The Apartment Search Begins
Thursday, June 8
We had a good sleep in our pleasant room at the Hotel Kharkiv, and the next morning I went down for our breakfast, with Belle in tow. I looked at the receptionist and said “Soboka neh moje?” and she smiled, opened the door to the café, and said “Moje” with a welcoming gesture. So Belle trotted in and sat quietly while we had our pots of tea and toast.
Ed went off with Sasha to his first meeting with Arkadiy and Gennady and I went to the FABULOUS internet club next door to the hotel. This place is really great – 7 HVA per hour (about $1.40) with unlimited traffic, comfortable desks and chairs, beautiful new equipment, and best of all, the ability to hook up my laptop to the Ethernet cable and connect! Unfortunately, dogs were “neh moje” so Belle had to stay in the hotel room. But the housekeeping staff loves her and I wasn’t too worried about her.
I began the search for an apartment – it looked like I had until noon to find something (and it was already 9:30 a.m.) since that was checkout time at the hotel – there is no real concept of “late checkout” – you just pay for half a day (in advance!)if you don’t get out by noon. First thing – collect emails. Thank God there was one from Elena asking where I had been – someone had gone to meet us on the early train from Kyiv and we weren’t there – and then a second email giving me her cell phone number and asking me to call. I called, but she was “not available” so I began to look on line for other possibilities.
I managed to get in touch with a couple of different people about possible apartments in Kharkiv. The most promising was the woman who had sent me the photos of the small but attractive apartment on Lenina and Kultura streets (no ac or high speed internet, but both could be installed). She gave me the phone number of Vlad, her colleague in Kharkiv, and told me that she would alert him that I would be calling. When I called Vlad a few minutes later he was expecting my call, explained that he was at the border driving back from Russia and would not be back in the office for about 2 or 3 hours, at which time he would go through his data base and be able to show me apartments later that afternoon. I told him to call me as soon as he had anything to show me – that I would go anytime that worked for him.
I finally got a hold of Elena and she said the studio apartment wasn’t at 38 Sumskaya, but at 48 Sumskaya – well, she had definitely told me that the address was “38” (I reviewed all our Skype chats – that was the way she chose to communicate – and there it was in black and white). I asked her whether she could send someone to collect us and our things and bring us to the apartment that day, and she said she would arrange to have the driver come at 3 p.m. I figured we would stay there while I continued to look for something better than the one bedroom at 38 Sumskaya to move into for the balance of the two months. That way we would at least get value for the $300 we had sent to Elena via Western Union.
By now it was after noon and Sasha called to ask if I wanted to go to the opera that night at 6 pm - they were doing Pique Dame. She was at the opera house and was going to buy a ticket and thought I might like to join her. I told her I would love to, but that I had to wait and see what happened with these apartment showings. Meanwhile, we agreed to meet for lunch.
Sasha came by and got me and we decided to walk down to 48 Sumskaya and see what awaited me. I had the door code, so I figured I’d just take a look. It was a short walk down Sumskaya, one of the biggest and most important streets in Kharkiv. Directly across the street from the opera house (a horrible Stalinist structure that looks more like a women’s detention center than an opera house) and Schevshenko Park (not as nice as it sounds – there’s litter everywhere – this is quite a dirty city) is 48 Sumskaya. The outside of the building didn’t look too bad, but the door looked pretty seedy. A metal slab that didn't really fit into the door slot very well. I put in the door code and walked into a really dank, unlit, smelly, broken concrete passage with broken stairs made of concrete. I held my nose and climbed up the eight flights of stairs to the fourth floor and apartment 40. Another dark hallway and a locked door – no way to actually see the apartment – I didn’t have the key, only the door code for the outside door. Good thing we hadn’t found it the night before!! But I was completely shell-shocked just by the building entrance and climb to the fourth floor. I knew there was no way I could stay here, not even for 12 days. Sasha wasn’t quite as shocked as I was, but even she thought it was pretty bad (although, we both agreed, a great location).
We walked over to the café where Ed and Gennady and Arkadiy were meeting (they don’t have any offices yet, so they were ensconced in a small back room that was steaming hot). Introductions were made all around (including Belle who was with us). Ed was finished with his initial meeting so he joined me and Sasha for lunch – we ended up eating at the very same café, but outside, where it was quite pleasant. With Sasha’s help, we were able to order some delicious little meat dumplings and grilled cheese sandwiches (different from ours – these are open faced and eaten with a knife and fork).
I reported my morning activities to Ed, told him there was no way I could stay at 48 Sumskaya that night and for the next 12 nights, so we decided that we would stay in the hotel one more night to see what apartment options were available after I saw what Vlad and Alona had to offer. We also agreed that I would call Elena and insist that I had to see the next apartment – the “permanent” place in Kharkiv – before we would move in.
