Always Buy Coffee in Ukraine

It was impossible to drive above ten miles per hour on the road leading into eastern Ukraine from the Slovakian border. Each new mile of road brought potholes of worsening depth and diameter. The suspension on our white Peugeot minivan was being subjected to a cruel test of stamina. If the roads continued like that, I wasn’t so sure if we’d make it to our hotel that night. And, night was fast approaching after being harassed at the border by officials at the border. Despite not being able to converse with them, apart from charades and google translate, they found reason to keep us hostage in a brown room for two and a half hours.

I was worried about not making it to our hotel, but Bart was in near panic. That wasn’t all too unusual for him. ‘Bart, like Bart Simpson.’ He’d told me when I picked him up in Bern, Switzerland weeks earlier. He was twice my age, which made him, ‘twice as wise’ he’d proclaimed that first day. We got along fine, but only because I kept my mouth shut. Bart was a Dutch engineer who’d lived in Switzerland for the past decade, where he’d married and divorced two women and had had two little girls. One with each wife. Now he lived on the third floor of an old lady's house alone. Bart had a crooked mouth, which became more lopsided when he smiled. But he only smiled robotically, when he thought it necessary. His eyes were always darting around. It made me uneasy. He seemed to enjoy worry. Worry about whether the clouds would bring rain, about if there would be a restaurant with decent food in the next town, and most annoyingly, about how I was driving. ‘Four eyes are better than one.’ That was his reasoning for constantly scanning the road for dangers ahead while it was my turn at the wheel. Back-seat driving, that’s what it was. The dutch worry-wort insisted that we come to a complete stop at every railroad crossing just in case the automated system failed. ‘You can never be too careful.’ I disagreed, quietly, with all of Bart's worries. While he sipped non-alcoholic beer at night while enjoying his ever balanced meals - usually chicken with a side of rice and veggies, if available - I would order the heartiest, greasiest delicacy I could find on the menu, with a local beer on to down it. ‘You’re going to regret that in the morning.’ he’d quip while avoiding eye contact. It was fun toying with him like that. My gut is strong, I never worried. Besides, I liked trying the obscure foods in eastern Europe.

So, in that fashion, we had driven the speed limit east across Europe, to this godforsaken excuse for a road. It was getting dark and we were hungry. Bart was telling me a story about why he rode with mace and a whip. ‘You can never be too careful. That was the gist of it. In fact, that was the summary of all of Bart’s anecdotes. I hit a couple potholes real hard in response.

Now, hours of driving into Ukraine we were only forty miles into this new country. I’d begun swerving side to side on the road in magnificent random curves - sometimes off of it completely to avoid the nasty potholes. Bart voiced his displeasure with my style every few minutes but now I was tuning him out. Hell with it, I was hungry and on edge. As tensions reached their natural tipping point we came up to a military checkpoint. This was new, for both of us. Italy, Germany, Slovakia, Slovenia, they all had their quirks but no militarized checkpoints.

The checkpoint was hardly one. It was a shack fronted by two soldiers in full camo. The building was four dirty off-white walls, two cracked windows, and a roof that would most definitely not have kept the guards dry on a rainy day. Today, though, skies were clear, and the guards looked excited to see a foreign car pull up. They approached our pathetic french soccer mom van from either side and began speaking in Ukrainian at us.

I looked over to Bart, who had already turned to face me with a matching face of helplessness to what I felt. I turned back toward the soldier.

‘Uh, sorry, Um, I only speak english. Sir.’ I said respectfully to Ukrainian GI Joe whose hand was casually resting on a very clean rifle.

Bart tried speaking French, then German, then Swiss-German, and finally Dutch to his soldier, who seemed offended at the linguistic act.

‘Where eez you going,’ said the soldier on my side.

I fumbled, again. ‘Uh, to a hotel sir. I’m not sure the name. It’s close by here, I think. Bart, what’s the name of the place we’re going?’ Bart didn’t hear me, he was busy getting nowhere speaking French to the, now visibly annoyed, rifle wielding guard.

‘Hold on, I’ll find out let me just get my phone-’

‘No! Stop this!’ The guard now raised his voice and showed absolute power as both Bart and I froze in place. Oh god. He was mad now. He opened the car door, now gripping his rifle not-casually.

‘Geet out.’

Both Bart and I did. The guards towered over both of us. They were at least six foot three. My nerdy Dutch engineer co-worker standing at five foot seven under the guard looked like a different breed of human next to the comically tough soldiers. I looked perhaps even more pathetic though. An American kid, 19, still without any real man muscles or facial hair.

The guards jaws were both chiseled like movie star heroes. Their skin was evenly tanned, freshly shaved and their eyes held the weight of many tough days in what was seeming a very tough country. I couldn’t picture either of them sitting around playing a board game, or petting a dog.

‘You come to Ukraine. You come from America, all the way here. For what.’ The guard demanded, now inches from me.

Holy shit, it was getting serious. I felt genuine fear.

‘I came here on behalf of a bike tour company, they paid for this vehicle and own the bikes stowed inside. We are going to climb and document the most difficult climbs in your beautiful country.’

Flattery? Really, I thought to myself. Was that the best line I could come up with. As I said it I looked around at the road in shambles, the disintegrating shack, and the dirt nothingness surrounding it, I realized the hollowness of the sentiment. Now, he’d think I was a liar.

He smirked and began speaking in Ukrainian to his compadre.

‘Open zay car.’

