When Life is Better than a Story (Finding My Family in Ukraine)
My grandfather came from a large family. He was one of seven children, and over the years and with additions of new generations, the family count had grown to 50 people (and perhaps more!). I saw a few pictures of my cousins, but it wasn’t until my grandfather went back to Ukraine in 1992 and documented his own adventure that my mother and I could see into the lives of our family, hear their voices and grasp how different Ukraine was from the US. How do you completely lose touch with an entire family in the digital revolution? My grandfather passed away in 2003, and it was the beginning of a very difficult time for my little family in Virginia. I won’t go into specifics, but there were health problems that ensnared us. Thinking, writing, talking in Ukrainian was too much for my mother. Address books got misplaced, phone numbers changed as landlines faded away in favor of cell phones. When I first started making plans to go on the Motherland adventure over two years ago, I consulted the Internet to glean any information about my Ukrainian family. I was able to find very little evidence of the surname of my grandfather, “Hryca”. My mom wasn’t sure, but she was under the impression that in the 20 years since my grandfather had visited Ukraine, Ukrainians had to adapt to life without the USSR. As a result, we suspected, everyone had scattered to larger cities. There was no one I could call or write to explain I was coming. I’d have to do it on my own. Going Anyway Compelled is the only way I can describe it. I had to go to Ukraine. I had no idea what I would find, but whatever it was, it was waiting for me. One of the best tips I’ve been given about travel is to make loose plans, but set no expectations. Not knowing if finding my family would be feasible, the purpose of my trip became “preserve the heritage and legacy”, as that seemed attainable. I wanted to one day be able to tell my kids about Ukraine– and not just from stories that I’d heard, but from my own experiences. I knew my grandfather’s heart was in West Ukraine. I wanted to pick up a few words of the language, walk the streets my grandfather walked, and go to the village where he was raised before he was kidnapped as a teenager. I had an old address, which might be enough to see if I had any relatives left in the village — but nothing else. I realized the level of difficulty of my quest...
London, 2006: The Trip That Started It All
You don’t just wake up one morning and decide you’re going to travel the world on your own; something or somewhere has to ignite the spark. It was the summer of 2006. I had been living in Nashville and attending Belmont University for just over a year, and was finally starting to gain confidence as an independent adult away from the nest. A friend of mine, Marion, decided to study abroad in London for the fall semester. If it was OK, I said, I’d like to come visit. She enthusiastically agreed, and I’m not sure if either one of us believed I would actually follow through. But thanks to incredibly affordable airfare and a little movie called loveactually, I booked a roundtrip ticket from Nashville to London for a quick 5-day jaunt in October that coincided with my university’s fall break. It would be the trip that would start it all. For some reason, my flight to London–even at the bargain bin price of $450– had about 5 people on it. (I’ve yet to go on another transcontinental flight that is anything less than stuffed to the brim!). One of the other four people on the plane was a guy in graduate school sitting in the row behind me. I think he correctly pegged me as the frightened, inexperienced child that I was, and took me under his wing. Frazzled by the magnitude of everything and bleary-eyed by lack of sleep, I had no idea how to get to the Central Station from Gatwick. A veteran of travel, he led me to the ticket machine, helped me buy the ticket, and we took the tube together. The train rolled through the outer rim of London, past countryside and neighborhoods. As I stole my first glances of the United Kingdom, he told me about his travels, and showed me the well-decorated pages of his thick American passport. He pointed at a particularly ornate stamp. “This is my favorite,” he told me, “this is Egypt’s stamp.” I was in awe. He asked me where else I’d traveled, and I found myself embarrassed to admit, “just the US.” Desperate to contribute something worldly to the conversation, I told him of my desire to go to Greece. “Here’s something interesting,” he said, “there are pieces of the Parthenon, the Parthenon Marbles, that at the British Museum that they took from Greece a few centuries ago. So, if you go to both the Acropolis and the British Museum, you will have seen the Parthenon in it’s entirety.” I’m not sure if it’s because I live in Nashville that has its own full-sized Parthenon replica, but that fascinated me. In...
Buying Train Tickets in Ukraine – Is There a Name for That?
“Laryssa” is a very odd name for someone growing up in a small southern town in the mountains of Virginia. I remember being in kindergarten and having my sweet teacher, in her thick southern drawl, asking me to explain my name — which is a complicated question for a little kid. My mom fielded these questions with the blanket statement, “It’s Ukrainian. Her grandfather is from Ukraine.” My last name is even worse, but there’s no cool explanation behind it. It might be German, it might be Italian. Let’s just say it starts with an E and is pronounced like Amy. Adventures at the Train Station Taking a train is the most efficient way to get from Kyiv to Lviv. At only 197 UAH ($25 USD), it’s also cheap. The catch? Surviving the train-ticket-purchasing process. I’d been warned that buying train tickets in Ukraine is… an experience. It’s guaranteed to be a nightmare, regardless of how much you try to prepare yourself. I’d heard story after story of the ticketing agents being rude to foreigners, and that no one speaks English. I tried to be clever and get around the process by buying the ticket online, but of course when it came time to process payment, the website kept crashing (ah Ukraine, at least you’re trying). I mustered up some courage, wrote out what I wanted in Russian with my ideal departure time and the date, and marched to the Central Station in Kyiv. There’s no main ticket counter at the Kyiv train station. There’s about 30 ticket windows, all selling specific tickets, each labeled in Russian — and thanks to last year’s EuroCup, the windows are also labeled in very vague English. After trying to puzzle together the weird English into something that could possibly mean “Local Trains”, I finally gave up and picked a random window. It was the wrong one, naturally. But they did direct me to windows 8 and 9. It would happen that windows 8 and 9 were labeled as “international trains”, which made even less sense to me as Lviv is definitely in Ukraine, but whatever. The woman at window 8 looked to be mid-40s, but had a very stern and distracted look. She didn’t want to be bothered. Even still, I went up to the window, and in my best Russian, squeaked, “Proshu, Kyiv Lviv?” and handed over my little piece of paper with my details. “When? What class?” the lady barked at me in English, stone-faced. Irritated English is better than no English at all! “Tomorrow. Night train. Second class.” She typed in some numbers on her antiquated computer. “Full. No...
