More than a dozen Blablacar stories will remain unwritten because after this day everything has changed. So this is the last story. Of course, I will still use Blablacar, but nothing will be the same as before. And who needs these stories, how distant and unnecessary they seem now…
I woke up from a call at 5 am in Kamianets-Podilskyi. The day before, I drove on and stopped in Kamianets on the way to Kyiv. At night, the old town was empty. When I woke up, I tried to work and make an action plan, but I just talked to people and read the news, trying to make an action plan.
The old town of Kamyanets was empty, there were few lonely people walking with large packages of food… After leaving the hotel, I posted a trip to Blablacar, some passengers appeared - a girl from Kamyanets, who was going to Zhytomyr, and two passengers from Vinnytsia to Kyiv, one of whom, according to the conversation had to go to the military unit. That's why I decided to go through Vinnytsia, although it would be easier to go to Zhytomyr by another road.
I did not want to eat at all, but went to a restaurant, ordered, still had to wait for a passenger. The girl came with a parrot, who was surprisingly calm on the road that I didn't even notice it.
"We will listen to the news," I said. And all the way we listened to the radio, we didn't communicate much.
Already from the road, a guy from Vinnytsia called back and said that he had found an option to leave faster, so I decided to change the route and go not through Vinnytsia. The girl hurried to the bus to Korosten, but due to traffic jams, we did not come in time. I took her to the bus station in Zhytomyr and continued the way Kyiv.
The Zhytomyr route in the opposite direction was in a huge traffic jam. And on my lane - cars drove just in my direction against all rules. Sometimes they drove on the far right, closer to the curb with the emergency light on. Sometimes in the far left. And sometimes on all three lanes, so I quickly had to make decisions and change lanes, or wait for the oncoming car to change it. And indeed, I thought, there is a better chance of dying in such an accident at high speed than from a bomb.
Silence and tranquility in Kyiv itself did not please, but on the contrary, pressed.
Kyiv… few people know you as I do. Your spirals, the arteries of the city, your cafes, and your people - all this I hoped to perpetuate in literature. But can I now? Will there be enough time?..