More Than I can Bear

I had to fly to Kiev from Vilnius. I would liked to have bused in via Minsk in Belarus but they side with Moscow. Visa requirements for me would have made it expensive, complicated and take a long time to process. It was just a little over an hour flight and when I landed it was sunny and in the 70’s.

The airport is about 30 miles out so I had to catch the shuttle bus to the train station then get to the hotel. It was early afternoon so I decided to walk with the help of google maps and free McDonald’s wi-fi in route. It ended up being about 5 miles, uphill of course. It probably isn’t that far in reality but I got lost a bunch of times and the Ukrainian alphabet is Cyrillic. To me it is just cryptic. It was a nice walk but was pretty done with it once I turned that last corner.

I checked in, dropped my pack and headed back out to get some dinner. I had some street food that smelled pretty good on the grill but the food that you actually got had been sitting for a while and microwaved to get hot again. It wasn’t very good. Draft beer was a little warm and a bit foamy but at a few pennies over a dollar, I wasn’t going to complain.

I walked all over town had another beer at a divey beer patio place that whole sold dried fish as appetizers. Odd because they were NOT appetizing. Just a bunch of kids drinking beer so I was a bit bored. I headed out again. I ended up in a big entertainment district not far from the hotel. By entertainment, I mean NOT entertaining. They just closed off the street and people roamed around and vendors tried to get them to buy crap.

My entertainment came from my general good naturedness. Yeah it in there somewhere. I was walking down along the sidewalk and a young guy comes up and asks me to buy a weaved wristband in order to support the wounded soldier effort. Not widely known but the Ukraine is in a proxy war with Russia on its eastern border. A lot of people are dying. So that makes sense. He even flashed a small print card with some website on it. I am skeptical these days even with my good nature. It seemed scammy. I gave the guy a 10 to just leave me alone. In real money that is like 38 cents. He was very disappointed as I walked away.

Minutes later a guy drops his money clip in about 20 feet ahead of me. The guy calls from behind me to alert the guy. The wallet dropper is appreciative and walks away. The wallet picker upper starts to chat me up. Usual stuff, where I am from, How am I liking Kiev. Then wallet dropper comes back to us to say he is missing some money. All this in English. Then a guy comes up, flashing a Police ID and tries to get the bottom of it. It not really an ID but a blue card that you cant really get a good look at. The policeman asks to look at the dropper’s wallet. Which I see has 100’s in it wrapped in cellophane. I also see the bills would barely pass for monopoly money, but I keep my mouth shut for the moment. Cop ask for picker upper’s wallet. I guess to make sure that he doesn’t have the missing money. Then he asks for mine. I laughed and walked away. I am not sure how the scam ends since I have seen through it on my travels before. Never with three guys before though. That’s pretty heavy handed.

The exact same thing happened to me the next night. Just one guy though. I returned the wallet but then he said he was missing some money. Built like a Russian Fireplug so after I told him to “F off A-Hole” and walked away quickly.

I checked the internet to see if it was a Kiev thing but other than this YouTube video I found of the first wallet dropper, Other than that, there wasn’t much to make it seem like it is a rampant thing here. From what I learned on the internet, Kiev is more of a roll the horny guy that had too much to drink trying to get with the famously beautiful women here.

I am still in one piece but not really getting Kiev.

I am disappointed that I must till look like a tourist and/or a push over. I am hardly flashing bling. My clothes wouldn’t make it to the Goodwill racks. I was sober as the pope on Tuesday. I just get the feeling that it is a sketchy place. You have to keep your guard up all the time.

I’ll get some pictures up in the next post.