Money Talks

We know this is a long entry... but it's a good story. What would you do if you were stuck at the Ukrainian border with a visa that may not be valid???



Not long before we were to leave Russia to go to Ukraine on a 24 hour train ride, we found out that our train was leaving 7 hours earlier than first thought.

Normally, this wouldn't be a problem.

Except that Gwil's visa didn't start until midnight on May 22, and we were now a little concerned that we'd get to the border before then. (thanks Flight Centre!)

Em was also leaving Russia as an Australian, and entering Ukraine as a British citizen, so needed to change passports without the border police seeing.

Needless to say, we didn't sleep very well on our approach to the border!

We shared a 4 berth cabin with one Ukrainian man, Alexander, who despite being lovely (he made our beds for us, and offered us food every time he ate!), didn't speak any English. This made the trip interesting with lots of sign language and miming!

We got the the Russian border control at 11.30pm, and I think speaking no Russian helped the process go faster. They came into our cabin, turned on all the lights and started asking us questions in Russian, to which we kept relying "Nyet Ruski... Anglyski?". They pretty quickly got tired of us, and left us alone.

By the time we had finished at the Russian border and travelled the short distance to the Ukrainian border control, it was 12.45am, so we were very relieved that Gwil's visa was now valid... we thought.

We soon found out that when you get into Ukraine, you turn your clocks back by 1 hour. So it was now 11.45 on May 22!

Ukrainian border control came on the train looking very serious. Gwil's passport was taken and they said "Visa. Problemo." and pointed to the date on the visa and to a watch. There was a few minutes of miming and pointing to watches before the official took Gwil's passport and mimed 'follow me'.

Gwil was taken to a small room on the train where he was yelled at in Ukrainian... the word "Problemo" kept being repeated, with much shaking of heads. It was now only 10 minutes until his visa was valid, so Gwil did the only thing he thought would get him across the border, and made a money gesture with his hand.

This seemed to move the situation forward. 100 hryvnia was handed over (only about $25 AUD), and it went straight into the official's pocket. Gwil's passport was stamped, and he was allowed back into the cabin. The time was now midnight. (bastard!)