by Ryan Markiewicz | Jun 21, 2024 | Berlin's Wall
It really has been go-go-go (a good thing), but it really has been non-stop. So, with an evening free, Zoryana, Andrii, Derek, and I did what people have done for centuries in Odesa. We went to the beach!
Zoryana leading the way 🙂
And maybe if Derek and I didn’t deserve the break, Zoryana surely did. Lots of driving and running around.
But we got to take a break too. And, honestly, it sure felt good.
While we were there, the air raid sirens went off again. It’s a weird feeling. You know something is coming–cruise missile, ballistic missile, hypersonic missile, drone. But these warnings go off very often in this part of the country. It has been hit more than Kyiv has. Plus, its proximity to the sea (cruise missiles can be fired from ships/subs, though the Ukrainian forces have largely driven the Russian fleet out of the Black Sea), as well as its proximity to occupied Crimea, means that a hypersonic missile will hit in 3-5 minutes. They are launched from that close.
And what do you do? There are no bomb shelters on the beach, and it would take more than five minutes to get to one.
Most people just stay. These are mostly (mostly) false alarms, or the missile/drone is shot down by air defense. But a sort of fatalism sets in. The odds of the missile striking where you are are low (but not 0), but you just kind of “take the chance.” Almost no one left the beach. They just enjoyed the beautiful spring day despite the alarms.
Just a small sample of what the people in Odesa live through every day.
We went out to a nice dinner, went to bed, and got awakened several times during the night. The first one, we all trudged down to the bomb shelter (except for Zoryana—she’s a badass). We hung out there for awhile with some of the other guests. We discussed it a bit, and one by one, we went back to bed.
After that, we just rolled over and went back to sleep for the other air raid sirens. Nothing hit while we were there, though we did hear one explosion that was anti-missile batteries taking one out. But it becomes a way of life that is hard to picture when you’re not there but easy to understand if you live through it. After all, what are the options?
Onward!
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by Ryan Markiewicz | Jun 20, 2024 | Berlin's Wall
We got to Odesa after our beautiful 4-hour drive (Zoryana kicks ass!)
Odesa is such a historic city. Worth checking it out on Google if you get the chance.
We stayed in a beautiful hotel, The Bristol. Not only is it very nice, but it has a bomb shelter in the basement, which is one of the reasons we chose it—for security.
The Bristol Hotel
The main lobby. Clearly, you can see the luxuriousness of the place. Not what most people picture when they think of Odesa now.
Luckily, our good friends from Allrise Capital invited us to visit their stadium in Odesa. They bought the stadium a few years ago–it is absolutely beautiful and seats 35,000 fans. They also own the local women’s professional football team that trains and plays there, FC Chornomorets Odesa, nicknamed The Seasters (Odesa is a Black Sea Port–get it? 😊)
First because of Covid, and now because of the war, they play the games but with no fans in the stands, so it’s been a tough few years. But these guys are smart and resilient (surprised? 😉) and are investing in the stadium with a hotel, a conference center, and a beautiful training facility, and it looks world-class to me. We can’t wait to return when they can play in front of fans again.
Pretty cool stadium, eh? Club Director, Sergey Burka was kind enough to show us around the facility. Very gracious with his time, and his energy/passion for this was clearly visible.
The daily message to the team at their facility
Got to walk on this beautiful pitch (Pitch = field for any of you who don’t know proper soccer/football terms 🤪)
Zoryana, enjoying the view from the luxury boxes 😊
This is their pool. There is a hotel, conference center, business center, world-class gym. What a facility!
They presented us with a jersey and a promise to have us back. Can’t wait.
What an awesome day.
Onward!
by Ryan Markiewicz | Jun 19, 2024 | Berlin's Wall
We took off bright and early from the hotel, picked up Andriy (cool), and were on our way.
Our driver, former Formula 1 International champ Zoryana (well, I made up the F1 International Champ part, but she is one hell of a good driver), took great care of us and made great time. It’s about 300 miles, and we made it in just over 4 hours (you can do the math 😉). Zoryana has driven several of our folks and spent lots of time with LP’ers there, so she knows our crazy sense of humor, and she was able to handle us with ease.
The entire drive, all you could see was beautiful farmland on both sides as far as the eye could see. Ukraine is known as the breadbasket of the world, and it is easy to see why. There are HUGE farms with crops of every kind. It looked a good bit like Pennsylvania, only with less forest and a lot more farmland. It was very green and lush.
Again, there were really no signs of war the whole way. Other than a couple of checkpoints, which only caused a one—or two-minute delay, there was nothing to indicate that this country has been at war for almost two and a half years. Again, it was very normal-seeming.
We had a fun time. Just the 3 of us as Derek went overnight via train, and we will meet him when we get to Odessa in the afternoon. We stopped at a roadside gas station to try one of their famous hot dogs (we call ’em Road Dogs because every roadside gas station has them). They are delicious. They are regular hot dogs. You can get the normal size or the giant size. You can get different kinds, more red to more brownish. You can get them with mustard, ketchup, and mayo. But the coolest thing is, instead of a normal bun, they have this bun that is closed on one end. They put the condiments through the hole in the top of the bun (they hold the road dogs upright, not sideways) and then slide the dog in.
What’s brilliant about this (besides that they taste so frigging good) is that there is no muss/no fuss. You actually hold them in one hand. No spilling. No mess. It’s Brilliant. Not sure why America and the rest of the world do not eat their hot dogs this way (then again, maybe the rest of the world already does, and I am just behind the times). But man, they are good. I’m already thinking about the drive back to Kyiv later this week so we can stop and get another road dog or two 🤪
As you can see, it’s a straight shot south, a bit over 300 miles from Kyiv (blue dot) to Odessa
Luckily for us we had an Ace driver, Zoryana, who made it in a little over 4 hours 👍
I knew Ukraine has always been known as “The breadbasket of the world” and I have traveled a lot, but I have never seen 300 uninterrupted miles of such beautiful farmland. Was a site to see.
