostly exchange students  and  worker trainees. Champagne and vodka flowed and we drunk a lot. My Philip Morris and Marlboro were favourites. Russian cigarettes were lousy. And people danced with gusto. And how they love foreign music. Old Western favourites-Yesterday, Feelings, Ebony and Ivory were hits. Just before midnight, the party broke up. All activities here stop at midnight.  Amused at everybody hurrying down the streets while militiamen scour the area, seeing everything’s in order and everybody leaves the place. Even drunk people follow to the letter this regulation, without question. And to think that their militiamen carry no guns-only radio and ‘’batuta’’. But I observed them to be strict but disciplined too, and respectful. Call that fear or respect of the law, but to my mind this is so far the safest place I’ve been to and known.

Finished the night with more Vodka at Muminagic’s ( from Yugoslavia) room.

My Russian Diary - Day 2

Day 2 - March 21

It was already 7:00 AM and the city seems still quiet. Below, only a few people can be seen walking on the streets.  Eleazar, my classmate from Peru, told me last night that only few people are seen outside because most of them pass the subways—the Metro, they call it, those marvelous underground structures used as shelter during the last world war.

It seems to me Moscow is peaceful, not hectic like Manila. I saw only a  few cars  and  traffic was nowhere to be seen, although from time to time, cars have also to stop at street lights. Quite orderly. Buildings were more of less of the same design. Like boxes, especially the apartment houses.

It was still snowing when we came down the hotel. Oleg fetched us for our flight to Zaporozhye. There were no porters at the airport nor at the hotel. We were  left on our own to carry our luggage. How my shoulders ached. Surprised that there were only four of us in the pre-departure area. Later we learned that foreigners have separate terminal areas. Upon boarding, we were again whisked to the ramp separately. The Russian passengers boarded only when we were already settled on our seats. And there were no seat numbers.

Then Zaporozhye--our home city for the next four months, a major industrial city of the Ukraine region. We stopped in the middle of a big airport, doubling as an air base. At the far other side are hangars of the MIG fighter planes. Temperature was -10 degrees C and first time I stepped on melting ice; I had no hat nor gloves. The winter wind was terrible. I couldn’t understand why the baggage claim area was outside the terminal.

Settled at the 10th and last floor of Hotel Zaporozhye (In Tourist Hotel) - the best in the center of the city. Vladimir Soroko, our training director came up to welcome us. Went down at 9PM  with Jorge and Eleazar. The basement bar was full and noisy and there were many beautiful girls. Didn’t know what to drink. Finally, I decided to go back to my room and rest. Still a long way to enjoy.

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.