I am hoping that Chris will let this stand as an independent thread rather than folding it into the Ukraine thread for at least a couple of days. I had so many posts and private messages praying for her safety that I didn’t want to let this momentous news (to me) get buried in that thread.
She was able to cross the Polish border less than an hour ago, and now is en route to Krakow.
The events that allowed it to happen came so quickly and then the actual trip itself took so long that I have been a nervous wreck since Friday morning our time. I have not slept since Thursday night.
Masha had been staying in Kyiv with friends after initially going back for Christmas. It was her first long visit in 3 years and she was planning to stay until April 1, when we were to meet in Barcelona for a 3-month trip which had been postponed for two years because of the pandemic. She owns a house in Radomyshl where she grew up and her parents live and also owns a car there, which most Ukrainians don’t. She got a dog at a shelter shortly after she arrived, a mini-Yorkie who she named Bacchus (she loves wine), who she planned to bring to Barcelona and then the US.
In early February, we started discussing her leaving Ukraine early because of the threat of an invasion. She went to the vet to get Bacchus an EU pet passport and discovered it would take 8-10 days on an expedited basis. She was supposed to pick it up on February 18. However, when she called that morning, she was told it wouldn’t be ready until February 24. There was no way she would leave without Bacchus so I didn’t even suggest that. The invasion began that day. She had to walk 30 minutes each way to get the passport because traffic was horrible with people trying to leave Kyiv, but she got the passport.
There hadn’t been commercial flights out of Kyiv for a week. And, Masha discovered she was almost out of gas. No gas stations in Kyiv were open. She thought taking a train to Poland was too dangerous. She decided to continue to stay at a friend’s apartment where she had been for more than a month. The friend had gone home to her parent’s house in western Ukraine a week earlier. The apartment is in a very nice suburb of Kyiv. The subway doesn’t travel there so there was no nearby bomb shelter. Some residents of the building were using the basement as a makeshift bomb shelter. Masha spent one night there and decided it was no safer than the apartment. I tried unsuccessfully convincing her to use the basement whenever the air raid sirens went off.
It seemed pretty hopeless unless I could convince her to take the train. I kept sending her tweets from people who had used the train and made it successfully, but to no avail.
Suddenly, last Friday evening Kyiv time, I got a Skype call from her. She was at a house in Kyiv and would be driving to Lviv, in far western Ukraine, and then Poland in the morning.
She and Victoria, whose apartment she was staying in, had met a number of their neighbors while out walking their dogs. One of them is a policeman. Masha happened to see him Friday morning when she was walking Bacchus and he was walking his dog. He told her that he was very surprised to see her because he thought she would be leaving with Victoria which by now was two weeks earlier. She explained that she couldn’t leave because she had almost no gas. After a pause, he proposed a deal to her: He would drive her car to the police barracks and fill it with gas if she would take his 14 year old son to Poland with her. He is divorced and his son was staying with him while his ex-wife was on vacation in Egypt. She couldn’t get back and had flown to Poland instead.
Masha said an air raid siren sounded then, and she thought that was a sign. She said yes.
So, he took her car and filled it up. She packed. Late in the afternoon, he brought his son over, and she and his son followed him, in his police car, to another policeman’s house which was located close to the last checkpoint in Kyiv before the road they would be driving on. They stayed there that night and left early Saturday morning for Lviv.
It normally would be a 6 or 7 hour drive. She drove 12 hours and they were barely halfway there. The second policeman pretty much knew they would only make it halfway and had given Masha the telephone number and address of his brother who lived in a town, Bratslav, where they could spend the night.
When they got there, the brother asked them to take his wife and their 5 year old child with her. Masha agreed. There was room in the car. But, she was going to need more gas as she was down to 1/4 tank. The brother took her to a gas station Sunday morning. She waited in line 3 hours and then discovered she could only buy 20 liters (about 5 gallons) because of rationing. That wouldn’t get her there. They would have to stay in Bratslav two more days and go to the gas station two more times to be able to buy enough gas.
Masha said the people in the town were very friendly and helpful. They told her there was a bus which went from a town east of Bratslav to Krakow, Poland 3 times a week and was still operating. If someone in Bratslav had a ticket, the bus would stop and pick them up. The next bus was 7:30 Monday morning and she was able to use the mayor’s office to buy the tickets. Well, 5 tickets. Since she had agreed to drive the mother and child she felt obligated to pay for their tickets. And, she had talked to the teen’s mother Saturday night and she was going to cross the border from Poland back into Ukraine (no long lines that way) and meet them near Lviv. So Masha bought her a ticket so the bus would stop and pick her up.
They left on the bus at 7:30 am on Monday. Before Sunday, there had been no invasion or Russians in Western Ukraine more than 100 miles west of Kyiv. On Sunday night, Russians in Transnistra (Moldava) fired 8 missiles at the city of Vinnytsia which is one of 3 Ukrainian cities the bus would pass going to Lviv. There are no military targets there, but we are talking about the Russians, to whom war crimes are no big deal. That worried Masha, but she told me “I believe Luck is on my side.” It obviously worried me too.
