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They leave the west behind
And Moscow girls make me sing and shout
They Georgia’s always on my my my my my my my my my mind
Oh, come on
Hu Hey Hu, hey, ah, yeah
yeah, yeah, yeah
I’m back in the USSR
You don’t know how lucky you are, boys
Back in the USSR

Credit the Beatles for writing one of the best songs of 1968. (yes that was before I was born)

In the summer of 2007 I had a chance to trek through Europe with my good friends Drew Sanchez and Gspot.  Kiev, Ukraine was one of the stops on our trip.  I remember our plane landing at the airport and being picked up by a guy in a van who was obsessed with Bon Jovi.  In fact, when we got in his vehicle, the song, “Wanted Dead or Alive” was blasting inside.

I wasn’t sure whether I should be excited or freaked out by this. As we drove along the Ukrainian highway towards our apartment in Kiev, I was amazed by how modern their highway system actually was.  Heck, the roads were better than those back in the states.

We got to our 3 bedroom apartment in the heart of downtown Kiev.  It was a 6 story walkup that in NYC they would call a Pre-War building.  It was actually pretty spacious, but the decorative was circa 1960’s.  The three of us were hungry so we grabbed something to eat and then crashed out for the night.

The next day we walked around our area and found out that there wasn’t all that much to do, but walk around, go to the internet café, eat some very strange food, and check out the Chernobyl museum.  What I did notice was a plethora of gorgeous women.  The other thing I noticed were a lot of 18-22 year old girls walking around with old dudes.  What was really strange about this was that these guys were mostly from the Ukraine or other former Soviet block countries.  I would have thought it might be creepy old American or Western European guys trying to find their wives, but it was common for young girls to be in the company of men 20-30 years older than them.  The fact that it was daylight led me to believe that these girls were not prostitutes.

Another thing I found strange about Kiev was that; one you could not order chicken kiev and two, there were a lot of rich people along with poor people in the city.  We went to a night club one night and it was $100 US just to get in.  There were Bentleys, Maybachs, and Rolls Royces parked outside the club.  Gorgeous girls were sitting alongside the  window. 

I also had a weird experience in a night club. I was wearing my afro wig and people were coming up to me thinking I was famous.  Some guy actually approached me, handed me his business card, and asked me to be in a commercial.  I had Drew Sanchez act as my agent.  This guy wouldn’t leave us the f alone all night.

Evidently there is a big commercial actor in that part of the world that looks like me or vice versa.  People wouldn’t stop bugging me.  Being the paranoid guy that I am, I was more concerned that someone was going to try and rob me of my kidneys.

Vika

All of this visual stimulation and we were beside ourselves.  One day while sitting at an outdoor café a few blocks from our apartment I spotted a young blonde hair and blue eyed girl sitting alone at a table puffing away on a very thin cigarette.  She looked like a young Anna Kournikova.  After being urged for 15 minutes by both Drew and G, I walked over to her table and said, “Zdravstvuj” which means hello in Russian. She smiled and said hello in return. Feeling a bit ballsy, I gestured towards the empty chair and asked if I could sit.  She just smiled, not really understanding me.

She fortunately spoke a little bit of English and I spoke a little bit of Russian.  I found out that she was visiting from a small sea side town about ten hours away near the Black Sea.  I began drawing pictures to communicate with her.  She laughed and played with her hair.  After 20 minutes I introduced her to my friends and asked her if she wanted a tour of the city since she had never been to Kiev.

Now, granted, none of us had ever been to Kiev before, but we invited her for a tour of the city.  We walked hand in hand while the 3 of us made up names of buildings and historical things that happened at each of these places.  For instance I think I told her that Mickey Mantle had once passed out drunk in front of some famous statue.  She had no clue what I was talking about and thought I was talking about Mickey Mouse.  At least she thought I was funny.

The four of us must have spent about 5-6 hours that day just walking around the city, drinking coffee, and just chatting away.  Intermittently, I would draw pictures if she couldn’t understand me.  Unfortunately, she was staying with a friend.  It seemed a bit shady.  Perhaps it was some old man who had beckoned her to come stay with him.  She couldn’t hang out with us the rest of the trip, but we did exchange email addresses and corresponded for a few months.  She never asked for me to send for her, but begged for me to come visit her by the Black Sea.  I often wonder whatever became of the beautiful Vika.

It was such an innocent day, but a day of what ifs?

richardbrianpenn RBP's Thoughts