Okay, so I never made it to KaZantip.
I talked to Peace Corps about how likely my trip was to go FUBAR with all the train problems due to exploding ordinance on the tracks (RE: last blog). My manager told me that the fire was out and trains were back to normal, but that people were protesting the incident by standing ON THE TRACKS, slowing down and halting traffic in and out of Crimea. He was harried because he was covering for three other managers, had to contact volunteers in the area to give them updates and was dealing with a few volunteers stranded in Crimea.
People were protesting because a number of trains simply sat in fields for 8-10 hours, with no food brought to the passangers and no information given to them. Somehow the protestors thought delaying traffic FURTHER and causing more delays for the people on the trains would somehow make their lives better.
I actually talked to one volunteer in the office who had been trying to go to Crimea, had found her train was routed to Hirsone (a town on the south coast) and no one had told her that (for hours she thought she was in Crimea), and it sat in Hirsone for about 8 hours. Finally, frustrated and running out of time she got on a bus back to Kyiv. About 35 hours to make a useless circle. And she was travelling with a friend who was visiting from America. Welcome to Ukraine.
My manager said that the Travel Ministry had told them everything was back to okay and running on time and, that while he himself wouldn't risk it, if KaZantip was worth it to me, then go.
That afternoon I was in the train station with ten minutes until my train. No line number by the train. No line number by any of the trains heading into Simferopal. It appears that while the Travel Ministry says everything is okay, they've gone ahead and cancelled every train running into Crimea.
There was a predictable mob at the window to get new tickets. Most of the discussion was about how to get on buses into Crimea and a couple of smart scalpers were haggling with people in the group, offering to get them onto buses or marshrutkas. There are no lines in Ukraine, so I wedged, body blocked and elbowed my way for an hour until I got to the counter. An ingenious lady behind me, holding a two-year old girl asked me, since her arms were tired, if she could put the girl on the counter. The ploy was obvious, but how could I say no? This put her ahead and a couple opportunists squeezed in behind her, shoving my ribs into the counter and now this little girl was blocking my access to the window. Still, I was Zen about it: I was on a couple hours of fitful sleep and really didn't care. I finally got my ticket in the window and they wordlessly rebooked me, as they were doing everyone, onto the 23:00 train into Simferopal.
I took stock: if nothing else went wrong and there was no guaruntee of that, I'd have about 12 hours at KaZantip. This was enough because 12 hours of drinking and dancing and oggling women does tend to wear one out enough to just get back on a train. But that was if nothing went wrong. I could well spend that 12 hours sitting on a train because someone decided to take a nap on the tracks in protest. And for some reason, I've been risk-averse lately, with my gut sliding to the safe side. Must be getting old.
Plus, I didn't feel like spending six more hours waiting on yet another train that may well get cancelled, stranding me in Kyiv another night. Burn me once, burn me twice, I ain't sticking around for a third.
Let's recap the past two years of delayed/cancelled travel:
Hurricane Jeanne: Florida
Widespread Flooding: Romania
Train wreck: Hungary
Exploding armory: Ukraine
I went and got a couple drinks with some Peace Corps volunteers, got back to Zhytomyr and got my tickets refunded (I was NOT going to wade into another line at the Kyiv train station. And yes, you have to go to one window to get rebooked, then to another window to get a refund) and then went and slept like the dead.
Dissapointed about KaZantip, but there's always next year...
Trains: I think by now they may be back to normal. My first train (coming down from Moscow) never arrived. I got put on one the next day. The next day, my train was cancelled again, this time because most train traffic between Kyiv and Crimea was disrupted due to a fire in an armory that had ordinance exploding everywhere. 4,000 people got evacuated and a lot of trains just sat on the tracks for 8-10 hours. In protest, people started blocking the train lines, causing more problems. One volutneer I ran into in Kyiv had gotten as far as Hirsone, waited for 8 hours and finally caught a bus back to Kyiv. 35 hours to make a circle and do nothing. Worse, she had a friend visiting from America, and that's what the friend got to see of Ukraine. They put us all on an 23:00 PM train, but I'd only have maybe 12 hours at KaZantip, IF nothing else went wrong. The Ministry said everything was back to normal, but they said that BEFORE they cancelled all the afternoon trains to Simferopol (by the way, that created a mob at the window that I had to elbow and fight my way through for an hour before getting the 23:00 train ticket). I just had a couple drinks with some other volunteers, went back to Zhytomyr, got my ticket refunded at the Zhytomyr train station (because I was not going to try standing in another line in Kyiv) and went straight to Tatyana's apartment.