Dealings with a Second Hand Clothing Pimp in Kiev
My grandfather, for the sweet man that he was, had an extremely thrifty side: he loved to haggle. It was a part of his upbringing in Ukraine. Get something at cost or lower, if at all possible. So, when I was invited to visit one of Kiev’s largest second-hand flea markets to find a jacket, I was overjoyed to give my bartering chops a go and make my grandfather proud. What gems would we unearth in the second hand wonders of Kiev? I envisioned myself strutting around Nashville in a large fur coat and ushanka that I’d score for $5. We stepped off the subway and into second-hand heaven: an endless sea of countless shirts, jeans, jackets, belts, shoes, bathing suits, and even wet suits spilling out. The options were unlimited. We finally picked our store, in search of a jacket that had both personality and practicality to suit Alex’s needs for his upcoming trip to Finland. (It took us longer than it should’ve to talk ourselves out of going through the long rows of 90’s-style leather jackets.) We finally found the winner that possessed functionality and a little bit of color. As Alex put it on, a pretty young girl sporting a fanny pack approached us. I’d seen similar young girls manning the other stores and found it to be strange. They were essentially attractive shepherds, watching over the used merchandise. “Can’t I just hold onto this and look around?” Alex muttered. The girl was now hovering right next to us. It was time to haggle. We asked how much in broken Russian. She whipped out her cell phone, opened the calculator app, and handed the phone to me. She wanted us to give the starting price. “10 hryvnia?” I suggested. My cheapness knows no bounds, even when dealing with a currency that is worth about 1/8th of my own. “I don’t want to insult her,” said Alex sensibly. We settled at 50 griven. I handed the phone back to the girl. The girl laughed and shook her head. “Ni, ni!” She typed in 100. Now this is real bartering, even if done through a sad cell phone calculator, I thought to myself. We were about to counter-offer at 70 when a slick looking man with dark features and well-fitted jeans approached us. He gave us the once-over and muttered some things to the girl in Russian while giving us disapproving glances. The girl answered with submission and skirted away. He was the Boss, I realized; the Clothing Pimp in charge of all these young girls. When you start asking too many questions and disrupt the process and...
What DO you pack for 1 month in Ukraine, anyway?
I’m currently meandering around Ukraine and Germany in an attempt to explore the lands and cultures where my grandparents came from to honor their past and pass on their heritage! As usual, it’s bound to be an adventure with a fair share of misadventures… I’ve been met with a lot of enthusiasm and support when I explain to friends and family of the upcoming Motherland Tour and the hunt for learning more about the culture my grandparents came from (thanks, y’all!). Then there’s the occasional “You’re doing what?!” that I try to let roll off my shoulders but can’t help but wonder for a split second if the whole thing is actually crazy. When I started packing for this I finally accepted that I am not a backpacker and I should stop pretending to be. After spending 3 months on the road for work, I got into a groove living out of my small rolling suitcase. It would throw off my packing equilibrium to switch to my awkward toploading-pain-in-the-butt 40L North Face. “Packing for shoulder season is difficult” — my excuse for overpacking. Also trying to learn from past mistakes here… I figure it’ll be nice to only do laundry once a week instead of twice a week when I went overly minimalistic on past trips! Clothing 2 tank tops 2 3/4 length shirts (for autumn) 1 light 3/4 sleeved sweater (for autumn/Orthodox churches) 1 dressy top 1 pair jeans 1 pair leggings 1 black ruffle skirt 2 casual dresses 1 scarf (for covering head in Orthodox churches) undergarments 4 pairs of socks 1 bathing suit rain jacket Shoes Sandals (kinda dressy) Merrells Flip flops (for shower) Chuck Taylors (that I hastily wore to the airport and am hoping Frankfurt’s banking district won’t judge as I saunter around on my layover) Electronics Canon T3i (with awesome PVC pipe pistol grip that my dad made! Thanks pop!) 0.45mm wide angle lens Kindle Unlocked iPhone 4 HP Mini Memory cards 1 TB Passport hard drive (I LOVE THIS THING.) Toiletries Shampoo, Conditioner (full-sized, too much hair to justify travel sized!) Face wash Hair jazz Sunscreen w/ moisturizer Razor Deodorant Wrinkle-release spray First Aid Kit / Medicine Bug spray Allergy medicine Pepto Bismal / Imodium Alka Seltzer Cold Medicine Advil Misc Quick dry towel Silk sleepsheet Elastic travel clothesline Passport / Credit cards Notebook Ukraine travel guide & phrasebook Ancestry Stuff Copies of paperwork: My grandma’s family tree (in German), my grandparents’ certificate of marriage in Wiesbaden, my grandma’s address in Mainz, instructions for their travel to Mainz-Bremhaven-New York City. Screencaps from my grandfather’s trip to Ukraine in 1992 ...
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I'm Laryssa, and when I'm not working in film or television, I'm attempting to travel -- or I'm here, providing resources for working in film or travel. Read more Elsewhere on the internets
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