2009: Thanks For The Love (L'viv)

I’ve been traveling for a little over three months now, since December 26. Since leaving Paris and Caroline behind it’s been almost all solo. I meet a lot of people along the way, and Robert diverted on his way home from a business trip to meet me in Krakow for a few days, but mostly I’ve been on my own.

Tonight though, L’viv is lively and I don’t feel like eating dinner by myself. So I’m quite happy about it when Oksana and Maria ask if they can share my table. Sharing a table is by far the most common way that I meet people while I’m traveling. The people I meet that way are usually pretty outgoing – since the shy ones don’t ask in the first place or don’t look approachable if I’m the one doing the asking – so we almost always end up sharing some converation as well. I found Slovakian people to be awkwardly, painfully shy and I’d just spent almost two weeks there so I’d been doing a lot of eating alone. Oksana and Maria are decidedly not shy.

It’s Friday night in L’viv and the streets are alive with people. All of a sudden, it seems, the snow is gone for good and a clear blue sky is here to stay. The city smells of sawdust as guys in t-shirts raise platforms along the sidewalks and over pedestrianized cobblestone streets. Overnight, these are filled with tables, chairs, colored lights, sunshades and, soon, people. Every restaurant and café that can plausibly claim an inch of space out front, to the side, in an alley, anywhere nearby, has got its summer platform up and decorated and ready to go, while over in the main square another crew is already in the last stages of tearing down the winter ice skating rink. All of this happens over the course of about 48 hours.

Not only the eating and drinking establishments head for the streets come Spring, but the booksellers do as well. I don’t think I’ve ever seen so many booksellers in one city. Aside from the regular bookstores that seem to be on every little street, there are booksellers with stalls in the underground passages that you use to get from one side of a big street to the other (a great solution to both traffic congestion and pedestrian accidents, by the way… there are lots of these here and in Minsk), and now, booksellers outside as well in a largish square near the center of town. I can’t read them, but it makes me happy to be around so many book people, to be in a place where there is such a demand for books, whatever language they are in.

Every petty entrepreneur comes out with the sun too. Buskers in such force that you never get out of earshot of one before coming into earshot of another… accordian players, violinists, guitar players, vocalists, whatever they’ve got. There’s a man with a cotton candy machine, a woman with an ancient looking scale who will tell you how much you weigh for one hryvnia, old ladies selling small bouquets of flowers, middle aged ladies selling baked meat pies, jugglers, flutists, you name it. Meanwhile, the locals have shed their winter coats and are gleefully worshipping the long-awaited sun. The guys back home would appreciate the women’s fashion… short skirts and even shorter shorts worn with knee high boots or ankle bootlets, stockings, scarves, tight tops and fitted jackets, plus some really bold ensembles making use of feathers, lace or netting in various bright colors. Long legs, long hair, and definitely not shy.

People are absolutely giddy from this change in the weather. Even in the modest neighborhood roast chicken café I wander into, the atmosphere is contageous. Oksana and Maria walk in, see the three empty seats at my table and give me that look that says “will you invite us to sit with you?” I give them the look back that says “if you’d like to join me you are welcome.” Preliminaries over, Oksana walks over and asks me in words – Ukrainian words, of course, but there’s no doubt as to her meaning. “Yes,” I say, “it’s OK” and motion them to the chairs. “It’s OK” is one of the most useful of all of the multinational phrases. It doesn’t matter whether what she said was “can we join you?” – in which case the correct answer would be yes (da) – or “are these seats taken?” – in which the correct answer would be no (nyet). “It’s OK” works regardless.

My companions have only a few words of English at their command, but between that and the mix I have acquired of Czech, Polish, Belarusan, Russian and Slovakian – what I can more or less call MultiSlav – we make out OK. I learn that Oksana – bright eyes, dark hair, thirty-something and earnest about trying to communicate – Oksana’s job has something to do with money. I tell them that in America no-one has any of that anymore. And Maria – blond hair, blue eyes, fifty-something – Maria’s job has something to do with construction of buildings. I tell them that those aren’t doing too well either. And they learned that my job has something to do with airplanes. I’ve seen exactly one of those since arriving… L’viv International isn’t exactly a high volume strip.

Maria steps out for a minute to go next door and comes back with a bottle of vodka. I guess they only sell beer at chicken cafes. People drink vodka like wine here, as they do also in Minsk. It’s normal to have a decanter of it with dinner. I’ve even seen people do a couple of shots with their coffee at breakfast.

“Oo-kra-eee-nee. Woman. Wodka,” Maria says with the throaty laugh of a longtime smoker as she slips back into her seat with the bottle and three shot glasses.

“Ees normal,” Oksana assures me.

“Just a little,” I say, pinching my fingers close together as she pours. I’ve seen women drink in this part of the world and, aside from not wanting to impose on their hospitality (it’s only a three-quarter liter bottle after all), I also want to be able to find my hotel at the end of the night.

“To friends,” Oksana says… “Maria, Oksana, Patricia – voman friends.” and we drink.

I say no to the next round but about halfway through the bottle Oksana teaches Maria how to say, “We drink three times to love,” as she holds the bottle over my glass.

“Oh, well then, I have to drink to love,” I say. That makes Maria happy and she gives me another small pour. “I love you!” she calls out. “I love you!” Oksana and I call back, and we drink.
Oksana recommends that I go see the latest blockbuster film, just out that day, Taras Bulba. I’d seen the poster for it and I’m familiar with the story so I had thought about going, but… “It’s in Ukrainska?” I ask.

“No,” she says. “In Russkiya.”

Oh, well then, that makes all the difference. But I might go see it anyway.

They explain to me that in Ukraine there is no home crisis because everybody owns at least one small place to live which they are given by the government. “No credit,” Oksana says. I think it must have been part of their post-Communist privitization. When Communist governments fell throughout Central Europe 20 years ago, the new goverments that replaced them had to figure out what to do with all of “the people’s” assets that the state had been managing. In Czech Republic they created a system called coupon privitization, which was apparently a good idea in theory but a big disaster in practice… everyone got a coupon they could use to buy whatever portion of the state’s (i.e. the people’s, i.e. their own) assets they wanted. Some people ended up with small businesses, or with stock in big businesses, but a lot of others were swindled out of some or all of their entitlement for tiny amounts of cash by opportunists.

In Lithuania, people were allowed to keep the homes they had been living in as one way of privitizing state assets. I think in Ukraine they must have done something similar. Only the way Oksana describes it, it sounds as though people who work are still entitled to a small free flat to live in even now. “I see big home” she says, “I credit. But I work, they give me small home. No credit.”

“Small home,” Maria emphasizes, pinching her fingers together like I do when I want to make sure she doesn’t pour me too much vodka.

“Tak, tak, very small,” Oksana says. “Odin, dva…” she counts on her fingers, “two… two meter. Two meter home.” She draws a picture in my notebook to make sure I don’t get the wrong idea.

“No credit,” Maria adds.

“Tak, no credit. Very very small, but no credit.”

“Ookraeenee woman drink three to love,” Maria says, swishing the last of the bottle in circles.

“Why not?” I say, and she pours. “I love you!” we toast together.

And then it’s time to go. “Thank you for table,” Oksana says as we part.

“No, no… thank you for the love,” I say, and take the long way back to my hotel.