I did willingly.

‘You have documents?’

‘Yes sir, of course. Bart and I handed our passports over to the more talkative soldier. He glanced at mine, but spent much more time on Bart’s purple covered Swiss passport.

‘And for the car?’

‘Yes. Yes, sir. But it’s in the glovebox… Am I… free to go get it’

‘Go.’

The rental agreement was also a great interest to both of the guards, which seemed strange to me. The rental agreement was written in french, and probably made as much sense to them as it did to me.

‘You have very big problem. Yes, very big. You understand? EHHH yes it is a very big problem for you. A french car, owned by an American. And with you you have a Dutch man who lives in Switzerland. This is not good. Very bad. Big problem.’

Problem, problem, problem. This Darth Vader sounding Ukrainian hero really loved that word.

The soldiers began focusing their attention on me, but Darth Vader was doing all the talking. It seemed the guards disliked the Netherlands and/or Switzerland more than they disliked the United States. Or maybe they just didn’t fancy Bart, who was now looking to be in a catatonic state of fear and confusion. This situation didn’t compute with his mathematical brain. We had legit documents. And we really were here to ride our bikes up some hills and take pictures. I could almost hear the voices pleading in his brain for a logical end to this.

‘You have fire extinguisher, Yes?’

‘No, we don’t. No, sir.’

Do you? I wanted to push back. What the hell do I need a damn fire extinguisher for? Was he going to set our car on fire? Is that where this is going? Jesus Christ, welcome to Ukraine. I could feel a childish panic setting in now and I wondered if it was as visible on my face as on Bart’s.

‘You have problem. Very big problem. In Ukraine you must have a fire extinguisher to travel in car.’ His face was stern. I was now believing we had a very, very big problem as he kept repeating.

‘Come with me. Not you Mr. Bart. You stay. Stay!’

Darth Vader and I entered the shack which was more dilapidated on the inside than what it looked to be from the outside. There was one very basic table, with one chair that was far too small for the giant guard - and nothing else. No fridge, no filing cabinet, no official insignias.

‘You are in Ukraine now Mr. Brad. You have very big problem. In Ukraine you must have a fire extinguisher. And you come here, to my post, in a French van. And these papers, all in french. And you do not speak any Ukrainian. This is very bad. I’m sorry. I must call headquarters. We have problem.’ He said this as his face turned from callous drill sergeant to a patronizing concerned father.

You bastard! The cold war is over motherfucker! Long over! What's your problem? I was defeated inside. A stranger in a strange land. I had never felt so far from California. Darth Vader sure loved fondling his rifle too.

‘You say you are going to hotel.’ He said, struggling visibly to pronounce the word ‘hotel.’

‘Yes, right. Let me show you on my phone.’ I knelt down next to him nervously to show him the map on my Iphone.

‘Stop!’ He yelled in disgust while spitting heartily on the ground next to my feet. ‘The floor is filthy.’ he said, with a wry grin.

‘I must make call to headquarters. Wait’

On the third attempt to get a hold of headquarters, Vader was successful. He spoke quietly, in Ukrainian of course, looking over at me when he said, ‘American.’ Then more low mumbles into the phone before hanging up.

What a sight. A buff Ukrainian John Cena sitting in an old rickety kids sized chair in a decades old post, talking on a flip phone to headquarters. Mumbling about how I had very big problems in a thick Ukrainian accent. Had this been a movie, I would’ve laughed at the scene. It wasn’t a movie though. It felt a nightmare and I wished I could transport back to a California beach and eat a pizza.

I was in Ukraine though, with very big problems. Very big.

Flipping through my passport mindlessly he said, ‘Mr. Brad. Do you want to buy coffee?’

I glanced around the room, wondering if I’d missed an antique coffee maker sitting idly in the corner. There wasn’t. What IS this guy's game?

‘No, sir.’ I’m not thirsty…?’ I said tentatively.

‘You do not understand. You have big problem. Now, I say, you want to BUY coffee. You have money, yes?’

I got it now. That’s his game. Our eyes locked in understanding ‘Yes, SIR. I want to buy coffee. A lot of it. How much is coffee in Ukraine.’

Now smiling honestly he said, ‘How much do you have?’

I wasn’t sure. I had only just exchanged my Slovakian currency at the border and wasn’t sure of the conversion rate, or even what they called their money in Ukraine.

I opened my wallet and pulled out my stack. ‘This much.’ And handed it over to him.

‘You do not have problem anymore, Mr. Brad. Welcome to Ukraine.’ We shook hands and exited the shack with me in the lead now. A free man. Darth Vader nodded towards the other soldier who then backed away from Bart, who seemed to have been told to sit on the ground at the guards feet. That scene made me chuckle audibly and John Cena next to me heard. ‘Your friend is a very funny looking man. Like small dog.’ We both laughed at that.

Maybe I‘d like Ukraine, after all.

That was the first bribe I paid in a foreign land, but they all followed similar patterns. In Uganda they threatened the death penalty until I forked over the equivalent of fifty dollars US to a truck full of armed soldiers. In Bolivia I was pulled over for having a ‘9’ on the license plates of my rented Toyota. That’s a very big problem there unless you got ten bucks. In Chile they wouldn’t let me enter and cited an invalid passport. One-Hundred dollars and it was magically valid again. In Serbia, Croatia, Bosnia… There were many other very big problems solved eventually with a bit of money and friendly waves to continue on, as you were.