It was my second time in Ukraine. I arrived there about 11 months after the uprising in Maidan. I had been on Maidan Nezalezhnosti for the whole period. I was taking photos of the camp, the people and what happened there and the last two days I was participating in the action. It all affected me very strongly. I had the national anthem on Ukraine playing in my head for all the time I was out of the country and this was one of the reasons I came back to Kyiv. To therapize myself from the post traumatic stress disorder the rioting and seeing people die caused me.
Anyway, I was staying in a hostel just on the edge of Maidan Nezalezhnosti. The war in Eastern-Ukraine had started about 6 months earlier and a lot of refugees from Donetsk and Luhansk Oblasts were staying there. The people working at the reception desk and maybe 2 or 3 of people living there spoke some english. And everybody was interested in why a guy from Finland would come to Kyiv and stay in a hostel. So I had to learn the language fast to communicate. The life in the hostel was wild. People were drinking. Partying a lot. Some soldiers from the front came to have a few days of peace and drink the stress away. I stayed in the hostel for 9 weeks straight. 4 of those weeks I stayed sober, not drinking. I was studying, going to take photos, writing articles and working on my longer story for a magazine.
After 4 weeks of living in this hostel the people in the next room of 16 started to really have a lot of parties. Every day a big meal and a lot of vodka. One of the guys had been in the Foreign Legion and thusly he spoke brillian english so I had someone to communicate with. One day they were drinking in the kitchen area and I walked past and he offered me a shot of vodka which I tried to refuse but he said the words that caught me : "If you don't drink with us, we think you don't respect us."
So that started my 5 weeks of heavy daily drinking. One evening one of the guys had another guy translate me a question "Do you know what is speed?" So we started taking speed. On New Year's Eve we started talking about me buying a bunch of it and taking it to Finland. So we made a deal about it but I really had had enough of alcohol to last a life time so I left Kyiv to go to Odessa to relax, cure my hangover and sleep. And this is what I did. I slept 4 days in Odessa and started to get myself in shape. I stayed 2 weeks there and I met a Russian guy with whom we started doing business with vodka. Export - Import kind of thing. He left Odessa to go to Kyiv and I followed him a couple of days later. We met there and made our deal. And it worked out perfectly.
But... I went to meet the guys I had made the deal about the speed. They had rented an apartment to stay in and there they also cooked the stuff. They asked how much I want, how much I will pay for it etc etc etc. 1000€ was the sum of money... So the guy started to cook the stuff. Making red and white. Amphetamine and methamphetamine. The stuff would be ready tomorrow, they said. At this point I spoke Russian poorly and none of these guys spoke English so communication was slow and somewhat inaccurate. But we got the job done and we kind of understood each other.
The next day I went to the apartment to get my things. There were couple of guys whom I had never met and they were also interested in me and why I am here. They spoke Ukrainian and Russian with a different dialect I had gotten customed to so it was very difficult for me understand them. They were suggesting and asking me something I totally misunderstood. I understood "1000 euros" and something "to buy" so I thought they were asking about the speed I am purchasing for 1000 euros so I kept saying "Yes, I buy this. Yes, I buy this."... After a moment these guys left the apartment so I stayed there waiting for the cook to finish things up getting the stuff dry in a vacuum dryer and packing it.
Then the guys came back. They had a sports bag with them and at that moment all was clear to me. My heart sunk. I felt color fade from my face. They put the bag on the table, opened it and took out an AK47 assault rifle I had agreed to buy from them for 1000€. I have a feeling that this kind of agreement I can not back down from so I was really happy I had the money. I had planned to have this extra 1000€ for living in Finland after I arrive back home but now I had to give it to these guys and now I own a Kalashnikov AK47 assault rifle. Unfortunately I could not take it back Finland with me in a plane so I left it to my friend's attick in Kyiv when I left to fly to Finland. I have since been to Ukraine many times and everytime I go there I visit my friend to see my AK47. One time we bought a box of bullets and went to a remote place to try it and it works. We were shooting at targets we made with spraypaint on cardboard we put leaning against trees...
Until this incident I replied "yes" to a question I didn't totally understand because "what's the worst that can happen?". After I accidently bought an AK because I said "yes" to a questionn I didn't understand, I learnt to say "I do not understand" when I don't. It doesn't hurt me and I still get into exciting situations even though I don't say "yes" to everything.
This is not the only time I have gotten in a situation that caused me to sweat because of difficulties communicating. Life is marvelous and I have learnt a lot...
