back to 'civilization'

sasha and i walked fast the 8kms back to lyuta and the bus to take us to kostrino. they were a lot of other russian and ukranian rainbows on the bus too, and we made a little family as we waited for the electricki to syanki. we played music the whole way, the conductoresses were appreciative and sat and listened to us on the train. we had a meal at syanki waiting for the connection to lviv, again more music, sasha and i with three others even did some busking along the whole train, making about 30  hryvnias, but more importantly, having a lot of fun! sasha left the train at samblar to get his connection for striy and the hitch back to chisinau, and even symka noticed that i felt very sad after he had left. he now had the rainbow flu bug full-on but still had enough energy to keep the music going.

 

at lviv, odik did his best with my phone to arrange hosts for us, and another lviv brother managed to find a short term rental house near the main square which came to be the rainbow welcome centre in lviv. i stayed one night at odik's place and one night at 'new welcome'. alex, one russian brother, gave me some healing balm for my flu symptoms, and i slept and rested most of my stay in lviv. ivan, symka and i saw odik off on his train to ternopil, and i in turn saw symka and ivan off on their train to kiev that early early morning. i waited at the electricki station for my connection to the polish border. only i got off at the wrong stop, a misunderstanding... in the end i had to walk 4 kms to mostriska and i had just arrived at the main road and asked someone for the road to sheyni when the marshutka pulls up for one guy waiting at the roadside. i run up and shout inside: "greniza?" "da!". and in i jump. the minibus is driving right to the border. here there is a separate processing for cars and people crossing on foot. the woman at the ukrainian side detains me a little, asking some questions... first time in ukraine? where did you cross the border? etc etc. by now there is a long queue building up after me, i hear the word baraban, people are no doubt talking about this strange guy with the drum... in the end, she reappears and stamps the passport and off i go. walking, walking, walking through the no-man's land until i reach: the polish side. it seems that they have given all the immigration/customs posts to young people which is nice to see, seems the older ones are upstairs putting their feet up! one young guy inevitably asks me to play the drum and i don't refuse. the other one is phoning his superiors upstairs, something about an english passport.... here we go again. i act bored and nonchalant, which i am. they swipe my passport through the machine reader and are obviously happy with the screen display, cos they don't detain me longer. supervisor must be pleased too, he doesn't need to get his feet off the desk to come down and deal with me in person. the young woman at the customs beckons me over: "do you have any vodka or cigarettes...." it's a useless exercise cos the real mafia smugglers doing the contraband business bribe the authorities anyway, but i just say, "no, i don't drink or smoke." she starts to feel inside my backpack which is full to the brim. "shall i take this out," i ask helpfully. "no, it's ok", she says, "you can go". i buckle up the pack and leave into the open air once more and find the road again from the border. the second car gives me a lift to przemsyl, where it starts to drizzle. i hitch anyway. six hours i am waiting, punctuated by a visit by the straz greniza guys. a small unmarked red fiat pulls up on the pavement in front of me and out jumps two paramilitary looking guys, one with shaved head and all the presence of a neo-nazi thug. "documentation", he asks. "yes, of course", i reply, handing them my passport. "where do you live?" "london". "just a moment," he says, and they both return to the car. and ten minutes of scrutinizing my passport and radioing in my details. and finally he gets out and hands it back and wishes me a good day. finally i get a lift to rzeszow, via the back roads. unbelievably, i am already putting the russian i have learnt into practise with the driver. he offers me a place to stay for the night out of the rain, and as it is still raining when we arrive in rzeszow, i take him up on the offer. i think he will take me to his friend's place but instead we pull up next to a modern looking church, the mass is in progress. i am introduced to one guy who shows me the way to the an adjoining building, what seems like a centre for visiting priests or the like. i have the whole place to myself, i take a very hot shower, i get some food and tea and a good night's sleep. at seven in the morning i get shown the door, not even time for a cup of tea! fortunately, this place is near the hitching point for krakow, where ola and i hitched from last year after the polish gathering. so i remembered the way quite well, and was there not two minutes before i get i lift from wojcech, a landscape gardener.he takes me to the other sideof tarnow for the hitching point to krakow, and an hour's wait before i get a lift in a very comfortable range-rover. marius takes me to 10kms before krakow, there is a lot of slow moving traffic passing my thumb and for sure most of them are going to krakow but none are too keen to give me a lift. in the end i mouth the word 'krakow' at one guy, and with a wave of his arm, i grab my stuff and jump in while he is still in the queue of traffic. martin drives me to the centre of krakow, and i find a bench in the green strip surrounding the old town.