From news reports I read earlier today, the Russians again fired missiles from Transnistra at Vinnytsia today and almost leveled the city. No word yet on the number of casualties but it will be high. It happened hours after the bus passed it though. Luck was on Masha’s side.
At about 10:00 pm on Monday night they passed Lviv. That’s after 16 1/2 hours on the road. Then they headed for the lines at the border. There are two crossings at that border crossing. One for vehicles; one for people on foot. Masha was lucky to be sitting in a warm bus and not standing in the freezing cold.
The line for vehicles is a little shorter. But calling it shorter is a misnomer. There are 3 lines: one for cars; one for buses; one for large trucks with cargo.
Their bus joined the bus line at around midnight Monday night. Masha and the other passengers cleared the border at 9:12 pm Tuesday night Kyiv time. She spent 38 hours on the bus from the time they left Bratslav until they cleared Polish border control. Now, 4 hours to Krakow. They were in the line at the border for more than 21 hours. The bus is filled with mothers, children, infants and seniors. No able-bodied Ukrainian man between 18 and 60 can leave the country. The longer they were in the bus, the more the babies cried. As I’m sure almost everyone knows, when one baby starts crying, it becomes a chain reaction.
Understandably, Masha has been very depressed the past two weeks. She normally is a very upbeat, optimistic person. However, she was extremely distressed these past few weeks. The first time she seemed optimistic was when we spoke before she left Kyiv. Even when she had to leave her car and take the bus, she sounded good. When they got in line at the border crossing, she said she was thankful she was sitting in a nice warm bus and not standing in the cold. But, in the couple hours before finally making it through, she had gotten extremely depressed. Now, of course, she is happy. And, exhausted.
I’m exhausted too. Since the invasion, I have been living on Ukrainian time so I was awake when she was awake. I’ve been trying to sleep during the day when it is night there. I’m probably averaging 2 hours of sleep a day. Since Friday, none.
I rented a 2-bedroom hotel room for the 5 of them to stay in tonight in Krakow. Tomorrow, they presumably will split into 3 groups. Masha might stay in Krakow a few days to sightsee. She was supposed to get her booster vaccination on March 5 in Kyiv but that was cancelled, so she will try to get it there. She said it will be nice to be in a city with no air raid warnings where you don’t look up and see smoke ftom bombs being dropped.
I don’t know when I will be posting again. I’m going to try to sleep.
Slava Ukraini! Glory to the Heroes!
She was able to cross the Polish border less than an hour ago, and now is en route to Krakow.
The events that allowed it to happen came so quickly and then the actual trip itself took so long that I have been a nervous wreck since Friday morning our time. I have not slept since Thursday night.
Masha had been staying in Kyiv with friends after initially going back for Christmas. It was her first long visit in 3 years and she was planning to stay until April 1, when we were to meet in Barcelona for a 3-month trip which had been postponed for two years because of the pandemic. She owns a house in Radomyshl where she grew up and her parents live and also owns a car there, which most Ukrainians don’t. She got a dog at a shelter shortly after she arrived, a mini-Yorkie who she named Bacchus (she loves wine), who she planned to bring to Barcelona and then the US.
In early February, we started discussing her leaving Ukraine early because of the threat of an invasion. She went to the vet to get Bacchus an EU pet passport and discovered it would take 8-10 days on an expedited basis. She was supposed to pick it up on February 18. However, when she called that morning, she was told it wouldn’t be ready until February 24. There was no way she would leave without Bacchus so I didn’t even suggest that. The invasion began that day. She had to walk 30 minutes each way to get the passport because traffic was horrible with people trying to leave Kyiv, but she got the passport.
There hadn’t been commercial flights out of Kyiv for a week. And, Masha discovered she was almost out of gas. No gas stations in Kyiv were open. She thought taking a train to Poland was too dangerous. She decided to continue to stay at a friend’s apartment where she had been for more than a month. The friend had gone home to her parent’s house in western Ukraine a week earlier. The apartment is in a very nice suburb of Kyiv. The subway doesn’t travel there so there was no nearby bomb shelter. Some residents of the building were using the basement as a makeshift bomb shelter. Masha spent one night there and decided it was no safer than the apartment. I tried unsuccessfully convincing her to use the basement whenever the air raid sirens went off.
It seemed pretty hopeless unless I could convince her to take the train. I kept sending her tweets from people who had used the train and made it successfully, but to no avail.
Suddenly, last Friday evening Kyiv time, I got a Skype call from her. She was at a house in Kyiv and would be driving to Lviv, in far western Ukraine, and then Poland in the morning.
