Day Out

	Post Communist egg and salami

When Wales played in Ukraine recently, Raynor Lewis made the trip. He recorded his East European adventures in an extensive travelogue. This is Part 3 of the tale (Click here for part one and here for part two)

Tuesday dawned and having been told the hotel breakfast consisted of a couple of slices of salami and a hard boiled egg, we decided to give it a miss. I did my early morning 'sitting at 45 degrees' and 'crouching shower', and decided what I was going to wear for the day. Prior to leaving London I had checked the long-range weather forecast for Kyiv and had discovered that it was to be 'cloudy spells, highs of 72 degrees'; I had packed for this, but I always go prepared (something to do with my days in the Cubs I expect). I looked out of our 21st-floor window, and watched as the curtains blew inwards from the draught through the ill-fitting frames. It was persistently precipitating and looked worse than Blaen Caerau on a bad day (if that's possible!). How wrong could a weather report be?

Next to the hotel was a Metro Station, and we had been told it was only four stops to the city centre. As usual, we had to meet a representative from the FAW at the team hotel to collect our match tickets for the senior game. The Metro is very efficient, clean and cheap to travel on. For two of whatever the local currency is called (I never did find out), you have four tokens to travel. You can travel as far as you like, but the token only covers one journey, so as soon as you exit the Metro, you'll require another token for your next journey. How much is two whatever? About 28 pence, so one journey is 12 pence. We paid for our tokens and entered through the automated barrier, climbed the stairs to the platform for the first part of the journey which was over-ground. We crossed the river Dnieper and once again were confronted with the view of the churches and war memorial. Bizarrely, looking down at the river, I could see family groups on the sandy banks swimming and enjoying themselves as if they were at Porthcawl! It was pissing down, but then again, it usually does in Porthcawl as well.

Alighting the train, we walked into the exit area and were confronted by a huge room with two sets of escalators. It was just as you would imagine an Eastern European country's underground station to look. Two huge, steep escalators, the tops of which were out of sight, and the typical art/deco style of the early 20th Century Prussian Empire. The long escalator journey took us to the exit and onto one of Kyiv's main streets. It was still pissing down, so our priority was the purchasing of two umbrellas. We were unable to find a shop that would sell them, so we decided to have breakfast. The first bar we came to had the pleasure of our company, and breakfast consisted of beer, Steak Vienna and chips. On entering the bar, we were ushered up stairs to a larger room, which had the luxury of a television on the bar, with the two- pronged aerial usually seen on the Flintstones television set. In one corner was a set of drawn curtains, and at one stage a well-dressed man with an even better dressed woman entered this enclosure and they were served more quickly than anyone else. This must be a throwback to the Soviet regime, when the privileged classes didn't mix with the proletariat. As with every bar we visited during this trip, the waitresses were absolutely beautiful. Long legs, short skirts and skimpy blouses were the order of the day. It seemed that if you were employed in a responsible position such as Customs, Immigration or Hotel reception, then you had to pass the 'ugly and stern' test, while waitresses obviously had to pass the 'sexiest skirt' test. Strangely, I don't recall ever seeing a female police officer in Kyiv; maybe they're all so ugly, they look like men. As we left, a couple of other Welsh lads came in, they directed us to the players' hotel and a department store where umbrellas were on sale.

The main street consisted of buildings made from huge stone blocks; again they appeared to have been built around the turn of the last century, a time before Communism engulfed Eastern Europe. We located the department store, a sort of extra large John Lewis, but cheaper and on the fourth floor I found the counter that sold umbrellas, buying two priced at around £4 each. Four (yes, you've guessed it) grim-faced women staffed the counter. I asked the first for the two umbrellas, she asked the second to reach them down, she handed them to the third who rang them into the till and handed them to us, while the fourth entered the sale into a ledger and handed us the till receipt. What a way to keep unemployment down! Suitably armed with our new spring-loaded brollies, we hit the wet streets again, in search of the Hotel National.

Ukraine was to celebrate its tenth anniversary of independence in July, and in view of this, a lot of construction work was being carried out. In particular, this main street was being completely ripped up. I understand that it once boasted huge marbled terraces and fountains, and these are to be replaced by even more grandiose fixtures and fittings. We followed the directions given to us, and came to the construction area. This is where we got lost. I am usually fairly good at keeping my bearings in a big city - having lived and worked in London for 20 years, it comes as second nature - but this is the first time I've completely lost my way. An hour and a half later, having trudged the streets of downtown Kyiv in the pouring rain for long enough, we hailed a taxi. Three pounds and five minutes later, we were in the foyer of the plush Hotel National. This was definitely a post-Communist construction - it seemed like we were in a plush New York hotel. As we entered, one of the FAW staff was leaving; he took us to the reception and tried to get hold of Mark Evans for us. There being no reply from his room, and not wishing to come back, we sat down on the leather Chesterfields and waited.

Ten minutes into the wait, and Mark appeared. We collected our tickets and went back into the downpour. A group of young Ukrainians approached us and struck up a conversation regarding football. It seems that even after 10 years of independence it is still quite rare for them to see Westerners visiting their city. Their interest was souvenirs, so we instructed them to meet some of the Welsh supporters outside the Olympic Stadium the following day. They asked how many Welsh fans had travelled, and we told them we thought it was about 110. They seemed genuinely impressed by this, and when they explained that Norway had brought only about 20, we understood why. A short walk, and once again, we were lost. We decided to go straight to Dinamo Kyiv's stadium for the Under- 21 match, so we hailed another taxi. A short ride later, and we were there. We looked for a bar, and bumped into a couple from Oldham, who were second-generation Ukrainian immigrants to the UK. Their first language being Ukrainian, they followed the Ukraine side all over.

This friendly couple took us to O'Brien's Irish bar, which already had several Welsh fans therein. This proved to be the most expensive bar we used, and Danny and myself never went back. After a few pints, it was time to walk back to the stadium.