There are good things in life, even in midst of destruction, pain and uncertainty.
I.
A call to adventure is a strange thing. Every adventure hides an underlying urgency. It’s then up to the adventurer whether he’ll respond.
What for one person might feel like a mundane, long drive, for another could be a life-changing event. The calling, which unique and completely personal, is at the core of every adventure.
These were my thoughts at the start of my first trip to Ukraine, so many years ago. As the train was carrying me towards the Hungarian border I thought to myself, “Are you really doing this, there’s still time to step off, and cancel this whole mad idea.” I hadn’t traveled much before, especially not alone, and going to Lviv felt like I might just as well be traveling to another planet.
To make things worse, back then I was experiencing crippling anxiety that made even a trip to a nearby town a nightmare of dizziness, stiffness and wildly pounding heart. After such episodes, I’ve always needed a long rest.
But then, as the train was moving through foreign landscapes, I felt a strange calm.
On such adventures, life usually offers you an option to turn arround. I got mine at the railway station in Budapest. I needed to switch trains, and I was unaware that the switch happened at a different station, in another part of the city. In panic, I grabbed a taxi. After a rushed ride through Budapest, I realized there’s no turning back. The last doubts melted away as I was running through the central railway station, in great fear that I might miss the train.
Voices tried to catch up with me: “Hey, hey, where are you running!?” “Exchange money sir! Sir!” But I had only one mission: the train.
II.
The trip to Vinnytsia was not quite so chaotic, though it took place in the midst of war and other hardships that plagued Ukraine. I was not the anxious boy anymore, quite the opposite. The drive through Hungary - which I had by then made many times, was peaceful, almost meditative. The highway was empty, especially after passing the Budapest.
I had booked a hotel in a small town, right on the border with Ukraine. When I shared photos with my brother he said, “Like a horror movie.” I thought, “Sure, but more so a mystery.” A stranger arriving in a foggy small town in the middle of nowhere. I liked it. Then, in the middle of the night in that small hotel, the thought from so many years ago unexpectedly emerged, “Are you really doing this? Just turn around, and cancel this whole mad idea.” But I knew there was no chance of that.
III.
The chance to turn around showed up at the border. The border guard asked me for international insurance, and I genuinely thought I didn’t have it. Helpless, I tried to talk my way through, but to no avail. I turned around thinking, “That’s it then!” My mind was desperately scanning for what I could do. Can I buy it online, real quick? At the stretch between the checkpoints, it occured to me that I might have bought it anyway, just never printed it, and that it might be stored in my email archive. And I found it! I ran up to the young man at the checkpoint. “Here it is!” He scanned it carefully and then said, “No, wrong car!” Of course, my previous car. “I have another! Here!” I offered after a quick search through my phone. “No, this is for the previous year,” he said, now looking somehow curios. I was sure, though, that if I had it for the previous year, I would have it for this one too. And indeed, I found it. The border guard checked it twice and then confirmed that I could pass. My chance to turn around expired, full speed ahead.
IV.
As I crossed the border I was immediately reminded of just how bumpy the roads in Ukraine are. My car had already been complaining every couple of weeks about a deflating tire. I was mentally preparing myself for the warning to pop up with its usual “ding.” “Just be ready and don’t panic when it comes up,” I told myself.
After the meditative glide on straight, smooth Hungarian highways, I was now performing slow speed, full focus slalom. Hit one of the bigger holes and you might loose a wheel right then and there, and your journey with it. But things did get better once I left the border area behind. It seemed Ukraine adopted a strategy of giving you a test up front: if you can get through this, then you’re ready for nearly everything that follows.
The bumpy roads of border area gave way to dark forest valleys, that seemed largely uninhabited. Not a good area to have a flat tire, not a good place to be stranded for any reason. The traffic was lively, though, and I had a feeling that, if something happened, there would be helping hands available.
The curvy roads led uphill and as I climbed into the Carpathians, dark pine forests began to thin, revealing small openings. The horizon then swiftly expanded and view opened into a bright scene of wild, hilly landscape, peppered with small wooden houses, golden-roofed churches and distant villages.