I feel I have to take a few minutes to comment on the women of Kharkiv – one can’t help but remark on their dress. As a general rule they wear skin tight clothes – jeans, Capri pants, teeny tiny micro mini skirts (even at the height – and I mean that quite literally – of my mini-skirt days in the late sixties, I don’t think I ever came close! I don’t even think my tennis skirts were this short!). Invariably they wear very high spike heels and somehow manage to make their way down uneven sidewalks, rutted streets and pavement, and cobble stone roads, usually towering over their boyfriends, without falling. I was too out of it in Kyiv to really notice what was going on, but I’m willing to bet it’s the same, only more so, there. The men all seem to wear short sleeved sports shirts and light colored slacks or jeans – I haven’t yet seen anyone in a suit.
By now I had made and received a number of calls about the apartment situation. I arranged to meet Vlad at 3 p.m. to see a couple of places, but then he called to say I couldn’t see them until the next morning. Alona thought she would have something to show me at 6 p.m. I called Elena and told her that we would not be taking the studio at 48 Sumskaya for the next 12 days, and that we had to see 38 Sumskaya before we would agree to take that one. Well, this was unheard of – how could I possibly expect to see a place before I agreed to reserve it!!! According to Elena this was “not possible” – there was no way she could arrange it, it was a fabulous apartment, “very popular,” and I would love it, she assured me. I told her I had seen pictures of the apartment and I was pretty sure I wouldn’t love it – I listed the apartments that appealed to me on her website – none were available of course – and I told her that she should try to find other apartments that looked like the ones I liked. It was becoming pretty clear to me that we were going to have to eat the $300 we had sent via Western Union and find an apartment elsewhere. I called and told her so – saying that my husband’s plans had changed and that we now had to go to Kyiv instead of Kharkiv. You can imagine the response when Ed called later that night to try to get some of the $300 we had sent returned!
After paying for our room for the coming night at the reception area, Ed and I ran into Sasha as she was coming back from the opera (at 7:30, after the first act of Pique Dame - it was apparently quite a terrible performance). We asked her to join us and we found a nice little café on Pushkinskya, where I had a great cucumber and tomato salad with sour cream dressing, and some dumplings. The cafe had delicious Illy coffe and little Illy dark chocolate covered almonds after dinner. The apartments in Kharkiv might be horrible, but so far the food is really good!
We had a good sleep in our pleasant room at the Hotel Kharkiv, and the next morning I went down for our breakfast, with Belle in tow. I looked at the receptionist and said “Soboka neh moje?” and she smiled, opened the door to the café, and said “Moje” with a welcoming gesture. So Belle trotted in and sat quietly while we had our pots of tea and toast.
Ed went off with Sasha to his first meeting with Arkadiy and Gennady and I went to the FABULOUS internet club next door to the hotel. This place is really great – 7 HVA per hour (about $1.40) with unlimited traffic, comfortable desks and chairs, beautiful new equipment, and best of all, the ability to hook up my laptop to the Ethernet cable and connect! Unfortunately, dogs were “neh moje” so Belle had to stay in the hotel room. But the housekeeping staff loves her and I wasn’t too worried about her.
I began the search for an apartment – it looked like I had until noon to find something (and it was already 9:30 a.m.) since that was checkout time at the hotel – there is no real concept of “late checkout” – you just pay for half a day (in advance!)if you don’t get out by noon. First thing – collect emails. Thank God there was one from Elena asking where I had been – someone had gone to meet us on the early train from Kyiv and we weren’t there – and then a second email giving me her cell phone number and asking me to call. I called, but she was “not available” so I began to look on line for other possibilities.
I managed to get in touch with a couple of different people about possible apartments in Kharkiv. The most promising was the woman who had sent me the photos of the small but attractive apartment on Lenina and Kultura streets (no ac or high speed internet, but both could be installed). She gave me the phone number of Vlad, her colleague in Kharkiv, and told me that she would alert him that I would be calling. When I called Vlad a few minutes later he was expecting my call, explained that he was at the border driving back from Russia and would not be back in the office for about 2 or 3 hours, at which time he would go through his data base and be able to show me apartments later that afternoon. I told him to call me as soon as he had anything to show me – that I would go anytime that worked for him.
I finally got a hold of Elena and she said the studio apartment wasn’t at 38 Sumskaya, but at 48 Sumskaya – well, she had definitely told me that the address was “38” (I reviewed all our Skype chats – that was the way she chose to communicate – and there it was in black and white). I asked her whether she could send someone to collect us and our things and bring us to the apartment that day, and she said she would arrange to have the driver come at 3 p.m. I figured we would stay there while I continued to look for something better than the one bedroom at 38 Sumskaya to move into for the balance of the two months. That way we would at least get value for the $300 we had sent to Elena via Western Union.
