Khreshatik One, Kiev, Ukraine
Entering Ukraine isn’t always easy. You might be waiting for ages in a traffic jam when you go by car, they awake you in the of the night when you travel by train, and when you fly there you have to find a way through Borispol Airport. In all cases they make you fill in a ‘migration-card’ which they rip in two parts once you filled them both.
Lots of information on such a sheet of paper is useless. The ‘transport-number’ for example. And as most EU-citizens don’t need visa’s anylonger also the ‘destination name, adress’ part I usually leave blank. Not this time. “œAdress!”, the wonderful maybe 21-year old girl in the migration-box tells me. I explain her that I don’t know my adress in Kiev. “œNeither do I, your problem!”, she tells me. “œGo back and fill in your adress.” So I asked a young couple behind me what was the most famous adress in Kiev. “œKheshatik One,I guess”, a guy said after some thinking. He’s right. It would be the Ukrainian equivalent of an adress as Downing Street One.
I raise my voice and return to the booth. “œThere you go, this is my adress, Khreshatik One in Kiev!” The whole airport laughing now. Except for the girl. She looks at me, looks at the picture in my passport, registers Khreshatik One as my temporary residence and shouts: “œNext!” Welcome to Ukraine. Again.