and as i make myself a cheese sandwich, a rainbow couple approach me: it is elan and shakti, 'true' rainbow family! we chat a bit before they get their connection for berlin, and i accost a friendly-looking type to use their mobile phone. i get hold of kaja and after a couple of hours of busking, we meet at empik in the main square. and then straight to her flat, where now my dirty clothes are washed and hanging out to dry, i have a room to myself and a computer and internet access to update the blog. photos will follow soon!

rainbow

the rainbow family of living light have had a gathering every year in europe for twenty years now. i'm sure there is a wikipedia site about it so you can read up all the details about what they are all about. for me, it's a gathering where all the travellers and musicians and nomads and alternative new-age types get together to enjoy being in a beautiful place in the nature. originally deriving from a prophecy of the hopi indians of north america, the rainbow family spread its wings and came to europe, and soon metamorphosed by incorporating other exotic philosophies and ideas. so came the om chanting and the bhajan singing, it sometimes feels like a mobile european ashram. of course there are the ubiquitous tipis, and the focal points of the day revolve around the two food circles when the meals are distributed and money collected in the magic hat for future supplies. and then there are the many workshops where brothers and sisters give their knowledge and skills to others for free. shiatsu massage, yoga, qi-gong, drumming, dancing, meditation... just a few.

this year, we came to ukriane as agreed at last year's gathering in serbia. there was already a moldovan presence and camp, but we decided to have a separate camp from the young ones. we made camp in the forest around a small clearing, set up a plastic tarp, made a tripod for cooking around the fire, and set up our tents.

this year, there was a large russian presence too. which was understandable seeing as they don't need an expensive visa to come to ukraine like they would if they came to the west. and a lot of them were new to the rainbow ways and so upset some of our western brothers and sisters by not respecting some basic rainbow rules. like drinking alcohol. and not using the shit-pits. and taking photos and using mobile phones, etc etc etc. i was hanging out with my moldovan brothers and sisters for most of time, improving my russian, picking mushrooms, and doing what i usually do at all rainbows, a lot of drumming and massage.

helena came for a week and we hung out together, it was her birthday too on the full moon night when the big fire was lit and the dancing and the drumming went on for hours. but we chose instead to pass a shanti night at shambala. the scandanavian ting family held camp high on the hill with their boat shaped fire-place and their 20kg rock they had reputedly carried from finland.
vision council was again preoccupied with where to go next year, and sasha was very eager to promote moldova as the place for the next gathering. seeing as i was now an honorary moldovan brother, i had to give my full support to this plan, and gave a good speech for them/us at the talking circle, when in fact i did not mind if we instead went to finland next year. it became clear over the days that although the popular support in the gathering was for moldova, the 'western' bias in the vision council meant that the finland case was the one that was being heard, and it came as no surprise when the consensus was in favour of finland. i even left the vision circle to join the food circle at this time just minutes before they passed the stick around. once sasha realized that he was fighting a losing battle, he knew it was better not to prolong the agony.
the moldovan family made one final meal for the whole family, with mamaliga and soup. i had already caught the flu bug going around the gathering like a wildfire, so the last week i was suffering a bit and definitely low on energy. last day but one, we climbed the mountain for some beautiful panoramic views over the area, and last day, sveta and i took a path off the main drag along a beautiful brook with some nice glades and meadows and woods. a last nature fix before the descent from the mountain-side.

