Seven Signs of the Lion

EVERYBODY PLOWS THROUGH YOU ON THE STREETS

EVERYBODY PLOWS THROUGH YOU ON THE STREETS

Leopolis is a dangerous place for walkers, of which there are multitudes. Everyone walks here, particularly in the downtown feeder streets to the Old Town areas. People nearly knock you over every time. It’s utter madness with its own rules and regulations unlike the ones you’re used to back home where you usually move to the right of anyone coming in the opposite direction. It’s like a gray stone billiard table with tens of thousands of human billiard balls, but no one knocks into anyone else. Expect every driver here in this city NOT to stop for you. Half of them are in big SUVs or BMWs (status symbols) and most of them are talking on a cell phone, as they are about to plow through you. They only stop when a uniformed police office sticks out a baton or a hand at them. They do also stop screechingly at the white-lined pedestrian crossings, of which there seemed to be at least a few in the city.

If Nicholas were to wait during the morning from 9-11a.m. or early evening from say 4-8 p.m. to cross Copernicus Street near his house, he’d still be there waiting. It’s just a solid line of cars all the way to the light at Nechui-Levytsky Street. You learn to pick a spot to jump across the street in front of a car that had come to a stop and just started to pick up speed. When they’re not gunning the engine, they’ll slow down for you, or at least they won’t step on the gas. There was the same problem crossing the street by the main post office near the university, but at least there were a lot of traffic lights where you could cross. There were also immense problems crossing the street at Sich Riflemen Street all the way to the center of town. Fortunately cars would turn left or right onto side streets, which gave you sufficient time to sneak across to get to the Puzata Khata (Pot-Bellied House) restaurant for your cup of coffee or cheap but tasty Ukrainian fast-food meal of the day. Varennyky, the potato dumplings with sour cream, and the borsch were Nicholas’s favorites there, and worth risking your life to cross the street to get to the restaurant.

The parking is another issue. WHAT parking? There are no public parking lots or parking areas. The city wasn’t built for cars. People just pull their vehicles onto the sidewalks regardless of what size they are and wherever they can. They even block narrow entryways into courtyards of buildings where people park their cars and can’t get in and out. It’s an unwritten rule that taxi drivers take up the corner positions on the sidewalk, sometimes on all four corners of an intersection. They sit in their cars smoking a cigarette or blasting some god-awful Russian popsa, pop music until you knock on the taxi window to barter for half the price they ask for. No taxi meters in the taxis in Leopolis, but Nicholas learned to dial 059, 081 and 083 for the radio taxis that charged ten hryvnas to get to the train station instead of 15-20 from the ones on the streets. He knew he’d never complain about parking in New York ever again.

Sundays were the only days of rest from the traffic. Gendarmes dressed in round hats and with billy clubs stood at the feeder streets to the Old Town with orange traffic cones blocking off all vehicles except the tramcars that had to get through on the rails and an occasional VIP car. Sunday was strolling day in Leopolis – couples young and old, families, groups of teenagers and older students. Nicholas learned to appreciate Sundays when the only vehicles on Liberty Avenue were the horse drawn carriages carrying tourists and the miniature electric cars for kids in front of the Opera House.