A Question of Borders

There is comfort in hearing the in-flight safety instructions recited in Ukrainian--not a foreign-sounding Russified Ukrainian, but the Ukrainian my grandparents spoke, so familiar to my ear.

The anxiety has returned as I approach Ukrainian soil. When I look around, the other passengers look a lot like me, with prominent noses and narrow almond eyes. I’ve always wondered where these facial features come from. I figure it has something to do with the Mongolian Tartar invasion of Kievan Rus back in the 13th century.

Outside the airplane window over what I believe to be Austria, I see acres and acres of what appears to be farmland, sliced infrequently by lonely, solitary roads and a winding river. Unlike the square and rectangular plots one might see in the States, these fields look like a striped, multicolored tapestry spread over the earth.

The tilled land is broken up by dense forest, sprawling like some neglected manscaping. I imagine the ancient, visceral energy of those woods: folklore, bloodshed, history, warfare, ghosts.

Will I see the Карпати from here? The terrain looks pretty flat so far. If I remember my Ukie School geography correctly, the Carpathian mountains reach from Romania in the south, form the border of Eastern Poland and Western Ukraine, and stretch southeast into Hungary. Next week, I’ll hike the Карпати in person, gods-willing...