I was requested to travel to Kiev, Ukraine in 1996, to evaluate several old Soviet-styled hospitals, to see if Project C.U.R.E. could successfully enter into a relationship with them to help upgrade their facilities. When I returned home from my trip, I was contacted by staff members of the very large Porogov University Hospital located in the city of Vinnitsa, in the central part of Ukraine. The doctors there were very eager to get hold of American medical books and curriculum on the subject of “Urology.”
I informed my new friends that providentially, I had just received a sizable donation of Urology books from a doctor in Littleton, Colorado. They were overjoyed. I sent the books in the very next shipping container headed to Ukraine. Then, an interesting miracle happened.
Just a couple of weeks later, I found out that Project C.U.R.E. would have access to the donation of the entire medical library from the Ft. Carson Army Base in Colorado. I got back in touch with the folks in Ukraine and asked them to sit down while I told them the good news so that they would not faint. A long story made short -- we shipped our 18 tons of American medical books into the University. As a result of Project C.U.R.E.’s donation, they now had the finest English medical library in all of Eastern Europe.
Another result of my extensive time spent in Ukraine was that a number of well-placed people there found out that I was actually an Economist and had gotten my start in life as an entrepreneur. When the large Kiev University found that out, they insisted that I present a series of lectures at the University for the Senior Class members, and all the Graduate Students on “Free Market Enterprise” and give an explanation of “Capitalism.” They had all just experienced the failure of their own economic system.
The day I finished my lectures, I was scheduled to travel by train from Kiev down to the University of Vinnitsa to check on our work there. None of my regular hosts were able to take the time to travel with me. I was on my own.
One of the University students, named Yarslov, happily agreed to take me to the Kiev train station and see to it that I got on the correct train. Tucked away in that part of Ukraine, not many regular train-riding folks ever encountered an American up close and personal – and for sure, none spoke English. I thanked Yarslov, jumped up into the coach doorway, and began looking for my assigned compartment. I could only hope that there would be someone at the other end of the line who would find me and pick me up.
There was no such thing as first class on my assigned train, but the price certainly was reasonable for second class. I only paid the equivalent of U.S. $5 for the nearly 4‑hour train trip to Vinnitsa. The train had been traveling all night before arriving in Kiev that morning. The train car's individual compartments held four people each. When I got on the train the compartment was still made up into a sleeping car arrangement. Three other people were already occupying my compartment.
A middle‑aged couple had staked their claim on the upper births; their clothes and food leftovers were strewn on the compartment table and around on the floor. The other man who was to round‑out our cozy foursome was a shriveled up old man with thick glasses and white hair. He wore a gray hard‑wool suit with the whole left front of his suit jacket covered with military medals and badges of accomplishment.
I had just put my box and two bags on the lower, left bench seat close to the compartment door. The short, wiry, retired military man stood right up in the compartment and began rearranging in a split second the articles of the compartment ...including my things. I had seen situations like this turn crusty and nasty before.
Inside my head and inside my heart I was reassured that attitudes and acts of goodness were the strongest and most effective powers in the universe. I had learned a long time ago that people will respond and respect you to the same degree as you respect and are kind to them. It was time to cultivate a little civility and neighborliness.
I smiled warmly at the old junior czar and he mumbled something in Russian. I replied with a mumble in English. When he realized I spoke English only he simply snapped his head around to the opposite direction and stared toward the compartment wall. I settled into my little space figuring that my writing would not be disturbed on that trip by talking trivia. The train was very hot and stuffy. I don't think there was any ventilation access anywhere. To increase the uniqueness of the setting, the stuffy heat of the train was only superseded by the nauseating smells.
Old heavy‑set Ukrainian women with knurled faces and hands gathered in droves around the stopped passenger trains. In their cloth bags with rope handles they brought homemade food to the train sides to sell to the hungry passengers. Before we pulled away from Kiev Station the middle‑aged couple from our compartment jumped down from their beds and purchased some of the food. I scooted over in my seat and made room for them to spread their newly acquired goodies out on the already messy table ...so much for doing any writing. Inside the outside wrappers of old newspapers, the hungry folks found their prize ...a plastic bag which held the contents of greasy potato chunks, slimy cooked cabbage, and chunks of meat of unknown ancestry. Small loaves of unwrapped bread along with a smaller plastic bag of pickles rounded out their breakfast menu.
I began smiling at each person individually. They began to respond kindly, and we began communicating without words. The man slipped out of our compartment and returned from somewhere with four forks and four bottles of beer. He gave the old military man one of the beers and pushed one bottle along with a fork into my hands. I laughed and smiled and gestured that I was sufficiently full and set the beer and the fork back onto the small table. The international, cross‑cultural ice was now broken. Everyone was now waving their hands and speaking in languages known only to themselves.
I reached into my thin attaché and pulled out some pictures of my family. They handled them with their greasy hands and laid them on the table, which was swimming in pickle juice. They “ooooed” and “aaaahed”, especially at the grandchildren. Then the old antagonistic soldier finally smiled and pulled from his wallet two crumpled black and white photos I presumed to be his wife and daughter taken many years before.
As the train clickity‑clacked down the uneven Ukrainian rails toward Vinnitsa, everyone sat back with big smiles. With or without the use of words, we had all become friends. We had turned an uncertain and insecure world into a train compartment of civility and friendship.
Unexpected acts of goodness are the most powerful, least costly, and most underrated agents of human change. It matters not the geographic location or strange collection of individuals, “Goodness” can be counted on to promote civility.
Next Week: Goodness is Contagious