Entering Ukraine

Never thought I'd have this stamp in my passport!

Normally… When you cross a border in a car, you only deal with border guards for the country you are entering. The US doesn’t care if you smuggle items into Mexico, but they do care about you bringing half-sticks of dynamite back into the US from Tijuana! (Ask me how I know…)

Crossing into Ukraine is something completely different. The Polish side of the border is as strict as the Ukraine side. Getting through border control can take many hours on each side of the border. Both sides are doing all they can to capture smugglers trying to enter Ukraine. The war-time economy has brought out all manner of smugglers and profiteers. Both sides in the last year have dramatically ramped up efforts to hold this at bay.

Stock photo as I didn't want to draw attention to the Scooby-Suby taking pics.

The first thing that happens is you drive your vehicle through a series of pole-shaped yellow antennas, ~15 on each side of the vehicle. These are scanning your vehicle for different substances and compounds, each antenna is set to scan for something different. From what I’ve heard, these are fairly new. Someone apparently neglected to tell the Volvo owner in front of us.

The guards let about 5 cars through at a time. Those five cars are stopped and searched after you drive through the antenna array. For the unknowing Volvo owner in front of us, they didn’t even bother doing a normal search, they simply waved him into the special chute where the dudes with screwdrivers come out and start taking your car apart. We were in the next group of five and had a front-row seat to watch this play out.

As Vovlo-man opened his car, you could see it was filled with random bags and boxes of clothing, food and random stuff. The guards pulled out a pile of this stuff before they finally got to what they were searching for buried at the bottom of the mess - a giant forged metal … something… that was about 3 feet cubed and milled into something very specialized. I wasn’t exactly sure what it was, but it was either a semi-truck transfer case or a second stage fuel valve for a intra-continental missile (you never can really tell). They finally cleared the rest of the cars and allowed us into the chute. Volvo-man wasn't going anywhere that night other than potentially a Polish jail cell.

For my car, things went about as smoothly as they possibly could. Since I was bringing the vehicle and all its contents in as a donation, there was extra checking to make sure all my paperwork was correct and that my donation declarations were properly filled out. All of these checks minus the antenna scanners were performed on both sides of the border with the Ukraine side giving me a stamped entry card to present as I exited the border facility into Ukraine. After about 2.5 hours (which I heard might be the record…), I was granted permission to enter Ukraine, including a Ukraine stamp in my passport.

Another in our group was not so lucky.

One of the vehicles in our convoy was loaded with about $25,000+ of batteries and generators. When they drove through the polish antenna array, someone saw a payday coming their way. When the Polish border guard approached the van our driver handed over the paperwork. The guard looked at the official title and the vehicle card (in Europe you have a magnetic card (credit card size that has all the vehicle info encoded on it) and immediately declared the paper title was a counterfeit. Our driver told him that was impossible, and that he should call the NL RDW to confirm the title was not counterfeit. The guard declared he did not need to because he was a Dutch vehicle title expert. By this point one of our group’s leaders, Sytske, joined our driver to figure out a way through.

Unfortunately, this was all happening in the middle of the night / early morning after a couple long days of driving. Both Sytske and Mark (the driver) were completely oblivious to the fact that the guard just wanted a bribe. Instead, they kept trying to reason with the guard who would not budge, but apparently made the comment a few times, “There are a few things you can do. One: admit you have a counterfeit document.” Then our people would ask, “What else can we do?” To which the guard would reply, “There are a few things you can do…” After about 10 hours of dealing with this, the Polish guard finally said, “Ok. Since your paper title is counterfeit, I will now destroy it and throw it away. Oh look! You are exporting a vehicle from the EU without a paper title… I must now fine you €300. 

As you can see from my last blog… this seemed to be a pattern in Poland.

… and then they were allowed to proceed to the Ukraine border where they sailed through in less than 1 hour and met the rest of us on the other side at a gas station just outside Lviv.

Paul handing off my Scooby-Suby to a Ukrainian doctor

It was here that I was able to hand off my mighty Scooby-Suby to the Ukrainian Dr I brought it for. I would be switching over to a larger van loaded with supplies who’s driver would only go as far as Lviv before turning back. With that, my passenger, Rena, who had been riding with me the entire trip and I left for Poltava in a giant red loaded cargo van.

Prior to this trip, I’d never been in a country at war. Although the Russians had targeted Lviv in recent months to ward off NGOs and volunteers traveling to and through Lviv, the city appeared mostly untouched by the war. I was told that the Ukrainians have become master construction workers. When a building is damaged by a missile, it’s fixed within a little over a week so the signs of war are barely there. Other than areas near the frontlines, this is the norm throughout the entirety of Ukraine.

Getting out of Lviv took far more time than I expected. I was hoping to get to the far side of Kyiv by the end of the day, but that was not to be. Lviv is a very busy place. Besides being the largest Ukrainian city closest to a neighboring EU country, Lviv has also become the Western staging point for many NGOs delivering aid to Ukraine. As such, it’s a sprawling city that seems to constantly be growing outward. The roads were not designed for this much use, so the traffic is a problem with some sections being a single lane in each direction. It was a disheartening to see that I was only about 60kms out of Lviv on my way to Kyiv…. After nearly three hours of driving!

After Lviv, driving through Ukraine was quite peaceful. Although there are small towns that dot the countryside, most of the country is endless rolling wheat fields that trail off over the horizon. My passenger, Rena, was the one that pointed out that the Ukraine flag is a symbol of this view - wheat fields with a blue sky above. We stopped for a gas and snacks on our way to Kyiv, but decided to forego a full meal until we hit our stopping point for the night that we hoped would be on the far side of Kyiv. Unfortunately, that was not to be. After three full days of driving and a border crossing in the early morning hours of the current day, we opted to stop for the night in Zhytomyr. By this point, Rena and I were hungry and tired, and in need of time outside the car. We pulled off at a small hotel near a small downtown area we saw had a few food options. As expected NO ONE spoke English. I was very happy to have Rena along for the trip. She quickly got us each a room where we unloaded our stuff and went out in search of food.

Food is an interesting thing in Ukraine. My understanding is that there are still NGOs that think Ukrainians need food donations. Ukrainians think this is hysterical! Ukraine is the bread-basket of Europe. More than 90% of food consumed in Ukraine is produced in Ukraine… and it is AWESOME. Imagine sitting down in a cinder-block restaurant that looks like it was constructed by the same people that built Chernobyl… and then eating the best salad you’ve ever had. The vegetables were really that good! Rena ordered food I could not pronounce and we both enjoyed an excellent meal. The woman running the restaurant was very curious about us. As an excuse to engage Rena about the funny American with her, she brought us some baked dessert that was fantastic. Little did I realize this would be just the start of incredible food! Who knew Ukraine would be a foodie Mecca?

Like most Ukrainians, our restaurant host was exceptionally nice and very interested to hear I was an American. Understandably, there are very few Americans helping in Ukraine right now, but every Ukrainian I met was grateful for the American Aide and very welcoming to me personally… which is far more than I expected after the Zelinski White House meeting.

After an excellent meal and interesting conversation with our Ukraine restaurant host, I called Laura and Alex to talk for a little while, and then passed out from exhaustion. My first full day in Ukraine was done.