By now it was after noon and Sasha called to ask if I wanted to go to the opera that night at 6 pm - they were doing Pique Dame. She was at the opera house and was going to buy a ticket and thought I might like to join her. I told her I would love to, but that I had to wait and see what happened with these apartment showings. Meanwhile, we agreed to meet for lunch.
Sasha came by and got me and we decided to walk down to 48 Sumskaya and see what awaited me. I had the door code, so I figured I’d just take a look. It was a short walk down Sumskaya, one of the biggest and most important streets in Kharkiv. Directly across the street from the opera house (a horrible Stalinist structure that looks more like a women’s detention center than an opera house) and Schevshenko Park (not as nice as it sounds – there’s litter everywhere – this is quite a dirty city) is 48 Sumskaya. The outside of the building didn’t look too bad, but the door looked pretty seedy. A metal slab that didn't really fit into the door slot very well. I put in the door code and walked into a really dank, unlit, smelly, broken concrete passage with broken stairs made of concrete. I held my nose and climbed up the eight flights of stairs to the fourth floor and apartment 40. Another dark hallway and a locked door – no way to actually see the apartment – I didn’t have the key, only the door code for the outside door. Good thing we hadn’t found it the night before!! But I was completely shell-shocked just by the building entrance and climb to the fourth floor. I knew there was no way I could stay here, not even for 12 days. Sasha wasn’t quite as shocked as I was, but even she thought it was pretty bad (although, we both agreed, a great location).
We walked over to the café where Ed and Gennady and Arkadiy were meeting (they don’t have any offices yet, so they were ensconced in a small back room that was steaming hot). Introductions were made all around (including Belle who was with us). Ed was finished with his initial meeting so he joined me and Sasha for lunch – we ended up eating at the very same café, but outside, where it was quite pleasant. With Sasha’s help, we were able to order some delicious little meat dumplings and grilled cheese sandwiches (different from ours – these are open faced and eaten with a knife and fork).
I reported my morning activities to Ed, told him there was no way I could stay at 48 Sumskaya that night and for the next 12 nights, so we decided that we would stay in the hotel one more night to see what apartment options were available after I saw what Vlad and Alona had to offer. We also agreed that I would call Elena and insist that I had to see the next apartment – the “permanent” place in Kharkiv – before we would move in.
I feel I have to take a few minutes to comment on the women of Kharkiv – one can’t help but remark on their dress. As a general rule they wear skin tight clothes – jeans, Capri pants, teeny tiny micro mini skirts (even at the height – and I mean that quite literally – of my mini-skirt days in the late sixties, I don’t think I ever came close! I don’t even think my tennis skirts were this short!). Invariably they wear very high spike heels and somehow manage to make their way down uneven sidewalks, rutted streets and pavement, and cobble stone roads, usually towering over their boyfriends, without falling. I was too out of it in Kyiv to really notice what was going on, but I’m willing to bet it’s the same, only more so, there. The men all seem to wear short sleeved sports shirts and light colored slacks or jeans – I haven’t yet seen anyone in a suit.
By now I had made and received a number of calls about the apartment situation. I arranged to meet Vlad at 3 p.m. to see a couple of places, but then he called to say I couldn’t see them until the next morning. Alona thought she would have something to show me at 6 p.m. I called Elena and told her that we would not be taking the studio at 48 Sumskaya for the next 12 days, and that we had to see 38 Sumskaya before we would agree to take that one. Well, this was unheard of – how could I possibly expect to see a place before I agreed to reserve it!!! According to Elena this was “not possible” – there was no way she could arrange it, it was a fabulous apartment, “very popular,” and I would love it, she assured me. I told her I had seen pictures of the apartment and I was pretty sure I wouldn’t love it – I listed the apartments that appealed to me on her website – none were available of course – and I told her that she should try to find other apartments that looked like the ones I liked. It was becoming pretty clear to me that we were going to have to eat the $300 we had sent via Western Union and find an apartment elsewhere. I called and told her so – saying that my husband’s plans had changed and that we now had to go to Kyiv instead of Kharkiv. You can imagine the response when Ed called later that night to try to get some of the $300 we had sent returned!
After paying for our room for the coming night at the reception area, Ed and I ran into Sasha as she was coming back from the opera (at 7:30, after the first act of Pique Dame - it was apparently quite a terrible performance). We asked her to join us and we found a nice little café on Pushkinskya, where I had a great cucumber and tomato salad with sour cream dressing, and some dumplings. The cafe had delicious Illy coffe and little Illy dark chocolate covered almonds after dinner. The apartments in Kharkiv might be horrible, but so far the food is really good!
posted by Susan Spivak at 1:53 PM
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