Ukraine 2hrs from the front, Volodymyr and Rita, Kentucky Bourbon and a Russian missile

I woke up in my Zhytomyr hotel early and got things packed up and ready to go. Rena and I agreed to meet up in the lobby at 7:30 so we could get a quick breakfast and get on the road by 8. As awesome as my food what the night before, I was expecting more of the same for breakfast… and I was sorely disappointed. I quickly ascertained that breakfast in Ukraine is fuel… nothing more. Pork something dripping in grease, dense bread, and a few other items I wasn’t ready to ingest were our only options. We quickly decided to get on the road and stop for gas on the other side of Kyiv and get something there.

We didn't stick out at all on the road...

Once you get on the other side of the Dnipro River, Ukraine changes again. The country is much more rural with even more enormous wheat fields that go as far as the eye can see. Where there was some traffic between Lviv and Kyiv, the roads between Kyiv and Poltava were mostly empty. To our East there were only two cities of any size - Poltava and Kharkiv, and Kharkiv was under near constant Russian bombardment. In other words, you must have a solid reason for crossing the Dnipro River. For Rena, that was to see her father who she had not spoken to in 25 years. For me… I was going to meet up with my friends Volodymyr and Rita.

Ya gotta love a country that appreciates its CTOs...

Along with the extra rural landscape, we also started to see the first signs that Ukraine was at war. We’d occasionally pass the destroyed factory that had been hit by Russian missiles, but more likely we’d see the camouflaged bunkers hiding the Ukraine air-defense. Additionally, we started to see more troop movement which consisted of young men and women being transported to the front, and wounded troops returning. We also saw large convoys of tanks and large trucks that we assumed were retreating from Kursk and relocating to Dnipro where the Russians had stepped up their attacks. 

<<< We were warned not to take pics of troops ANYWHERE as you don't know who might see our pics and try to pinpoint a location >>>

After about 5.5 hours of driving we reached Poltava. One thing I did not expect was that GPS signal became intermittent. What this meant was that when we exited the highway, the GPS would only update once every ~3 minutes. So, you’d see an update for where you were, and would not get another update until you’d driven for 3 more minutes. This was a bit of a problem when driving in downtown Poltava when you can’t really see where the street signs are (sometimes painted on the side of a building), and when you do find them, they are in Cyrillic.  

I later found out the reason for the GPS problems… missiles and drones. As you get closer to the front, GPS becomes largely unusable. Related to this, when missiles and drones get too close without being shot down, cellular is cut. The reason for this is that each drone and missile has a Ukraine sim card installed so that it can transmit and receive data. The easiest way to disable this is to cut the signal. I was told that in Kharkiv, you get about 1-3 minute of cell conversation at best before the signal is cut for a few minutes. Not ideal, but better than the alternative.

After about 30 minutes of driving through Poltava, we learned how to work within the limitations of the GPS to find where Rena needed to be dropped off. With that, I was now on my own to find my way to my friend Volodymyr.

As I drove through Poltava, I was struck by the beauty of the people here. I was a mere 2 hours from the front lines, and yet I was in city with two realities. I passed children playing and having fun just having been let out of school. Mothers walking together with small children, and people going about their daily routines of working throughout the city and taking care of their families.

The other reality was that of war and the toll it's taken on Poltava. As with the US, I suspect a large number of the war fighters come from the rural areas, and that was evident here. It took me a little while to realize the lack of young men on the crowded streets. And then as I got to the center I stumbled upon the memorial of the young men and women lost to the fighting. The below picture is not great (shot through the windshield while I was driving), but each of these stands holds a picture and bio for someone lost. This stretched for miles through the center of Poltava.

After getting lost a few times fighting with the intermittent GPS, and the lack of general satellite updates (multiple areas had a building where there was supposed to be a road), I finally parked for the day.

Volodymyr is one of my favorite engineer friends. While at Simple Things, I hired Volodymyr to work on some of our coding needs in 2021, just before the Russian invasion. When Russian troops invaded Ukraine, Volodymyr’s home in Kharkiv became one of the hardest hit areas in those early days. I had many hours of Zoom calls with Volodymyr where I could hear missiles exploding in the background and see the flashes across the night sky in the windows behind him. In those first few days, Andy, Meghan, and I lined up a plan to get Volodymyr and another of our Ukraine engineers (and their families) out of Ukraine and even secured Spanish visas for them. Each was grateful for our efforts, but opted to stay and fight for their country. Four years later, Volodymyr is still fighting for his country. Volodymyr does some engineering for the military, oversees some of the Ukraine managed Russian propaganda, and raises substantial money for the military.

For secrecy reasons, Volodymyr sent me a pin to a parking lot rather than the address to his home. Once at the location, I messaged Volodymyr who came to me and led me back to his home… which involved a nondescript building with two very solid steel doors. Not your typical apartment!

Once inside, Volodymyr and his partner, Rita, were exceptionally warm and hospitable. To be a good guest, I brought some of my favorite Kentucky Bourbon, but that paled next to the amazing borscht they had prepared for my arrival. I had tasted borscht before. It was not great. It was essentially water, onions, potatoes and beets. Bland was too spicy a descriptor. Rita’s borscht was incredible! I ate until I could not eat any more. It was VERY good. So good, I will be dragging Alex and Laura to a Ukraine restaurant Amsterdam to try and find borscht even half as good as Rita’s. When I asked, Rita informed me that she was from a rural area outside of Poltava and that her recipe had been passed down through generations. Yeah. That tracks.

The borscht led to the first of many interesting conversations with the three of us - Ukraine food. Ukrainians are very proud of their food. The ingredients are far fresher than anything I’ve had in Amsterdam or the US. Everything is locally sourced, and there are no preservatives. Here’s a little known fact… McDonalds hamburgers in Ukraine are good and good for you! McDonalds here is the place you go when you want to celebrate something with a good meal. Imagine ordering a Big Mac and all the ingredients are fresh with zero processed foods. To make it even better, the food in Ukraine is about 15% of the cost in either the US or Amsterdam. Rita shared that she bought all high-end ingredients for her incredible borscht (including very tender short ribs) that fed the three of us and would yield at least 3 more days of food for her and Volodymyr… and the bill for the ingredients was about $4.55. In other words, they eat like this all the time!

At one point Volodymyr and I were talking about some of the work he does for Ukraine when a loud siren went off outside. I immediately stiffened and asked, “Is that a missile alert siren?” Rita, not even looking up from whatever she was scrolling on her phone, said in a monotonic drawl, “Yeah. It is.” and then ignored it. Volodymyr explained that the sirens go off when a missile crosses the border and is headed in their direction. The problem is that it could be targeting any place within 100 miles of them. So the warning was more or less useless. He commented that you don’t really get concerned until you hear a missile or a drone above you. 

Gotit. Don’t worry about missiles or drones trying to kill you unless you can hear them directly above, and even then odds are low. Huh.

We shared the Kentucky bourbon I brought and talked for another few hours about the state of the war, the Ukraine people, and the toll the war is taking. It became very clear that Ukrainians just want what everyone else wants… freedom, their culture, and a better place for their children. They are thoughtful, kind, resilient, and willing to fight for their right to survive as free people. 

Because Rita and Volodymyr work for Western companies, they work through their night and sleep in the morning. With that, I went to bed and let them work. At about 6am, I got up to shower and hit the road just as Rita and Volodymyr went to bed.

Off to Kyiv!