Crossing enemy lines on the overnight train from Kyiv to Crimea
SEVASTOPOL, Ukraine — The overnight run from Kyiv to Crimea has become a momentous political journey.
The electrified train starts among the blue and yellow flags of the Ukrainian capital and ends 17 hours later among Russian white, blue and red tricolours alongside the waters of the Black Sea.
As the train, which was painted in Ukrainian colours, trundled south, Ukrainian federalists got off at stops along the way, leaving mostly Crimean Russian nationalists on board by the time it reached the peninsula.
Activists on both sides of the Ukrainian issue have been provoking each other for weeks with venomous insults. That was what triggered a violent fracas involving dozens of people in Sevastopol on Sunday that ended with Russian Cossacks viciously lashing pro-Ukraine supporters.
The world, like Ukraine, trembles at the repercussions that may arise from the occupation of Crimea by Russian troops and what would come next if, as expected, Crimea bolts from Ukraine and joins Russia after a referendum on March 16.
So a most remarkable and welcome aspect of this trip across what are now enemy lines was how quiet and civilized it was. No bureaucrats, police, soldiers or vigilantes armed with clubs or stanchions bothered any of the train’s 400 passengers for documents or posed blunt questions about where anyone was travelling or why.
As during Soviet times, passengers of both sexes were thrown together in four-berth “hard class� compartments. It was in one such compartment that I found Roman Vasilihin, who approved of Moscow’s military incursion into Crimea, about to doss down for the night across from Tatyana Kosenko and her husband, Vyachislav, who were both ardent supporters of an independent, western-oriented Ukraine.
“I am born in Sevastopol and you know the history of that city,� Vasilihin, who sells Israeli avocado oil across Ukraine, told the Kosenkos. “It has been Russian almost its entire existence.
“I think of my parents. If Crimea becomes part of Russia, with all its oil and gas, it could be good for them. It might be good if part of the country is Russian and part of it stays in Ukraine.�
He also decried the bloodshed in Kyiv’s Independence Square, the catalyst that led to the overthrow of president Viktor Yanukovych on Feb. 22. He noted that Russian troops, who first appeared outside Ukrainian military bases in Crimea on Feb. 28 and are now out and about in fairly large numbers, had not harmed anyone .
Wearing an enigmatic smile, Tatyana patiently waited for a chance to speak.
“I feel Ukrainian, not Russian, and I don’t want my country to be an arena for a fight between the East and the West,� she said. “Each wants to influence the world but doing this on our territory leaves us with all the problems.�
Vyachislav Kosenko, who speaks Russian with his wife, not Ukrainian, despite their devotion to the Ukrainian ideal, jumped in with the observation that “all the people here understand each other. It is the politicians that put us in conflict.