Ticket counter at west railway and bus station in Warsaw. Photo: wtp.waw.pl
Rrecently, Prime Minister Narendra Modi embarked on a train journey from Poland to Ukraine. It may be an odd mode of transport for a Prime Minister, but all the leaders of the world have been taking this train, labeled ‘Rail Force One’, ever since Ukraine’s airspace was closed following Russia’s invasion in February 2022.
Mr. Modi was to arrive in Kyiv on the morning of August 23. After briefly attending the diaspora event addressed by Mr. Modi, I climbed into a bus bound for Kyiv in Ukraine, along with three other Indian journalists, at the Warsaw West Bus Station in Poland, at 9:15 pm on August 21. We chose to travel by bus since the direct train from Warsaw to Kyiv was fully booked. The other option was to change trains at Chelm, a city in Poland bordering Ukraine, but that would have been an 18-hour journey and there were again no tickets at short notice. The bus was scheduled to reach Kyiv at noon on August 22 (Kyiv is an hour ahead of Warsaw). It was scheduled to be a 15 hour-long journey. We had been warned by some journalists that the border crossing would take time, especially by road, but nothing prepared us for the journey.
The bus ride itself indicated how Ukraine was a nation at war. Nearly all the travelers were Ukrainian women since Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has banned men between the ages of 18 and 60 from leaving, arguing that they should instead stay back and defend their country. Some men have reportedly found a way around this, but it is mostly women who travel outside and to Ukraine nowadays.
We left the station at 9:30 pm as scheduled and reached the border crossing at around 3 am. We were already a couple of hours behind schedule. At the large complex, we were first stopped by Polish immigration authorities. An officer from the Polish border control collected our passports. The Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) had issued a note verbale with the names of all the journalists traveling to cover the Prime Minister’s visit, so we assumed it would be a smooth ride. But we were forced to wait for an hour to get our passports back.
The next stop was 200 meters ahead. It was the Ukrainian border control. There again authorities collected our passports and disappeared. Another long hour went by. Finally, an officer summoned the four of us and we trooped behind him into an office. Ten minutes later, I was the first to be called into a room. The immigration officer, accompanied by another officer in plain clothes, asked me many questions: what was the purpose of my visit? Which media house did I belong to? What beat did I cover? He checked the MEA’s note verbale, my hotel booking, my return ticket, and my office ID.
Then he looked up, eyebrows raised. “You have been to Russia?” he asked. “Why? Where did you go?” I explained that India has a long-standing relationship with Russia in the field of defense and as a defense correspondent, I had visited the country to cover a defense expo. It was only after half an hour of interrogation that he finally seemed convinced. He asked me to tell the other three journalists to have their documents ready. They had it easy and returned grinning from his room, each within 10 minutes of being summoned. The officers took some more time to stamp our passports.
To add to the delay and frustration, there were no functional wash rooms. We felt guilty that all the women on the bus were stranded because of us. But they did not grumble and we finally boarded the bus. Hours later, in Ukraine, we stopped at a wash room only to encounter a new problem: while the Polish zloty is accepted in many areas in Ukraine, it was not allowed there. No one spoke English either. As I wondered what to do, a young woman from the bus, who was behind me in the queue, promptly went to the counter and paid eight hryvnia (about ₹16) for me.
Nearly 21 hours later, we reached Kyiv after having learned that there can be many hurdles even if we carry a note verbale from the MEA and that even during war time, strangers can be patient and kind.
dinakar.peri@thehindu.co.in
