By Broken Roads: A Ukraine Travelogue

Two brothers from Poland delivered a vanload of supplies from Krakow to Odesa, driving through countries that were once part of the Eastern Bloc. A reporter went along for the ride.

Guest Post by Zarina Zabrisky

Hit the Road

It’s the 71st day of the war, and I hit the road to Ukraine. Why? The answer will take a few volumes, and it doesn’t matter. What matters is how I’m getting there. Two Polish brothers drive a load of tactical glasses, gloves, knee pads, first aid, multitool kits, and other odd things—it weighs 2,300 kg, way over the allowed limit—through Poland, Slovakia, Hungary and Romania, to the Ukrainian border. I tag along. From there, another Polish man—a writer, I hear, whom everyone in Odesa knows—drives the stuff, and me, to Odesa.

That is, if he finds gas. A fuel shortage in Odesa, and all over Ukraine, makes every move hard and renders many plans obsolete, and so does the war. The Russians bombed the major oil depots in Ukraine—now twice—and most of the country’s gas stations are empty. Boris the writer uses his fame and contacts to get gas. He simply must get it. The brothers—Mirek and Grzegorz—can’t drive any further. A friend loaned the van to them free of charge, without the hazard insurance for the war zone. It’s a war, though, so we just go for it.

Poland

We start early. Around the corner, the Russian consulate in Krakow looms in the morning mist like a besieged fortress in the sea of sunflower yellow and azure blue: Ukrainian flags fly at every corner and swing from every window. Toy bears stained with artificial blood sit on the sidewalk staring at the windows like it’s a spring Halloween. A larger-than-life Putin with Hitler’s mustache—caption: MASS MURDERER—gazes at the limp Russian flag over the entrance. “Poland heart Ukraine.”

We drive through the old streets of Krakow with its tired European air, tourist carts pulled by white draft-horses, bells jiggling in silky manes, hoofs clicking on the cobblestones, and through the new Krakow, with Soviet-style gray high-rises, out of the city and to Grzegorz’s home in Kolbuszowa, a small suburb with pretty houses. After a luscious breakfast of scrambled eggs with pickles, nicely sliced sausage and cheese, Grzegorz’s wife pours us all coffee to go. She is used to her husband going to the war zone—this will be his sixth ride. Their Saint Bernard-ish pup is playing by the vans as we move boxes with macaroni, soups, dry food between already full vans—not everything fits; the rest will have to go next week, with a trailer. I’m still not sure what’s going on and how it all works.

“All donations are by companies and people in Poland. We all help because Ukrainians are fighting for us,” explains Mirek. “Say hi to our mom!”

A miniature woman walks to us, smiling. She says, “I have two sons in this war.”

A twenty-year-old black cat rubs against the van, and off we go, on Friday the 13th, on a warm May day, onto the highway framed by bee-stomach-yellow “rzepak”—rapeseed flowers—and bright blue sky, as if we are driving straight into the Ukrainian flag.

“Does your mom worry?” I ask.

“Well, we are in Ukraine only briefly. Not a problem.”

Mirek and Grzegorz started to drive the supplies to Ukraine the first week of the war. Mirek’s friend Andrzej knew Boris the writer, they wanted to contribute something to the war effort, and, before they knew it, they all collected two buses of goods and drove them to the border.

“That first time, when I saw the women and children fleeing Ukraine by the ferry, I cried,” says Mirek. “I couldn’t sleep at night. Now, it’s just something we do.”

“Same here,” says Grzegorz. “It still a bit like an adventure, though.”

We drive through the Polish countryside: orderly, neat, solid houses, smooth roads. It doesn’t feel like an adventure at all. Mirek smiles. “My business is designing these highways. See these road islands? The drivers are not happy about slowing down.”

Everything is so mundane: the road quality and talk of gas prices—but there is nothing mundane about this trip.

The War

The biggest war in Europe since World War II is awaiting us upon the arrival. Russians have been waging a slow-burning war in Ukraine since 2014, when they annexed Crimea, claiming their troops were not there. On February 24, 2022, Putin announced on the national TV “a special military operation” to “denazify” and “demobilize” Ukraine. A few hours later, a full scale aggression into a peaceful country shook the world.

For many, February 24th never stopped. I’m one of them—and so are Mirek and Grzegorz. For people like us, it’s so easy to speak to each other—a secret brotherhood, an instant bond, as if I knew them all my life. I know nothing about them, though.