She and Victoria, whose apartment she was staying in, had met a number of their neighbors while out walking their dogs. One of them is a policeman. Masha happened to see him Friday morning when she was walking Bacchus and he was walking his dog. He told her that he was very surprised to see her because he thought she would be leaving with Victoria which by now was two weeks earlier. She explained that she couldn’t leave because she had almost no gas. After a pause, he proposed a deal to her: He would drive her car to the police barracks and fill it with gas if she would take his 14 year old son to Poland with her. He is divorced and his son was staying with him while his ex-wife was on vacation in Egypt. She couldn’t get back and had flown to Poland instead.
Masha said an air raid siren sounded then, and she thought that was a sign. She said yes.
So, he took her car and filled it up. She packed. Late in the afternoon, he brought his son over, and she and his son followed him, in his police car, to another policeman’s house which was located close to the last checkpoint in Kyiv before the road they would be driving on. They stayed there that night and left early Saturday morning for Lviv.
It normally would be a 6 or 7 hour drive. She drove 12 hours and they were barely halfway there. The second policeman pretty much knew they would only make it halfway and had given Masha the telephone number and address of his brother who lived in a town, Bratslav, where they could spend the night.
When they got there, the brother asked them to take his wife and their 5 year old child with her. Masha agreed. There was room in the car. But, she was going to need more gas as she was down to 1/4 tank. The brother took her to a gas station Sunday morning. She waited in line 3 hours and then discovered she could only buy 20 liters (about 5 gallons) because of rationing. That wouldn’t get her there. They would have to stay in Bratslav two more days and go to the gas station two more times to be able to buy enough gas.
Masha said the people in the town were very friendly and helpful. They told her there was a bus which went from a town east of Bratslav to Krakow, Poland 3 times a week and was still operating. If someone in Bratslav had a ticket, the bus would stop and pick them up. The next bus was 7:30 Monday morning and she was able to use the mayor’s office to buy the tickets. Well, 5 tickets. Since she had agreed to drive the mother and child she felt obligated to pay for their tickets. And, she had talked to the teen’s mother Saturday night and she was going to cross the border from Poland back into Ukraine (no long lines that way) and meet them near Lviv. So Masha bought her a ticket so the bus would stop and pick her up.
They left on the bus at 7:30 am on Monday. Before Sunday, there had been no invasion or Russians in Western Ukraine more than 100 miles west of Kyiv. On Sunday night, Russians in Transnistra (Moldava) fired 8 missiles at the city of Vinnytsia which is one of 3 Ukrainian cities the bus would pass going to Lviv. There are no military targets there, but we are talking about the Russians, to whom war crimes are no big deal. That worried Masha, but she told me “I believe Luck is on my side.” It obviously worried me too.
From news reports I read earlier today, the Russians again fired missiles from Transnistra at Vinnytsia today and almost leveled the city. No word yet on the number of casualties but it will be high. It happened hours after the bus passed it though. Luck was on Masha’s side.
At about 10:00 pm on Monday night they passed Lviv. That’s after 16 1/2 hours on the road. Then they headed for the lines at the border. There are two crossings at that border crossing. One for vehicles; one for people on foot. Masha was lucky to be sitting in a warm bus and not standing in the freezing cold.
The line for vehicles is a little shorter. But calling it shorter is a misnomer. There are 3 lines: one for cars; one for buses; one for large trucks with cargo.
Their bus joined the bus line at around midnight Monday night. Masha and the other passengers cleared the border at 9:12 pm Tuesday night Kyiv time. She spent 38 hours on the bus from the time they left Bratslav until they cleared Polish border control. Now, 4 hours to Krakow. They were in the line at the border for more than 21 hours. The bus is filled with mothers, children, infants and seniors. No able-bodied Ukrainian man between 18 and 60 can leave the country. The longer they were in the bus, the more the babies cried. As I’m sure almost everyone knows, when one baby starts crying, it becomes a chain reaction.
Understandably, Masha has been very depressed the past two weeks. She normally is a very upbeat, optimistic person. However, she was extremely distressed these past few weeks. The first time she seemed optimistic was when we spoke before she left Kyiv. Even when she had to leave her car and take the bus, she sounded good. When they got in line at the border crossing, she said she was thankful she was sitting in a nice warm bus and not standing in the cold. But, in the couple hours before finally making it through, she had gotten extremely depressed. Now, of course, she is happy. And, exhausted.
I’m exhausted too. Since the invasion, I have been living on Ukrainian time so I was awake when she was awake. I’ve been trying to sleep during the day when it is night there. I’m probably averaging 2 hours of sleep a day. Since Friday, none.
I rented a 2-bedroom hotel room for the 5 of them to stay in tonight in Krakow. Tomorrow, they presumably will split into 3 groups. Masha might stay in Krakow a few days to sightsee. She was supposed to get her booster vaccination on March 5 in Kyiv but that was cancelled, so she will try to get it there. She said it will be nice to be in a city with no air raid warnings where you don’t look up and see smoke ftom bombs being dropped.
I don’t know when I will be posting again. I’m going to try to sleep.
Slava Ukraini! Glory to the Heroes!