uzhgorod

alesea and i were tiring fast of the big screen entertainment. somehow the uzhgorod city fathers must have thought it was a good idea. we went to the internet place and scoured the hc site again, and we finally had a list of ten names and numbers. we found some quieter benches along the river bank and alesea started dialling. but today was not our lucky day, there was no sure host for us. some maybes and a lot of no ways. we just had to wait. eventually we get a call back from denis, a maybe. and the maybe turns out to be a definite. he will meet us in a hour or so in the centre. we decide to shatter the deathly still ambience with some busking in the centre to pass the time. but it is not a huge success. maybe they think i'm a gypsy, i try to reason to alesea. and maybe they are not very keen on gypsies in these parts. denis turns up on his mountain bike, and leads us back to his family flat he shares with his girlfriend and son and baby daughter. we take hot showers and eat a little before we are back on the mean streets of uzhgorod. already we meet some rainbow brothers and sisters, we try some more busking and then back to the flat. we befriend some local kids whilst waiting for denis with some drumming and jew's-harp playing, and also i got to show off my footballing skills! the next day, and we agreed to wait for the boys to get to uzhgorod. the news from sasha and serioja was that they chose not to come through the mamaliga border but instead went the longer route via atake. they met up with the same host we had in chernivtsi, sasha, and had hitched via ivano-frankovisk to striy and were now busking in mukachevo. finally they got to town in the late afternoon. we had already met some of the other moldovans, big vova and other sasha. we made a good busking group and felt more confidence to play louder and with more fun. we got joined by ilia and marina, a russian rainbow couple in town for a few days. with the list of hosts we had, we managed to get the others a host for the night too. the next day, we met up again by the big orthodox church, and finally managed to locate the big second-hand clothes warehouse that ilia and marina had told us about. the workers there were curious to see us, but very friendly and helpful... they opened us big bags of clothes to find us some ethnic rainbow fashion to try on... when finally we decided upon what to take, she asked us 80hrs and wouldn't go any lower. i tried to charm her with some hard bargaining and in the end, us boys made a deal of 60hrs for five items of clothing and a drumming performance. alesea made her own deal for her clothes. we went back to the bus station after meeting more rainbows and squeezed into the bus to lyuta.

lviv and the road to uzhgorod

the last thing we did before we left chernivtsi was to go to an internet cafe to surf the hospitalityclub site and get some numbers for hosts in lviv. alesea, our communications expert, took the mobile and start dialling. we eventually found someone and agreed to meet in front of the big 'magnus' shopping centre near the opera building. maria, the orange haired hippy girl, came bouncing along to greet us. she led us to her flat she shared with her boyfriend, which happened to be in the middle of a big renovation project. but somehow maria mangaged to make us feel at home.

 

she showed us around lviv a little, the italian courtyard and palace which the wedding couples and their entourages use for photo-shoots, a nice little tea/coffee house near the market square, a night-trip to the lookout point over lviv past the brightly coloured telecoms masthead, buying vegetables from the babushkas. we tried a busking session in the gardens in front of the opera, but we surprised by the reaction of some of the old people there who came to pass some comments. alesea told me that their words were not explicitly racist, just that they did not like me or my drumming! just ignore them i told her, don't even get into a discussion with them. in the end, we just gave up, it wasn't worth the effort.

a storm passed in the night and it was drizzling the next day day too on and off, and it was quite late in the day when we decided to head on south for the rainbow gathering. we took a marshutka to the end station, just before the lviv ring road, and then it starts to piss down again. we take shelter in the petrol station and see a beautiful rainbow. with the end of the downpour, we hitch again and get a lift some 20 or 30 kms down the road, getting let off at a bus stop on the fast dual carriageway out of lviv, probably the best surfaced road i've seen here in ukraine. it seems like we will be marooned here but once again, a marshutka driver saves our lives. alesea with the sweet talk, and we get a lift to the turn-off for some place i forget the name of now. and not long before a lift to striy. we have missed the electricki connection to mukachevo, but we decide to get a marshutka to the outskirts of striy and start hitching from there. there is a petrol station there and a truck has pulled in. time to send alesea to ask for a lift again. she beckons me over... we've got the lift. shame it was dark now so we missed all the glorious landscape over the mountains to mukachevo turn-off. it's pretty late at night now, and for an hour we look around for a decent place to sleep.

  and find the best compromise between safety and comfort being next to some public toilets. everywhere else was too wet or too rough or too much in the open. in the morning we rose before the sun, having scared some woman out of her wits after she had stumbled upon us on her way to the toilets! fortunately, we didn't wait long before getting a lift into uzhgorod, where we made our way to the centre of town, discovering the benches by the bridge over the river and a huge tv screen blaring out pop music and advertisements. we laid out our wet gear over the benches and tried to rest a little in the morning sun. waiting for the day to begin. it was way too early to be up!