Grzegorz

“I was supposed to be in Mexico. Then in Egypt. Diving. It’s my second profession, cave-diving. My first profession is running my construction company—painting metal roofs and walls. But cave-diving—”

“An obsession,” says Mirek.

“Not just caves but also mines. Flooded mines I love how there is no one there. Nothing. In mines, maybe, old shoes or tools left by the miners but that’s it. In caves, stalactites, stalagmites. I used to want to fly. I love the sense of no gravity. I took parachute classes but then went to Egypt, tried diving, and that was it for me. I even have a Guinness record—at the underwater wedding with a group of divers, in Norway.”

“Do you do crazy things, Mirek?”

“I’m an older brother. I just ride my bike. Look, the NATO munition trucks.”

To the right of the highway, swamp-green armored vehicles are lined up in even rows.

“Everyone in Ukraine is asking for more weapons, from kids to grandmas and to the President,” I say. “I hope they get these.”

Slovakia

We speed up and down the serpentine road that twists and turns, with more and more trucks around. Rapeseed fields—rzepak!—are more yellow, mountains loom on the horizon, a castle swishes by. The brothers switch to Polish and laugh at some jokes I don’t get. The Rolling Stones are blasting. Angie, Angie, ain’t it good to be alive? It’s supposed to be a serious, almost a suffering trip, but it’s actually fun. Should I feel guilty? Why do I always feel guilty? Before, I used to see Dostoevsky’s mournful face behind the thin film of the reality. Now, Dostoevsky has paled away. It is just the reality.

A large brick steakhouse might as well be in the U.S.: polished wooden stairs, a wooden motorcycle. The place is called Harleys Prizemie: Pilsner beer ads and license plates from Missouri, Colorado and Mississippi on the brick walls. The brothers eat their sizzling steaks with onion rings seriously and silently. I wonder if the goods are still in the van in the parking lot. The locks don’t work—it is a free van, after all.

Hungary

As we are crossing the border with Hungary, —no passport control—red roofs, green fields, lots of “rzepak”—I check my phone. A message from San Francisco, from a Russian activist friend who had escaped prison and asked for political asylum in the U.S. five years ago. “In a hospital. Overdid it on anti-depressants. Out of danger now.”

I’ve never heard of anyone overdosing on anti-depressants. I guess it really sums up how the few sane Russians feel these days. The rest of that country has been brainwashed into fascist frenzy. One Russian activist wrote, “My birth country is not me. We choose where to live and how to live.” My birth country is sure as hell not me. I froze there in winter and spent the summers in Odesa, my grandfather’s hometown, as a child, barely survived the collapse of a sick Communist empire, and fled as soon as I could—and as far away as I could. I look at the Hungarian countryside. Another victim of empires.

I’m not a victim. I’m choosing where and how to live. We don’t stop, just keep driving until we hit Romania.

Romania

A passport check—for about a minute—and off to a big city, Oradea. I have never heard of it in my life. Either my geography is really poor, or there are too many cities and towns to know in this world, or even on this continent. I look at the GPS: a blinking blue dot is traveling down, down, down across “the territory whose shreds slowly rot across the extent of the map.” The stench of the Soviet empire spreads from underneath the pixels of my phone screen—I feel it.

No, it’s just spilled gasoline—we are at a gas station. I pay for a full tank of gas. It’s 150 dollars, and I have fundraised for it. A young man with a hipster beard and neat hair sees my press card and tells me in English, “The prices for gas grew twofold in a year, and the prices for food skyrocketed. Life in Romania is getting harder.”

“Not just in Romania,” I say. “The same was true in California when I left two months ago; and in England, Belgium, and France, and everywhere I went to. It’s probably the war. How do you feel about the war?”

“Don’t like it. It’s sad. Wrong.”

Transylvania

Off we go, through small villages with sharp angles of the red roofs, tiny figurines on top, green hills, dogs barking: Transylvania. At midnight, the GPS leads us to a dead end. The unpaved road narrows down at the edge of a steep ravine. Down below a city is shimmering, a pool of light in the darkness, above us is a full moon in ripped pale clouds, and we are stuck in the dense bushes in the dark, in a five-ton van.

“Not the first time,” says Mirek.

“No problem,” Grzegorz assures me.

I grab onto the seat. What if we roll down, with all the adult diapers and tactical vests? Is it a good way to go? What is a good way to go? Does it matter what way you go? Grzegorz inches back over the bumps and potholes and I close my eyes—but we are back on the asphalt and circle around dark streets, with werewolf-looking dogs howling and throwing themselves under the wheels, until we arrive to a moonlit hut. I try my best not to think about vampire movies. I hate stereotypes, but this is all I can think about. Shadows of undead about to appear any minute now.

