Vehicle breakdown and other moments....

Being towed.

Given the distances travelled in Ukraine ( Lviv to Kharkiv is practically the same as London to Vienna) and the age of the car, it's not the biggest surprise that, occasionally, breakdowns will occur. Driving away from Kharkiv on my way to Kyiv, I stopped for a coffee at a fairly remote petrol station. Got back in my car, turned on the ignition. Nothing. There was only the petrol pump attendant. I asked him for some help; within moments he was stopping cars to get people to help. We realised it wasn't the battery. The starter motor had stopped working. So it couldn't be repaired there. The attendant called some mechanics who appeared in a car that was probably in worse condition than mine, some 20 minutes later.

They explained that nothing could be done there and they would need to tow it to the garage. At that point, I realised that some ragamuffin had        "borrowed" the front tow hook. But, ingeniously, they found a solution. So off we went, towed some 10 miles or so to their garage. I say garage...think a single garage with an inspection pit, and a few tools. 

We had to manually push the car into the garage...more volunteers were required. Random people from the street would come up and see what was going on, and shake my hand. A small group of children watched on. After about 2 hours and not having a new starter motor, they got the car going. I have no idea how. 

They advised not to switch the engine off till I got to a main garage in Kyiv. That was a 5 hour journey.

For all the work they did and the tow, they asked for £20, and were very embarrassed asking for that. I gave them £30 in the end. Many smiles and handshakes. They said to come and see them again!

The modern garage with all the latest equipment in Kyiv, could find nothing wrong and said that the garage had obviously fixed the problem. How, I thought, as did the garage? There was no charge for the diagnostics. I've bought a new tow hook. You never know. This I will now keep in the car.

On the way back to Lviv, traffic ground to a halt. I thought, probably an accident. Many people were getting out of their cars and were walking towards what I thought might be the crash. Then I saw the flowers strewn over the road (a tradition in Ukraine, I believe) and knew it was a funeral. A soldier from the small village had died.

It seemed that the whole village was there to mourn. It was incredibly sad and the wailing of the women from the house, as the coffin was taken in by the soldiers and priest, is a sound I won't forget.

And, finally, as we were walking through Kyiv at night we saw this, which made us chuckle. Elephants get everywhere.

This was also a wonderful, quiet moment. Whilst having my lunch, sat in the back of the aid car, I saw two women go into a field, collect a cow and take it for milking. It could have been a scene from another century. The small calf, that had been near to his mother, only stopped mooing when they brought the cow back to the field about 40 minutes later...