KyivPrime Minister Narendra Modi recently embarked on a historic visit to Ukraine, becoming the first Indian leader to visit the war-torn nation after establishing diplomatic relations in 1992. However, the journey for Indian journalists covering the visit was fraught with challenges.
As soon as I was assigned the task of covering Prime Minister Modi’s visit to Ukraine, I was excited to do so, but reaching the destination was a big challenge as there was no air connectivity to Ukraine. I could either take a train or a bus to cross the border. As train tickets were difficult to get at the last minute, the only option left for me was to reach there by bus. Hence, I decided to hop on a bus. I knew that the journey would be a long one as I had to cover more than 800 kilometres.
I was the only journalist in the delegation of Indian journalists covering the visit, even though the only male passengers on the bus were Indian. As Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy had banned men aged 18 to 60 from leaving the country, arguing that they should stay and defend the country, the bus was only made up of women, except for the staff and three male Indian journalists.
A 20-hour bus ride to Ukraine
The online ticket indicated that the journey took about 13 hours and 10 minutes, but it took us more than 20 hours to get from Warsaw to kyiv. Since we were travelling with a verbal note from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, we assumed that the journey at the border would be smooth. We started the journey at 21:15 from the Warsaw West bus station.
The bus stopped after a few hours and stayed there for about ten minutes. I went out to get something to eat, as the journey was long, and also to freshen up. I found a dozen women queuing outside the toilet. After this, the bus made several ten-minute stops to receive passengers.
It was already dark when we reached the Polish-Ukrainian border. At the Polish border, an official came to collect our passports. Since the Ministry of Foreign Affairs had issued a verbal note mentioning the names of journalists visiting Ukraine, we assumed that the journey would be smooth. However, our passports were returned to us after an hour.
An agonizing wait for document verification
We crossed the Polish border and two hundred minutes later we were stopped again at the Ukrainian border. A Ukrainian border officer came and took our passports. We waited on the bus for an hour for our passports to be returned. However, we were asked to get off the bus and taken to the office of the State Border Guard Service of Ukraine.
There were four of us journalists. After a while, a person came and asked us to wait in a room. A few moments later, he came back and asked one of our colleagues to accompany him to an adjoining room. That colleague came back after a while to tell us what documentation we should have ready.
I was the last to be called. When my turn came, the man in the olive-green uniform asked me to show him all my documents and asked me about the purpose of my visit. He filled out all the information in his database and told me that I wouldn’t have to wait so long the next time I visited Ukraine. Meanwhile, other passengers on the bus were getting impatient. We also felt guilty for having made them wait. After a few hours, our passports were returned to us and the journey resumed.
A helping hand in Kyiv
As we approached Kiev, my desk in New Delhi wanted me to shoot some footage to show my journey, as Prime Minister Narendra Modi was also taking a train from Poland to Ukraine. It had already been over 12 hours on the bus and I was low on energy. However, to demonstrate my arrival in the war-torn city, it was important to shoot such footage.
I started preparing for my PTC and recorded a few as the bus approached our destination. Since all the other passengers on the bus were also tired, I made sure my PTCs were not loud enough and started whispering my words into my camera microphone. The female passengers on the bus did not want to be filmed, so it became a challenge to record those PTCs so that none of the other female passengers would appear in the frame.
It may seem easy, but doing it on a moving bus turned out to be a difficult task. After a few hours on Ukrainian territory, the bus stopped for 10 minutes at a shopping center and I looked for a toilet. A fellow passenger gave me the directions. After arriving there, I was told that I had to pay 8 hryvnias (Ukrainian currency) to use the toilet. The woman at the counter didn’t seem to understand that I didn’t have Ukrainian currency with me and refused to accept Polish zloty.
While using Google Translate on my phone, I saw a passenger behind me, who told me not to worry and paid 8 hryvnias on my behalf. After buying a bottle of water, I boarded the bus and our journey resumed. Finally, at around 8:30 am, we arrived in kyiv, a beautiful city. We were now ready to cover the historic visit of Prime Minister Modi, who was the first Prime Minister in Ukraine after both countries established diplomatic relations in 1992.
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