V.
It must have been similar view that I saw for the first time many years ago, from the train. It was early morning and my eyes couldn’t get enough of the wilderness flying past me. Fast, lively streams; villages and churches and hills and cemeteries with freshly dug graves. I felt as if I were in a strange dream, one of those dreams full of otherworldly buildings and alien landscapes that you cannot forget long after you wake up. As the anxiety of overwhelming emotions started to swallow me up, I looked at my phone. There I saw, simply the name of a Ukrainian mobile operator “Life.” Of course. Life. I realized that I did not know exactly why I was there, but it was clear, that I had to be there.
Between first and the latest trip, I went to Ukraine a couple of times. Always Kyiv or Lviv. Once by car, sometimes by train or plane. Each time I found something there for my soul.
VI.
Driving towards Vinnytsia, I expected checkpoints, soldiers with machine guns, barbed wire and other war scenes. When I talked about the trip with my Ukrainian friend, he warned me, “You absolutely must stop at the checkpoints!” I imagined it would all be horrifying.
The reality looked mundane. Not that I was unaware of the war and the danger. Nothing I could do about it, though, so why waste energy on it? The first checkpoint showed up: men in uniforms, machine guns, military equipment. It was all there. But it looked so dreary and uninteresting in real life.
Somewhere past the Carpathian region, the anticipated “ding” sounded, and the car reported that the pressure in the front tire was low. I found a gas station and checked the tire. It looked fine. I checked again a while later, and it was still good. “I can check it once I arrive,” I thought, and hoped I could arrive before the tire went flat.
The drive to Vinnytsia took longer than I expected. Many town names written in Cyrillic, came and went. At one of my tire checks, when I was already very tired, I finally consulted the navigation map, and to my horror, I realized I wasn’t even halfway there. “Will I need to sleep another night somewhere in between?” I thought.
When I was a child, I found it funny that my grandmother could fall asleep in a chair while watching television. Now, my eyes close on the sofa after lunch, and afternoon coffee somehow makes me even sleepier. It’s not longer funny.
No chance of any of that in the car. I needed to focus. The other drivers had made a three-lane road out of two lanes and there was still the occasional bucket-sized hole on the road. Only this time even more dangerous, because the speeds were so much higher.
Depending on my mood, I would either stay the far right, allowing cars and trucks to pass, or when more focused, adapt to their way of driving: doing 110 km/h and inventing a third lane for myself. It all somehow worked. After all, when in Rome…
VII.
My first trip to Ukraine was emotionally charged. As soon as I stepped off the train in Lviv, I felt: I am home. I am a rather logical person. If someone asks me what I feel, I often need to think about it, which misses the whole point. But then and there, I felt it. It was love. Not for anyone. Perhaps not even for anything. It was one of the strangest experiences of my life, and I never manged to resolve it. Perhaps back then, I had entered the cave I feared the most, and found the trasure.
Walking in those old streets, visiting old-fashioned restaurants, discovering small cafés. Human drama and complete nonsense. Yet so much beauty. And an early idea: this place was forever linked to me, and I forever linked to it.
VIII.
The long-awaited Vinnytsia sign finally showed up. I was relieved. I hadn’t hit any massive holes. My tire survived. I had stopped at all the checkpoints. I was fine. After a short drive through the city I finally arrived at my hotel.
After unpacking, I headed into the city to explore. Walking felt great. My first mission was to eat. To my surprise, I found a vegan restaurant. The food, unfortunately, was disappointing. So was the city, at least on that first evening. Perhaps I was just too tired to think of anything but the bed.
IX.
“Hey,” I said to the tiny receptionist girl, hidden behind a massive counter. “Any air raid alarms at night? Will I be able to sleep?” She swiftly stood up, still mostly hidden. “Not to worry. No night alarms usually. If it happens, and if you want to use it, we have a shelter.” I shrugged. Fine.
At about three o’clock in the morning, the horrific sound of a siren woke me from a deep sleep. I was wondering whether I should go to the shelter, but decided against it.
