[Ukraine (4)] Ivano-Frankivsk train station

There are a few concerns that I have with the train station system in Ukrain. I will ealobrate on the side of the ticketeers, ticket buyers and the overall system.

 Most of the ticketeers installed at all counters are mid-to-50’s, slow-working, cold-looking females. What could be worse? A queue would probably have more than 15 people standing at a time, and th time spent on a single customer, less any interruptions from God-knows-whoevr-that-suddenly-came-with-them, is about minutes. Average, not the worst. One of my friends also said tht she even saw a ticketeer having a coffee break in the early morning session, and that is only a few minutes after the counter was opened! My Ukrainian friend sighed, informing me that we couldn’t do anything because she has the ‘power’ (I guess, what she actually meant was ‘BALLS’) to do so. But I’d say she has no workng ettiquette.

Next, the ticket buyers/customers. I was informed that there is a culture in queues in almost everywhere in Ukraine. One person would go to a queue and wait for about, say, 3 minutes. Then, he or she would ask the person behind or in front of him/her to reserve that queue for him/her. That person then would go elsewhere, and come back every now and then between 10 to 30 minutes just to check the ‘progress’ (how many steps they’ve moved!) the queue had gone through. Later, when it’s his/her ime to purchase the ticket, all of a sudden came a bunch of God-knows-who and all of them crammed on the counter. If asked, they claimed to be the person’s friends, family members/relatives/neighbours/penpal/pet brothers etc. Some would even have their children to stand in a queue and they wander around elsewhere. If there is a group of people coming to the train station, each of them will stay in one queue , nd whoever reaches the counter first, the prcess mentioned earlier will follow.

Double-whammy so far, isn’t it? Wait until you hear the third one!

Thirdly, the sytem of purchasing tickets. There are 8 counters in Ivano-Frankivsk train station, 4 counters on one side of the hall and the rest are on the other side (there is actually 3 more counters in an enclosed office a minute-walk from the hall, but the system is pretty much the same). Counters supposed to be opened at 9am, but the queue has lready caught traffic even at 845am! Then there are a few police guears at each side of the hall. What are they doing? Standing there, sometimes walk around the station. Basically, they’re paid to do nothing!

I had several vissts to museums in different places, and most of them were about the history of Ukraine. I was so proud and amaed to hear the stories of their warriors’ bravery, courage, enthusiasm, commitment and determination to go against all odds, fighting for a free, autonomous Ukrainian state. This had started as early as in 900 A.D. They’ve gone so far, and Ukraine finally reached it’s independence (latest, from the USSR reign) in August 1991. Their ancestors wishes had been realised. The Ukrainians now are so proud of their national warriors, but when it comes to changing the system of ‘a train station’, the responses that I got were along the lines of ‘it’s almost impossible!’, ‘why fight when we can’t change anything?’, ‘it could take at least another 200 yers for a change to happen’ etc. I was even labelled as ‘idealist’ and ‘living in utopia’. I guess, they are the ones who are living in a dream, proud of somethin they didn’t evensee but so afraid of doing someting in front of their own eyes.

Certainly living in both Malaysia and the UK, with some experiencein Japan, has shaped a certain way of how I think, thus how I may behave and react. I’ll pray that may there be more ‘idealists’ within the younger generations in this country. Hopefully they’ll strive for a better state in their (read: their) future.

10.39am, 18 July,

Ivano-Frankivsk Train Station, Ukraine.

(i was composing this article on my Blackberry while waiting for my friends to buy their tickets. They were the 4th in the queue!)