From Kyiv to Zaporozhye

The flight to Zaporozshye is on a twin engine plane carrying 50 people. It looks like a plane from the 70s. There is no emergency exit door and one enters through the cargo hold. The flight is run by a regional airline to Aerosvit and was actually quite comfortable for a prop plane. Most of the people on the flight were business people with an average age of 50. There is a morning flight from Zaporozshye to Kyiv with a return in the evening.

We landed at the Zaporozshye airport and immediately noticed the lack of lights. As we were landing, there were only dim lights on the side of the runway. When we pulled up to the terminal there was only one large spotlight to illuminate the area. It was more like landing at Greenwood than IND. The passengers got off and we were to wait just outside the gate for our luggage. While we waited, we met a gentleman from the SF area who traveled here to meet a woman that he met on the internet. He was eager to tell Cindy his story and I thought he was a little nervous. A luggage cart pulled up with everyone’s baggage. There was one baggage handler. When it is your turn, you give him your receipt and point to your luggage. In the dim light, he matches your receipt to the luggage tag and hands you the bag. Not a terribly efficient process. We gathered our belongings and headed towards the terminal building to find a taxi.

Jenia found two small taxis and she went with Mark and Julie in one and Cindy and I in the other. I took this as a placid endorsement of Russian language skills. The taxi was small and the driver navigated many potholes on the way to the Intourist Hotel.

Cindy stayed at the Intourist on her last visit in November. It had changed with recent renovations and the entrance was on the side of the building that faces the main street. At the Intourist, one has to pay for the room upon check in. Our room was small with two double beds located head to toe on one side of the room and a desk, refrigerator and television on the other. We got settled into our rooms and met for dinner.

I had heard about the MOOSE-TANG from Cindy’s prior trip. It is a restaurant with a WWII theme of the P51 Mustang fighter plane. The waitresses dress up in a flight line uniform and there is a life-sized front of a P51 over the bar. Cindy teased Jenia about mispronouncing the name Mustang, but the Cyrillic letters form the word pronounced MOOSE-TANG. Evidently the place brought fond memories for the girls. It was late and the kitchen had a limited selection. The girls got salads and the guys had grilled pork. I thought about how much Max likes pork and that I should take him here.