A door creaks, and, from the darkness, a limping man steps into the light: bluish-pale face, and a patch over an eye.

“Adam!”

He speaks Polish to Mirek and Grzegorz. Another volunteer from Krakow, driving baby food to an orphanage in Izmail. We sit down outside, at a veranda, eating homemade sandwiches. Adam brings a bottle of Famous Goose whiskey.

“Slava Ukraine!”

“Glory to Ukraine!” I say. “My great-grandparents were from Ukraine. They were Jewish and didn’t leave in 1942. The Nazis killed them. The Russians bombed their mass grave in Baby Yar in March, this year. My father always said that smart people left and taught me to run if there was a war. I always do everything wrong.”

Adam finishes his whiskey, stares at the moon. It is very quiet.

“You know, my grandfather was forced to serve in the Nazi Army. Many men from his village had to.”

There were times when I would feel differently about this. In the last ten years, I have seen several countries losing their minds and one country—my birth country—turning into Nazi Zombieland. Shit happens. Adam didn’t choose his grandparents. I didn’t choose mine. We choose what we do.

“My grandfather was a Communist,” I say. “History is a mess. We all are a mess.”

In the morning, in an open kitchen, we dig into omelets and white and porous homemade cheese. Adam is not anywhere to be seen, and I wonder if he was a ghost, after all. A plum vodka in a crystal carafe smells good and crisp. Birds chirp outside, and a sad parrot named Koko mumbles in a cage. He sounds like a chicken. Why do they put birds in cages?

Next, a village after village: Roma women in swirling skirts raise dust on the sidewalk, old men in dirty wifebeater tanks and hats smoke in front of the cast iron gates, stray dogs slowly and lazily pass across the road in front of the speeding cars and trucks. We fly over one of the roads that feels like the Big Sur and Lake Tahoe mixed with Switzerland, with snow-covered peaks on the horizon, emerald forests, turquoise lakes, red roofs of the villages in the valleys below and the blooming apple trees, with more rzepak fields. We pass horse-pulled carts, some with children in bright dresses sleeping on firewood, some with women in rose-patterned scarves sitting on fat sacks, and one with a big shaggy dog dozing away. The serpentine road twists up and down, as we are blasting Bob Dylan, Polish rap and Ukrainian pop. I’m trying to fundraise more as we go, asking groups of volunteers in the U.S. to donate for the gas money, the hotels, the paid roads, and, ahead of us, two ferries.

The first ferry—across the Danube—is airy, light, blue and fun. A dressed-up couple, a lady with coiffured hair and the 80s fashion nightgown and a man with Charlie Chaplin moustache in a tuxedo argue with a ferry operator in greased coveralls. Everything smells of machine oil, old ships, ropes and fresh river water. The seagulls are screaming above our heads.

“It’s like a Kusturitca movie, you know?” says Mirek.

“It is, only Kusturitca is a Putin’s fan. Screw him.”

The Border

At sunset, we stop at the Romanian-Ukrainian border. An Italian volunteer at the pet pavilion doesn’t want me to photograph dog muzzles, cages, and pet food cans—“military situation.” An American volunteer from Maine is training two stray dogs, white and black, outside of the tent. He’s been here for three months, and he says it’s okay. I don’t really need the pet supply photos but I take pictures of anything. It’s fucking history. You never know. It’s late so we don’t see any refugees—just a lot of volunteers, from England, from the U.S.

Our hotel is so new that there are no curtains in the room. There is a big party in the banquet room—with the couple from the ferry dancing away to Romanian folk music amidst pink balloons—but we only sleep for a few hours, as at 6 am we are already in line to make the ferry.

At the Romanian border check point, the customs computer system is down: we wait, along with twenty or so trucks. We have to make the 9 am ferry to meet Boris the writer—fingers crossed, he found gas. The brothers are joking away and, suddenly, I realize that I understand Polish.

The system is down and the sun is out. A border control guard, John, asks me about Ukraine, but he is more interested in California. Word by word, we are talking about the new Marxism in America, about referendums in Romania, the dislike of Russians around the world, weaponizing culture, BLM and transgender movements, Chechens involvement in the Ukrainian war and Romanian history in World War II. John’s grandfather was fighting on the Nazi side, switched—with the entire Romanian army—to fight on the Soviet and Allies side, but was captured by the Russians and sent to Tbilisi, Georgia as a POW, brainwashed, and came back loving Communism and collective farms—only to realize in two months that it was bogus.