hitching to lviv

it was a hot sunny day, and plenty of traffic going slowly past our extended thumbs on the road to ternopil. suddenly i notice the turkish registration plates on a truck and i glance up at the driver, mouthing the words...ternopil..lviv. he catches my body language and the brakes come on. "let's go", i tell alesea, quickly grabbing the pack and drum. we clamber up into the cab and are happy to find out that the driver, yasim, is driving to lviv! and happily, he can also speak some russian. "choot choot", he says. but with the dire state of the roads in ukraine and the fully loaded truck, it takes us forever before we finally make it to the outskirts of ternopil and a petrol station for the obligatory one-hour break for the truckers. alesea and i agree to carry on hitching, even though we feel bad about leaving yasim, as he has kindly agreed to take us all the way to lviv. we are convinced however that it will be faster if we seperate. so, reluctantly, we say our goodbyes to yasim who looks surprised but somehow understanding too. it's a fast dual carriageway but we get a lift to the ring road around ternopil. and here the traffic is fast too and it looks like we are probably going to see yasim driving by anytime now... and lo and behold, the turkish plated truck comes slowly to a stop besides us. we clamber back into the cab like erroneous children, and father yasim just looks at us and mumbles some words in russian and chiding us with this expression which said: "you see, you could have had some time to eat and relax, wash a little, drink a tea..." he drops us off on the lviv ring road and we get a lift taking us into the centre of town. and straight away we do some busking. it's not great money and eventually the police come, all serious looking and unfriendly-like and tell us to stop.

chernivtsi

my second time in chernivtsi. we decided to busk straight away on the newly laid pedestrian street the city had made for its 600th birthday last year. alesea with her home-made marracas made from a coconut shell and rice. we made quite good money, and only stopped cos we had agreed to meet our host as soon as we got into town. alesea had phoned this sasha from the border and he had agreed to host us... we had sms-ed our hospitalityclub profile nicknames to him so he could check us out before we arrived. sasha and his friend came by car and drove us first to the supermarket to buy some stuff to cook for the evening, and then to his flat. he told us to make ourselves at home and he would come by later. so not much time to chat, and we had decided to leave the next morning for lviv. one last busking session on the new main street... and we weren't there long before out of nowhere, we got water landing on us! someone from the balcony or two above obviously didn't like our music and were too shy to tell us in some polite words. fortunately we didn't get too wet, most of it missed us, and i tried to see the funny side of it... the young people working in the shop were also outside now craning their necks up like me to see if the crazy nutter above would dare to show their face! i told alesea it was a sign to hit the road. we took the trolley-bus to the end of the line and then a marshrutka to the turn-off for the road to ternopil.

the road to ukraine

by chance, i bumped into alesea one day as i was strolling down stefan cel mare in chisinau. i told her i was looking for someone to hitch to the rainbow gathering in ukraine. she replied that she had had no news of daniel, whom she had intented to go with... and she would write an email today and if there was no reply to that tomorrow, then she would hitch with me instead. inna had also tried to hook me up with her friend, but that came to nothing.

i made a last busking session with sasha, bought a new set of strings for leusha, and waited for alesea's call the next day. no news from daniel and so we decided to go the next day. sasha and serioja wanted to do one last last busking session and then we could all leave the same day but i was tired of waiting and convinced alesea that we should just be spontaneous and go. we went to the usual hitching point out of chisinau, which although it seemed to be the wrong motorway to balti, alesea told me it was also used to get there. we got a lift to balti with a flat-bed truck, we stashed our gear in the back and got into the cab. and alesea got to do all the talking whilst i enjoyed the views. a short lift to the roundabout outside balti before an artic picks us up and takes us to the roundabout at the start of edinet.

we hitch on the bypass road and get a lift with a quarry-stone truck to near lipscani, and finally we hitch the marshutka going to the border at criva. good ol' alesea turns on her charm with the marshutka driver, who is loooking at me all suspicious like. we walk up to the border and the moldovan guards there. alesea had already told me the story of her last visit here... the ukranians were convinced that she was going there to work illegally and had kept her there for 24 hours, before finally she had used her fathers' diplomatic contacts to extradite her from her incarceration. "don't worry", i told her, "nothing like that is going to happen this time... the baraban magic will do the trick again." my last visit here was the previous year where the immigration guys asked me to play my drum for them and were very appreciative. and just like last year, the immigration guy beckons me into his office, where there are three others looking very bored. i play my drum for them, their faces light up with smiles and alesea and i breeze through the bureaucratic formalities and past the last army guy at the mamaliga border post. and only ten minutes to wait before we get a lift to cernivitsi.