I traveled abroad by train for the first time. As it turned out later, most of my fellow passengers were also using international railway services for the first time. Like me, they simply had no idea what awaited them behind the carriage door. Like me, they were under a delusion: it seemed that a train carrying Ukrainian citizens abroad should (for reasons of international prestige, perhaps) be at least a little more comfortable than a train that takes these same citizens around Ukraine. And the journey should be, if not pleasant, then tolerable...
There were, of course, no plane tickets on the eve of the New Year. There were train tickets. First class at the price of a plane ticket. And second class, costing a hundred 'greenbacks' converted from hryvnias. That's what I bought, and, praising myself for thriftiness and undemandingness, I arrived at the station at the appointed time.
The train pulled in, with a cheerful light blue carriage dangling at the tail. 'Blue is the color of hope,' I thought and climbed onto the step. I walked down the narrow corridor to the compartment, where two people were already sitting on a red velvet sofa: a stout middle-aged man and his nimble, youthful-looking wife. It was dark and sleepy, but my brain was working intensely. What a problem: if there are two berths in the compartment and three passengers, which one is extra?
As it turned out, none. The third passenger's place was indicated in the air, somewhere between the upper and lower berths. The man, noticing my anxiety, became active, and from his efforts a third berth appeared, previously disguised as the back of the sofa. When the compartment was 'completed,' the three of us decided to sit back down on what had been the sofa, i.e., the lower berth. And... we all hit our heads on the second berth. 'Ouch!' the woman cried for all of us. 'That hurts!' The stout man tried to straighten up but failed and hit his head on the edge of the berth again. The blow sparked his imagination. 'And how are we going to fit in here?' he tried to imagine. 'My husband, by the way, weighs 130 kilograms and snores a lot!' his nimble wife reported simply, without boasting. Her words decided the fate of the lower berth. Would you agree to have 130 kilograms snoring above you? Yes, a Resmed CPAP would have come in handy, but it was too late.
So, the wife lay down above her husband, while I ascended to the third, upper berth. Ascended is the word, since there were no ladders, as in ordinary four-berth compartment carriages, to be seen. I ascended and fell asleep.
In the morning I woke up with a heavy feeling: there was still a day of jolting to Prague. Right before my eyes, at arm's length, was the compartment ceiling. With sharp nostalgia I remembered trips in a standard soft carriage. With tenderness, the Soviet-era SV. The snoring brought back a sense of reality. The neighbors below were asleep. I carefully climbed down and sat on the only available chair.
When my fellow passengers opened their eyes, they realized they had lost: while I was sitting, they could only lie down. The husband didn't care—he lived lying down anyway. The wife, being more mobile, went to negotiate with the conductor. The conductor initially advised the poor woman to take her money to some blessed place where everything is much better, called the 'Czech carriage.' The poor woman disappeared but quickly returned: the Czech paradise was locked, and the Czech Petr did not answer the knock. Then, the three of them—the husband and wife and the conductor—persuaded the fellow-countryman conductor to move me to another compartment.
In the other compartment, on the third berth, some hopelessly drunk man was sleeping without waking up (maybe he was just afraid to get down?). In Prague, they helped him off. On the middle berth, a plump, rosy-cheeked little child lay peacefully. He ate lying down because I was on the lower berth. On the fold-down stool—also me. In biology, this is called territorial struggle. One of the forms of survival struggle.
I survived. But I returned from Prague to Kyiv on a Czech Airlines plane. Fast. True, not without losses. While unpacking my luggage at home, I discovered that an exquisite perfume from Coco Chanel had ejected somewhere between Prague and Boryspil. But that's another story...
AFTERWORD
For an active traveler, the risk of undergoing trials like those described above is high. As the author was explained in the tariff department of the Passenger Service Center, international trains departing from Kyiv are formed from second-class carriages of two types – 2/3 (two-thirds, with three-berth compartments) and 2/4 (two-fourths, with four-berth compartments).
In trains No. 7 and No. 15, second-class carriages are arranged according to the '2/3 system.' The first-class compartments of these trains also have three berths located along one wall, but only two of them are used for passengers.
Train No. 51 has both three-berth and four-berth second-class carriages. In other trains, second-class carriages are designed for four passengers. The Kyiv–Prague train includes so-called 'Czech' (running to Prague) and 'Slovak' (running to Bratislava) carriages. They belong to the Czech and Slovak railway systems respectively, tickets for them are sold on a common basis and at practically the same price as tickets for Ukrainian Ministry of Railways carriages. 'Polish' carriages are available on the Kyiv–Warsaw train. These are a second-class carriage running Kyiv–Szczecin and a first-class carriage.