My friendship with my now best friend James started in an unusual way. I was starting my first year at the University of Leeds in England, and I was on my way to the airport in Kyiv to take a plane to London.
James, my future flatmate, messaged me as I was leaving.
“So you’ll be here some time tomorrow then?” he asked.
“Erm no – I’ll be there in about six hours. Do you think Ukraine is in Africa or something?” I jokingly texted back at him.
I wasn’t far off, as I later found out. On questioning, his image of Ukraine consisted of it just being huts in a field. But before you write James off as being a few pampushki short of a bowl of borscht (you really shouldn’t, he’s a very smart guy), it is worth noting that many people in the U.K. have very little idea what Ukraine is actually like.
And while I found that most British people don’t really care about your nationality (a lot even thought I was British), I still managed to note down a nice collection of ridiculous things people said to me after they heard I was from Ukraine. For ease of presentation, I’ve sorted them into three categories.
- Ukraine is a backward state
“Is it weird for you when you come to England and there’s internet everywhere?” a guy once asked me on a night out.
“We have internet in Ukraine…”
“Yeah, like in big cities. But not in the countryside?”
“Do you mean public Wi-Fi? Well you don’t get that in English countryside too, do you?”
“No, I mean like mobile internet”
“Yeah, we have that in Ukraine too…”
I imagined myself arriving in England and getting thoroughly excited by the internet. “Oh finally, I can stop writing letters!” I would probably shout, and throw my pen and writing paper into the nearest bin.
Other people asked me if we have cinemas and whether Ukraine is a communist state. The latter one wasn’t even a question. A guy in a nightclub in Cardiff spent an hour trying to convince me that Ukraine was a hotbed of communism. I’d have rather spent the time reading the collected works of Vladimir Lenin.
- There is nothing but the girls
I remember doing a task at university in which I had to use pictures of my hometown. I googled “Kyiv”, “Ukraine” and so on, but would have to scroll through hundreds of websites with offers “to meet and date single Ukrainian women” before I could actually find what I needed.
Even though I haven’t experienced much stereotyping as a Ukrainian woman myself (nobody really knew much about Ukraine, let alone women in Ukraine), it is difficult to ignore this particular myth, given that there are literally entire books devoted to the art of seducing them.
I don’t know what it is about Ukrainian women. Many are undoubtedly beautiful, but sometimes there just seems to be too much emphasis on this, as if it is the only thing that’s good about Ukraine. I’ve actually met somebody with a life goal of marrying an Eastern European woman. (He probably succeeded, because people in Ukraine are obsessed with marriage)
- Security concerns
One issue that pops up often, especially since 2014, is safety. A friend of mine once asked me if Kyiv was safe. Her boyfriend was going there for an internship and she was asking so many questions, as if he was being sent off to a blood-drenched war front instead of an internship in Kyiv.
I could almost imagine her shouting “tell me, is he going to die?!”. I had to bite my tongue – she was at risk of being seriously hurt if I’d told her how silly she was being. I was already back in Kyiv at the time, so found it amusing, although quite annoying as well.
Yes, Ukraine is at war. Yes, very sadly people are dying almost every day in the Donbas. But Kyiv is hundreds of kilometers away from the war zone. Sad to say, life goes on much as usual in Kyiv and other parts of the country away from the area of fighting.
Forget the myths, see the real Ukraine this May
Of course, there’s one sure way to dispel these and other common myths about Ukraine – come and see the place for yourself. I always invite all my foreign friends to visit. James, who was brave enough to accept the invitation, not only survived the experience, but loved it as well.
Ukraine is a great country: we have cheap beer (often cheaper than ordering water in restaurants, no kidding), picturesque churches, grand and varied landscapes, a fascinating history, vibrant culture, superb food, and more cheap beer.
And also, we have Eurovision this May. Even if you’re not a fan of this admittedly cheesy musical bash, or if you didn’t manage to grab yourself a ticket, there’s still a host of things to do in the Ukrainian capital.
So while Kyiv is bound to be at its best and liveliest between May 9-13, there are plenty of reasons to come at other times and seasons.
And while you might come away from the country having a few less myths about it, you’ll certainly gain some true stories about this vast and little known European country to amaze friends with back home.