The next morning, the girl said, the alarm had been an unusual event. Military activity had increased when I arrived, she added. I believed her. When I visited Venice for the very first time, I was unaware that the Pope was also visiting. I thought, “That’s a lot of people, even for Venice.” When I was in a Moroccan city, the king was there too. I came to Moscow during Great Lent, which was lucky, since many places offered non-meat options. In other words, slightly extraordinary things sometimes accompany me on my journeys. Sometimes good, sometimes, well, not so good.
“Did you go to the shelter?” she asked. “Nope,” I replied. “Okay, but you’re fine. You’re still here.” I smiled. “I’m still here.” And so the alarms became part of the mundane. There’s a danger that I, like everyone else, had somehow just accepted.
X.
When I was staying in Vinnytsia I did most of my work from restaurants and cafés. I realized I’m more productive in such places. Even more so than when I work in my home office. There’s quiet rhythm and special coziness to it.
I had plans to go to a co-working space. But the days went too fast and there was no time for it.
Most days I got up early, went for breakfast, and spent the whole day in the city, coming back to the hotel later in the evening. Despite alarms and everything else going on, the mood and the flow suited me well. There was excellent coffee on every corner, great food and really pleasant people.
To the great amusement of the locals, I tried to speak a language that I had invented. It was based on the little Russian I had practiced, some knowledge of Ukrainian, and Slovene.
On my last morning in Vinnytsia, I was up so early that nothing was open yet. I was in a hurry, so I walked into the hotel in the center, and asked for breakfast. “Sure,” said the receptionist. “But you’re not a guest, so you naturally have to pay.” What could I do? I was hungry and this seemed to be the only place open. I took scrambled eggs and juice and had a peaceful breakfast.
“How much will it be?” I asked. The receptionist looked at me, gave a small smile and said, “It will be free today.” And I wanted to hug her. It was not about the money, of course. It was a small token of kindness from a stranger, the kind that restores hope in humanity.
XI.
On the way back, I first wanted to check on my tire. It looked mostly fine, though a bit soft. I stopped at a small repair shop outside the city. With my invented language, I managed to explain the problem to the man working there. He suggested making a proper check. I agreed, and after removing the wheel, he found that the tire was punctured. “A piece of steel,” he said. “A piece of steel?” I wondered whether I had understood him correctly, and where I could have picked it up. “A piece of very sharp steel,” he said, now a little amused. “Budet horosho?” I asked. “Будет. Не переживай.”
I paid and said goodbye, hoping that the repair would hold the long journey through Ukraine. To my great delight, it held and still does.
The drive back went unbelievably fast. Quite the opposite of my journey towards Vinnytsia. I was amazed to find myself halfway out after what seemed like no time at all. So much so that I moved my planned stop for the night close to the border. When I arrived at the hotel, I still had plenty of energy and could easily have driven at least an hour or two more, perhaps all the way to Budapest.
XII.
When I returned from my first Lviv trip, everything was painted in bright colors. There was a soft glow and strange beauty all around.
Thinking back, I find it’s one of the memories that still linger, and it’s still impactful even after so many years. I cannot define it, and if I had just hear about it from someone else, I’d happily have tossed it into the basket of foolish overdramatizations or romanticized revisionisms of past events. But it was undeniebly real.
My mission to Vinnytsia was emotionally heavy, showing that our inner world usually outweighs the importance of outer events. It was a bittersweet experience. But I expected nothing else. In the end, it turned out far better than some of my dark fears were predicting.
Even the city showed its beautiful side after that first evening. I slowly embraced it, and imagine coming back soon.
On one of the last days, I visited a beekeeper’s shop, where I bought honey for my family, and two wax candles, that I still sometimes light in the evenings. I do not know why, among many memories, this one is strangely special. Nothing remarkable happened. It was the day before I left for home. And it was a good day. I was happy.
Finally, what needs to be said:
I am devastated by the situation happening in Ukraine. I pray for the war to end. I pray for all the people who were and still are affected by it. I pray for the lives, that were lost on both sides. I pray that those who died find salvation.