300 miles of THIS!!!
And NOTHING beats THIS. A road dog from the local gas station. DEEEEE-licious
Onward!!
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by Ryan Markiewicz | Jun 18, 2024 | Berlin's Wall
The first morning in Kyiv, we met up with Andrii Krutyi*, our operational team leader.
*Little fun fact: Krutyi means something like “Cool” in English, so obviously, Derek and I now just call him “Cool.” (Which he definitely is 😉)
We got to meet the gang in our beautiful office. Had a wonderful Georgian lunch (for all you Americans who don’t know, not the state of Georgia. Georgia is a country in that part of the world that has AMAZING food 🤪).
Derek and I had a chance to spend some time and to tell them how proud we are of the work they do. In the middle of this war, making sure our customers still get served. Having to deal not only with the threat of bombs and missiles every day, but having rolling blackouts, having to find ingenious ways to stay in communication with the rest of the LP team, with the job sites and the customers, even when the power is down for 6-10-14 hours a day. Not easy.
Luckily for us and for the world, Ukrainians are not only smart and tough and resilient, but they are also very CREATIVE and tend to overcome any obstacles this Russian aggression puts in their way. Like we always say–they find a way or make one.
We used this opportunity to let them know that our entire LP family is behind them, that they have great leadership and a great team, and we hope to bring more and more products into their country, not only to support Ukraine’s resistance and reconstruction but so that they get to work with more and more of our offices, as they have done so well with the Vorex pipe we have been delivering. Connecting dots and knitting the company even closer together.
I think they were happy to see us and to feel the love. It’s funny, we did not talk any specific “business.” Just to get to know each other, that we care, that we have their backs and that we will continue to do everything we can to support their fight. To let them know that their fight is our fight.
To me (and Derek, I’m sure), it was truly humbling and an honor to meet them, shake their hands, and say thank you.
Tomorrow, we drive down to Odesa to visit our team there and to see the latest load of pipe that is being unloaded at the Port of Chonomorsk.
Kyiv, the capital of Ukraine, is a beautiful, historic city
Not many signs that there is a war going on elsewhere in the country. Other than the lack of consistent electricity, (which sucks/no doubt) people lead a pretty normal life.
Was great meeting the terrific Kyiv team. Staying strong. Getting the job done. Heroes!
Onward!
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by Ryan Markiewicz | Jun 17, 2024 | Berlin's Wall
Getting to Ukraine is not easy anymore.
Even though Kyiv would be a short flight to/from many major European cities, there is no flying into Ukraine because of the war. Simply not safe.
So, Derek and I met up in Rzeszow, Poland (probably one of the safest airports in the world due to all the Patriot missile batteries around it) and hooked up with our driver to take us to the rail station at the border town of Przemysl*.
*Side note–now Polish is a different kind of language. I will give $5 to anyone who is not Polish or Eastern European who can correctly pronounce the name of this town–but NO ONE will win it. It is pronounced what sounds to my ear like Shehmesh. But just to keep it simple (and not make fools of ourselves, we call it P Town (even though there is ZERO P sound in the actual pronunciation, though the name starts with a P). For those of you old enough to remember the old TV show Barney Miller, it reminds me of Detective Stan Wojciehowicz, who everyone just called Wojo, and who, when asked how his name was spelled, would reply, “Exactly like it sounds.”
So…P Town it is 🤪
We got to P Town a bit before the train, so we were able to walk around, grab a nice cup of coffee, and look around. It’s a lovely town. Then, we met up with our colleagues from TFA at the station and boarded our train.
The train ride in is about 10-12 hours, depending. You have to cross the border into Ukraine and go through customs on the Polish side and then customs on the Ukraine side—so two separate stops. And since there is a different rail gauge (the width of the tracks) in Ukraine (I think Stalin did that back in the day to keep German trains from easily being able to move east), you have to switch locomotives as well.
We left P Town in the evening for the overnight trip. This was good planning since this way, you can get a good night’s sleep and be up and at ’em for the first day of our visit to Kyiv. Usually, the rocking of the train (think Darius Rucker’s Southbound Train song) gets you into a nice rhythm that puts you to sleep.
However…Maybe it is just me (getting soft in my old age because usually I can sleep anywhere–and have 😉) the train kind of BOUNCED more than rocked (one of our colleagues actually got tossed out of his bunk) and sleep was harder to come by than I expected. Not the end of the world, but I probably got 3-4 hours of sleep.
It was dark so you could not see much outside, but we got to Kyiv on a beautiful spring morning and were picked up by our colleague’s driver (his name is Michael, but they call him Sting because he is Sting’s driver–showed us some very cool videos of him) who took us to our hotel to begin our visit to Ukraine.
So far, so good 👍
The train had a beautiful dining car. And the conductors and staff were very pleasant. The food was pretty good too 🙂
I was so pleasantly surprised to see this photo on the wall in the dining car. It is by Howard Buffett, who is a BIG supporter of the struggle and, if you remember, was in Erie just a week or two before on the German Marshall Fund’s Whistlestop tour of America that we sponsored.
Also in the dining car was this beautiful book. Having only recently met Howard, he has become a big inspiration to me. Someone who has everything life could offer, who could very easily sit back and enjoy his blessings. But, instead, he is committing his time and energy and money to support what he (and I) see as the battle of our lifetimes, that will determine the direction of our nation and the world. A quiet hero, who seeks no headlines or publicity. Just quietly making a difference.
A true inspiration!
Onward!
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