For residents of Poznan in western Poland, the war in neighboring Ukraine can often fade into the background. But when an expat encounters a talkative Uber driver on a long country drive, the uncomfortable details are suddenly brought into vivid focus.
My wife and I live in a small house 20 miles outside of Poznan, a university town in west Poland halfway between Warsaw and Berlin. Here, students sip macha lattes in hipster cafes with rainbow flags on the walls. Local tech workers and bankers take their holidays in Spain or Greece. Michelle Obama visited in May. The war in Ukraine feels far away here. But now and then, like those stray missiles that crept over the border, it makes itself felt.
Uber is cheap here and many of the drivers are Ukranian. Occasionally, when laden with groceries and unwilling to schlep to the rowdy train station, we will splurge for a ride from Poznan city to our village home. The journey takes about 45 minutes and costs around 100 Polish zloty, roughly $25 USD. For shorter trips, we upgrade to Comfort status, which means an older, avuncular Polish driver with a mustache and plenty of stories from the PRL days. But for longer trips, we go with the cheaper option. This means a driver from the former Soviet Union – Ukraine, Georgia, Azerbaijan, or Uzbekistan. Most are polite enough if you don’t mind them speaking to you in Russian, not Polish.
Today’s driver is Vasily. He appears in a slightly beat-up white Hyundai. He is bald and looks to be in his early 40s, with a doughy face, and thick tattooed arms fully exposed by his tank top. But his presence is not menacing. He smiles and speaks Polish with a strong Ukrainian accent. Sometimes, I struggle to understand, sometimes I am grateful that he, like me, speaks slowly, with the careful deliberation of a foreigner exploring a strange tongue.
He doesn’t mind the long drive, he says. It’s rush hour and he is grateful to be heading out of the city and avoiding the traffic jams. In a couple of hours, it would be different. People would be rushing out to the bars and restaurants that sprawl out from the old market square or dashing to the river to sip Aperol Spritz with a view of Poland’s oldest cathedral. He’d hate to miss those fares. But now, he’s happy zipping along the fresh roads, paved with EU money, as the city fades away. First the osiedla (housing estates), then the abandoned communist-era factories. Then the new, modern, working factories, Then the fields. Those endless, flat fields after which Poland is named (Pole, field).
Vasily’s story emerges as we drive. He was in the army, as is compulsory for all male Ukrainian citizens over an ever-decreasing age threshold. Right now, it sits at 25. He left, he says, fleeing his post and slipping across the border into the open arms of Poland.
Why?
The bosses, he says. Filling their pockets. Buying villas in Spain. It’s a mess. Corrupt.
He shrugs that eternal slavic shrug.
Here, it’s much better. In the army? Not so good. Have a look!
Have a look?
He reaches for a phone that is lying on the empty front passenger seat. He unlocks it, keeping his eyes on the road, and hands it back to us. Swipe to the left, he says.
We see him, Vasily, with the same full face and bald head, a neutral expression one could wear while standing in line at a post office or watching a dull TV show. It’s the same expression in every photo.
Here he is in military fatigues in a forest somewhere.
Here, he is crouched next to a tank emblazoned with the letter Z, a symbol of Russian nationalism and military ambition.
Here, we see his feet out before him, legs in khakis, in a military barracks.
And here…
My wife gasps.
A line of soldiers lying on their backs in a neat row, side by side, in a field somewhere. We can’t tell from the uniforms whether they are Russian or Ukrainian troops. You can see the face of the closest one. He is short. Waxy pale. His skin stretched tight, his mouth contorted in a wicked grimace. A jolt of realization. Corpses. Not in the movies. Not extras in make-up. Real people. Killed not far away. And photographed by this very phone that my wife now held in her hand.
We hand the phone back to the driver. His face wears that same neutral expression. The green fields flash by.
