In Kyiv’s ever-busy Boryspil airport, I noticed a girl advertising a mobile operator’s service. She was wearing a short pink skirt, slightly wider than a belt, paired with a tight pink top, the type that Britney Spears favors in her music videos.
It was hard to miss her. The sign on the back of her skirt read: The incoming are free. The slogan on the front – above her hips – said: Cheaper than you think.
She wasn’t advertising a phone sex service. She just embodied another badly-dressed campaign, which spoke less of the product and more of the country it was made in. Pity she was right there in the main international gateway to Ukraine, greeting thousands of passengers flying in and out.
In my earliest memory, Boryspil airport has marble floors, confusing hallways and white-robed cleaners. In 1998, there were also a few cats running around. This is a fond memory – much like of the kindergarten or school that may have looked shabby – but was bound to change.
The Boryspil airport welcomes up to 2,000 people per hour. Passengers, however, don’t get a very beautiful welcome to Kyiv and Ukraine, as the airport remains one of the least appealing international airports in appearance and amenities. (UNIAN)
The walking pink ad has spurred me to reset my memory clock. I looked around Boryspil and was ashamed to admit that it has not changed for the better since I first saw it. Arrivals and departures halls are not clearly separated, and they are both too small for the armies of passengers pushing through. There is only one toilet before you go through passport control. It is downstairs, meaning that you have to drag your luggage with you if you are traveling alone. Escalators are yet to carve through this zone.
The same marble floors pave the way to the gates. The whole entrance looks like a chaotic flea market with occasional food stalls, a currency exchange and airline offices. The human element has certainly slimmed down since the mid-1990s and swapped grim uniforms with new dress. Manners and smiles are still too much to ask for. Waiting for the boarding announcement, I saw one flight attendant munching on sunflower seeds and another polishing fingernails in front of the waiting passengers.
At check-in, I find men stewards a lot more helpful but that’s perhaps due to the opposites’ attraction rule. Female staff often send me those haughty and ignorant vibes that one woman usually exchanges with another when they are in competition for a man. Yes, I am in competition in this line – but it’s for a better seat and nothing personal.
Once through, there is an escalator to the screening gates – the one and only, I believe. The next and last hurdle is a passport control in another small hall. But once you pass it, there is a small duty-free store stuffed with last season’s Gucci bags, two cafes and a Soviet mural on the wall. Electrical outlets are not obvious so don’t bother starting your laptop unless you have a full battery. Smoking zones are not clearly marked or separated.
Some two hours later and 1,400 kilometers away, we landed in Prague. The Czech Republic has a history similar to Ukraine’s. The Austro-Hungarian rule was followed by German occupation. The Red Army cleared the Nazis out and planted the Communist regime in right after World War II. Czechoslovakia peacefully dissolved into the Czech Republic and Slovakia in 1993 – two years after Ukraine divorced itself from the Soviet Union.
Prague’s Ruzyne airport has the same marble floors as Boryspil. Up to 2,000 passengers rush through them each hour to get to around 100 destinations worldwide. Both international terminals feel provincial compared to Amsterdam or London air hives and yet Prague can easily shame Boryspil.
In Prague airport, there is no confusion with signage, no lack of space. There are no taxi sharks trying to snatch you up for a higher fee. Apart from the usual vertical escalators, the horizontal ones help you get to the gates. There is no problem with the English language. And the only girl wearing a provocative mini-skirt was a passenger from the Ukrainian flight. Exiting through a sleeve was another poignant reminder that I would have to go on the bus once back in Kyiv.
It’s hard to quantify how many negative reports of Boryspil experiences I come across in person and online. Luggage theft, unhelpful personnel and dirty toilets top the long list of problems.
If it is any consolation, Moscow’s Sheremetyevo stands out as the more dated and crowded terminal.
Boryspil Airport’s website says they hope to expand and modernize its terminals by the time Ukraine co-hosts the Euro 2012 football championship along with neighboring Poland. I have reset my memory clock and hope they won’t spoil the second chance to make a first impression.
Kyiv Post staff writer Yuliya Popova can be reached at [email protected].
