One of my most cherished quotables from the biggest English language newspaper in Kyiv is a review in which the paper complimented an entertainment complex with a sports bar, pool hall, casino, and strip club for having a "wholesome small-town vibe (despite the strippers)." That's Ukraine in microcosm right there: A large, traditional, and rural population that still lives in "villages" fused to an ultra-materialist post-soviet city culture.

The villages, especially those in the Carpathian mountains, remind me of all the summer camps I've ever been to. The electricity is somewhat dependable, water occasional, but the environment is enlivening. If you don't have a hot shower, you have the crisp apple freshness of the morning air to get you going. In other areas of Ukraine there's also great produce all through the summer, including the best farm-fresh watermelon and tomatoes I've ever had.

In the Carpathian village of Yaremche we stumbled upon a village festival. There the people dressed in the traditional floral-embroidered peasant clothes of Ukraine and played the traditional instruments. Down the street they sold traditional handicrafts. Further down the street I saw them farming their tiny plots in the traditional way: either by hand or with horses. But some of them had mobile phones.

Traveling around the area was a pleasure in stark contrast to the trials of dealing with timetables and stoney-faced bureaucrats in the cities. We hitched a ride with a young man in one of the villages who brought his mom along with us to give him directions. She, in turn, hadn't been to the town we were visiting since working there in the 80's so we ambled about pleasantly clueless.

The best part, though, was Dragobrat. It is a picturesque ski resort town high enough in the mountains to still have a little snow on the ground at the beginning of May. If we had wanted to ski, we could have gone up the lift for a whopping 4 griven (75 cents) per time up. Bring your own gear to avoid any additional costs, then add $4 per person per night for a room and another $4 each for 3 big meals.

Sound's great, right? So where's the catch?

The catch is that the road to Dragobrat is bad. Very, very bad. Keeping in mind the price of a room, please note that the 9km drive up costs $18 in a Jeep, or join up with another group and pay $36 for a former military ATV.
The road was a long channel of mud. Huge gouges had been carved in it by the ATVs, so our Jeep driver often took us along at a 30-degree angle with one tire in the groove and one outside. A couple of times the back end of the car fishtailed lamely behind while the driver fought to get more traction. On the way back, another jeep passed us at a 45-degree angle a handful of inches from us. We couldn't see in the windows of the car, but we could have seen in the sunroof if they'd had one.

The cabin of the jeep smelled like an old gasoline can, and I occasionally found myself wondering if I should wish for us to go faster and get some more airflow, or slower to keep my stomach from jumping out and mud from jumping in. We rattled along so violently the tape deck was skipping.

To liven the mood the driver was (intermittently) playing Serduchka, a very colorful musician. By colorful, of course, I mean crazier than a Flying Elvis. Serduchka is a fellow who, for a comedy routine, put on a body suit and a dress, along with a quavering falsetto and pretended to be a 40-something female train conductor. The routine was funny, so Serduchka decided to keep doing it -- It's been 12 years now. The whole situation is a bit like Robin Williams deciding Mrs. Doubtfire was the apex of his achievement and never taking off the costume.

In a way that would fill any ex-Saturday Night Live actor with awe, Serduchka has won a weekly talk show, numerous sponsorship gigs, and has launched a singing career. His music is hilarious. The best way I can describe it is pop neofolk -- lots of accordions and tambourines with some bad barroom synthesizer thrown in. His lyrics include: "If you're a little older than 30, you can still find yourself a prince. The sun shines on everyone, princess and lowly train conductor."

My best guess is that Serduchka is hitting a neglected 35-60 year old market segment. With nothing comparable to "classic rock" and nothing on the radio but crappy Europop, what is there for the middle-aged to listen to? Serduchka is a freak but (s)he's not a French rapper (the fewer people that are, the closer we get to transcendence). Besides, Serduchka's backed up by folk singers; the Village People probably never even saw a village. Truly he's a bra-stuffing visionary.

So where were we? Oh yes, bouncing along next to an overweight 50-year old driver and praying for the end of the longest 9km road in the world.

When we finally reached the top Lesya and I oozed bonelessly out of the doors and onto the lovely mountainside. Ukrainian ski-bunnies were mixing freely with folks up from the nearby village to run the lodges and cater to the skiers. It was one of those hot, clear days when you could ski in a t-shirt and jeans.

We scheduled a lodge and hiked through the mountains. Where the mountains weren't under a layer of snow they were dotted with pine trees, with a layer of moss underneath them that was so thick and springy I bounced along like a man on the moon. The view was that of your basic pristine mountaintop splendor.

There was an even better surprise waiting that evening. Skryabin, a cool Ukrainian rock band, had braved the drive up to Dragobrat as well. They were putting on a concert to celebrate the victory of a Ukrainian ski-team that trained in Dragobrat. So, after bad dance club experiences in the metropolises of Donetsk and Yalta, we stumbled upon a great one high up in a Carpathian village isolated by a 4 mile mud slick.

Somehow Ukraine's made the village-city hybrid work, in a very colorful way.