“Communism doesn’t work,” says John.

“No, it does not,” says Mirek.

“Amen,” I say. “But how do we explain this to people in America and Europe? They don’t know what we know.”

On my iPhone, our itinerary pulses across Eastern Europe like a red vein.

“We know it in our bones. They have never experienced it, and the idea is enticing.”

“People are more important than ideas,” says John.

“Yes! I try to write about it, both in articles and in stories. Not sure if I’m succeeding. Russians are killing Ukrainians and dying for idiotic ideas as we are talking.”

A group of women with Victoria’s Secret bags arrives, and John leaves to check their passports. The computer system has been repaired. I wonder where these women are heading. Tourists? To Ukraine? During the war?

“Get in! Move on!”

On the ferry, Mirek bribes the operator so we can disembark first and beat the line. The brothers know all ins and outs: a can of beer here, a vodka bottle there, and soon we clear the border and we are in Ukraine.

Ukraine

It’s very still and sunny. Dusty. A stray dog walks by, yawning. The parking lot is facing a field, and I see an endless line of trucks. Boris is not here. He is not answering his phone.

We set a mat by the side of the field and take turns resting on it, waiting. I activate my air raid app and browse the news: the Russians were kicked out of the Kharkiv region but are advancing in Donbas. Ukraine won Eurovision 2022. The winner asked the world to help free Azov fighters in Mariupol. Mirek plays the song: Stefania, Stefania… Ламаними дорогами прийду я завжди до тебе…

By broken roads, I will always come to you.

My air raid app is flashing red: an air raid in Odesa. I lay down on the yoga mat and close my eyes. My childhood memories are all of Odesa: my fingertips remember the uneven warmth of its walls. Will these walls be there? Or will the zombies from the old empire—Stefania, Stefania—

We wait and wait. We talk to the truck drivers, Oleg and Valery, bare-chested and chatty.

“Four days,” Oleg waves to the end of the line. “We live in this truck. We’ve got 40-50 liters of water, and we eat, wash and sleep here.”

A tent with a field kitchen across the road looks like a traveling circus. The truck drivers deliver plywood and sunflower oil to Romania and bring bananas back, waiting for days, for weeks.

“The ferry wasn’t designed for more than two or three trucks. There is a 17 km line at the other crossing point.”

None of this makes sense. I was in Ukraine last September, before the war. It was just like Poland, Slovakia, Hungary, Romania—daily routines, carts, buses, dogs, people, life. Free life. Free of the “Russian world,” free of the deadly ideas the Russians cackle for hundreds of years like caged parrots. Free of Russian tanks moving over the fields. A few kilometers down the line, a truck driver hits the horn and the sonorous blast lingers over the fields.

Suddenly, there is another sound, that of a siren—police? Air raid? Two security service vans with blue flashing lights and blasting sirens break in a cloud of dust, and big men in police-like uniform jump out. “Boris!” Men and women hug, laugh, one woman is crying, and, sweating and cursing, everyone starts loading the boxes from our van to the security services transport. I only now realize how much load we drove: it takes five big men about an hour to move all the boxes. Mirek, Grzegorz and I hug, and for a minute, I wish I had brothers like this.

Bessarabia

I squeeze into the van with Misha—he looks like a heavyweight boxing champion— Olga, a psychologist and culinary history expert, and the famous Boris. The next four hours we are flying with the siren on, with boxes in the back falling, and Misha ordering everyone out of the way through a loudspeaker. We pass a cattle truck flipped on the side of the road, cows wondering with the lost look, and many nicely decorated graves with crosses. Olga tells me about the snail farm, gastronomical tourism, her hatred of the Russians, and her own attempt to flee in the beginning of the war. She and Boris are drinking homemade wine that smells like grapes that I loved as a child. It was called Isabella. It smells like strawberry and wet fox fur, they say. To me, it smells like happiness.

We fly without stopping—passing the antitank hedgehogs, sandbags barricades and soldiers with AKs. None of it looks real, it is a movie, it is a dream, I am just too tired, I need to sleep. By 5 pm we are in the heart of Odesa. Beautiful women with flowing hair are drinking coffee from tiny porcelain cups in cafes outside, in the shade of chestnut trees. Magnolias are blooming and poplar fluff is flying through the fragrant air. Fat cats are asleep at windowsills. The air raid starts howling but no one pays any attention, and from an open window the Eurovision song is playing.

Stefania, Stefania, something, something. By broken roads.

Odesa

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All photos taken on the journey by Zarina Zabrisky.