Approaching Ukraine from Poland

“Does this €10 bill belong to you…?”

After weeks of preparation leading up to our Ukraine aid convoy, there was nothing left to do but go. With seven vehicles, our start was staggered over 3 days with some wanting to break up the first long day (Amsterdam to Wroclaw, Poland) into multiple days. In my mighty Scooby-Doo-Subaru, this first day would be 10-11 hours of driving if there were no issues, but I chose to spend as much time as possible with Laura and Alex before leaving. I would drive from Amsterdam to Wroclaw in a single day.

I was also charged with picking up a passenger, Rena, in Utrecht, NL who would be joining me all the way to Poltava. I was excited to have her with me as she was Ukrainian and could speak the language.

Unfortunately, things quickly started to unravel. After meeting up with another convoy driver, Bob, in Rheine, Germany, Bob discovered that the rear running lights on Scooby were not functioning. My vote was to keep driving to Wroclaw, but Bob insisted we stop to fix the problem. This seemed odd to me, but Bob was adamant that we resolve the issue before continuing. Unfortunately, Rena and Bob would turn out be very bad traveling companions. If there was something to complain about, they’d find it. If there was someone to be angry with, they would become belligerent and abusive. They made the trip far less than it should have been… and much longer. Because of different issues with Rena and Bob, the ~10 hour trip took 14 hours. We were the last to roll into the hotel meeting point in Wroclaw, Poland.

By this point I was painfully missing my two favorite road-trip companions left back in Amsterdam... along with my car that could have ended this misery in half the time at double the speed.

The next morning we discovered an error in the paperwork necessary at the border. Without fixing the error, we were essentially smugglers and stood a chance of being arrested by either the Polish or Ukraine border guards. Our fearless leaders, Sytske and Paul, worked diligently and rectified the problem. We also took this time to redistribute the loads of all the vehicles as my car was extra loaded down with generators and batteries due to some of our group leaving a few days earlier.

While this was all happening, Rena and Bob fell into the previous day’s behavior and were making things difficult for everyone. They just seemed to be very angry people… who became even more angry when Bob accidentally locked his keys in the car he was delivering. By this time, the rest of the convoy had had their fill of Rena and Bob and decided to leave for the border. I foolishly volunteered to stick around and help Bob with the locksmith.

As it happens, Poland is one of the few countries in the EU that has very few English speakers outside of Warsaw. Mundane things like hiring a locksmith require a little extra work to get done. I enlisted the help of our hotel manager who called a friend, spoke a bunch of Polish and then hung up.

Hotel manager: “Good news. My friend can open your car. He is very busy but will get here in six hours.”

Me: “Your friend sounds very important. Oh look! I just found a ten-euro note in my pocket. Is it yours?”

Hotel manager: “Yes it is. Now that I think about it, I have another friend who can be here in 10 minutes.”

Me: “Excellent! You are very helpful and kind.”

After that little exchange, a shady looking dude showed up with tools and opened the car in a matter of minutes… and then charged me another €120. But now we were back on the road.

For the moment, it seemed as if my karma had shifted towards the good. We were now making great time towards our next stop which would be a broker near Przemysl, Poland, mere miles from where we would be crossing into Ukraine.

Rena and Bob on the far right in a rare moment of smiling somewhere in Poland. Will was lucky enough to pilot the "Flying Banana" Subaru Forester. My Scooby-Doo-Subaru is the crimson Forester in the background.

The process for moving goods from Poland into Ukraine is non-trivial. Because of the war and the resulting war-time economy, smugglers and profiteers have descended on Ukraine. The border guards have tightened everything up on both sides (Poland and Ukraine) to limit this. With the extra scrutiny, it’s highly advised that you use an EU broker who can review and organize your paperwork, send a copy ahead to both borders, and even notify the border crossing of your choice that you are on your way. From what I understand, the brokers are a must. 

One of the many brokers you could stop at to prepare paperwork for the border crossing

What I did not understand is that we should have ideally used EU brokers in Amsterdam instead of waiting until we arrived at the Ukraine border.

Unknown to us, the broker we met with when we arrived outside Przemysl was at the end of her shift and counting the minutes until she could go home ~90 minutes later. She grumpily took all our paperwork and told all of us to get lost for 90 minutes. She then promptly closed a blind so none of us could see her … and then proceeded to screw everything up. 90 minutes later after a quick dinner, we returned to see she left a half-baked mess for the person who relieved her. Once the new person looked everything over, it was clear what had happened… and that we would need to start the two hour process over again from the beginning. What could have been taken care of before we left was now adding ~4 hours before we could cross the border a few miles away.

To pile on even more, Rena and Bob snapped. Bob broke first, and then drug Rena down with him. Each became abusive, angry, and belligerent to the rest of the group, especially the organizer, Paul. To his credit, Paul remained calm through most of the tantrums, but even the best among us has a limit after driving 1000 miles over 2 days and now enduring relentless verbal abuse. Eventually, he told Rena in a calm voice that he was sorry for the mistake, but if she wanted to cross the border with the group, she would need to show respect to him and everyone else. Unfortunately, this did not go over well as she had already lost control and now became more abusive.

By this point, I was looking forward to entering Ukraine where all I had to deal with was Russian missiles.

Eventually, another driver, Will, and I were able to separate Rena and Bob so that they could no longer feed off each other. Once separated, I was able to talk Rena down and get her almost calm again. This took another hour. It was now nearing 10pm and we needed to cross the border. All of the rest of the vehicles in our convoy had left for the border leaving two of us to try and salvage Rena, Bob, and Bob’s vehicle and cargo. Bob had another plan - throw a grenade into the whole thing to try and prevent four of us (Bob, Rena, Will and I) from continuing into Ukraine.

This was where I hit my own limit. Knowing that the border takes somewhere between 3 and 12 hours to cross, I put my foot down and said that I was leaving for the border, and whoever wanted to stay was welcome to, but if they wanted to go, it was time to get themselves together, get in the car, and stop acting like spoiled children. With one last tantrum that involved loud yelling, swearing, punching cars, and kicking large rocks, Bob and Rena calmed themselves, got into the respective cars and all of us drove to the border where we waited our turn to approach the Polish border control.

After all of this, I’m pretty sure I could trip a small child once a day for a year and still be ahead on karma points. And I hadn’t even crossed into Ukraine yet!

<I will get into Ukraine in the next installment... I promise>