Marshrutka Marshrutki?

I spent the day soaking in the stunning Byzantine architecture of the Kyvian Cathedrals that surprisingly reminded me of some of the most moving religious places back home in India - not for any structural similarities, more for the fervour of the ceremony involved. In Kyiv, even the super functional underground station is at the very gilded periphery of the norms of engineering and architecture. Moving on from the blindingly brilliant golden domes, I walked up to what is perhaps the single most majestic monument I have seen in recent times – the Rodina Mat (Motherland Monument). Rising defiantly into the air for some 65 odd meters and brandishing a sword and a shield, the Titanium behemoth is a tribute to the Ukrainian Motherland. Capturing the enormity, the scale, the history in one photographic frame was near impossible so I quietly sat down in the cast eclipse and scrawled in my journal instead. I did have some plans in my head though.

Rectangular, bright yellow pac-man like buses/cabs had been hurtling along the highway. They broke the uniformity of the perfect grey tarmac and an almost predictable rhythm of traffic much like the Microsoft Word inflicted squiggly lines under your less than perfect spellings or erroneous grammatical ways. Except they were yellow.

I knew I needed to hop on a bright yellow Marshrutka. Eliminating the time-consuming step like reading the stop signage I hailed the first one I saw. Once aboard, how do I pay for my ticket? In times like these I find monetary exchange tends to be the universal language. I haplessly extended my hand with a few Hryvnias in it. A Toyota factory like operational machinery kicked in. A slick, wordless process. Just hand over the 2 Hryvnias to the person in front who passes it on to the next person like silent, respectful wisdom (or an STD). This wonderful assembly continues until your money makes its way to the driver and the return journey of the ticket culminates in your hands – with change correct to the penny.

There was of course the small matter of making my intention of getting off audible. People seemed to be yelling something in Ukrainian to make the yellow madness stop and I did not have a phrase book. I disdainfully judge tourists walking around with phrase books so of course I wasn’t carrying one. Now where I ended up is another story but in the spirit of solo-travelling sisterhood, were you to find yourself in this situation, the phrase you are looking for is "Na ostanovke!"