Not so fast!
20250506
I thought that passing the written driving test was the worst of it. Oksana’s driving instructor Oleksandr made it sound like the rest was a piece of cake.
Wrong!
One of the frustrations about Ukraine in general, and my family in particular, is that you never get the full story. There are always crucial parts missing. Oksana relayed to me what Oleksandr said we needed to do, even after I had made it clear that it would work far better if we spoke directly. I kept hearing different amounts - $150, $400 and so on – and different timeframes, the key one being seven weeks. I didn’t understand why so long and why so much.
After four days and interminable misunderstandings, I insisted that Oleksandr sit down and tell me exactly what was going on. Here’s the scoop. The 80% of it that I understand – I am sure there is more pain to come. Ukrainian law says that to get a driver’s license you need to spend 40 hours behind the wheel with an instructor. No credit given for already knowing how to drive. That’s the law.
After being taught, you need to drive ten marked courses with a DMV evaluator, to prove you can do it. That’s the law.
In the meantime (they graciously overlap the processes) they take seven weeks (!) to check your paperwork before issuing the license. The DMV charges 6600 hryvnya ($165) for the background check and the services of the evaluator.
We can fudge the process. Oleksander will spend only ten hours instructing me instead of the required 40. That is 16000 hryvnya, the $400 figure.
So that’s the deal. I should get my license in seven weeks, if all goes well, for only $565 all told. The good news is that they don’t expire quickly. Oksana’s is good for twenty years.
In good news for Ukraine, Trump has decided he is tired of being jerked around by Putin. He is saying in this NBC interview that Russia should give back everything it has taken. As usual Trump is vague, but I think it will be interpreted as including Crimea. Putin could have made a deal but he did not. Now, between sanctions and armaments, he will be forced to give it all back. First step in that direction should be blowing up the Kerch bridge to isolate Crimea. My bet is that this blow comes soon. We have already KO’d a large portion of Russia’s air defenses. Our aircraft are being much bolder in attacking Crimea. How long before we put the Mother Of All Bombs aboard one of our planes and let fly?
Will Trump get any credit? From the Democrats? From Europe? Don’t hold your breath.
That’s the news from Lake WeBeGone, where the strong man is relieved just to know WTF is going on with this driver’s license thing. Or at least have the comfort of thinking he knows. And comfort that it appears I have not been as wrong about Trump as others would have me believe.
I have a Ukrainian DL story. Mine was only good for 2 years. But, on my way back from Germany last year, I sped through 3 speed traps within a 500 meter zone. Three tickets. They won't let me renew mine until I go through the whole damned thing again. It's good until the end of martial law. They wouldn't even let me trade in my German license, which was not exactly easy to get. My patience is wearing thin.
Trump has turned out to be a huge disappointment to me. One never knows what he will do or say from one day to the next. Don't hold your breath waiting for substantial help from his side.
Pragmatically speaking, it's either pay the bribe - or pay out pretty close the same amount of money and waste a lot of time and aggravation. Ukraine is crooked as a broke back snake, so is Russia, so is any ex-Soviet country. You can either pay the gatekeeper for the piece of paper, or you can jump through all of the hoops, and spend more time and money. It's not a straight game, it's like a country run by machine Democrats, or the US Congress - there's a reason that Congress-people get to be millionaires many times over, on a $140,000 salary which would barely pay for food and rent and half of a secretary - to get my "representative"'s attention, it's about $3000, in cold hard cash. Lyndon Johnson cost $30,000 in a plain manila envelope in 1965. They're all crooks, selling their vote and influence. The anarchists are right, the only cure for government is to get rid of it - "the government which governs best is that which governs least". Figure out what it costs to get the thing done, pay it, and get the job done, that's my advice.
It's nice that Trump has finally figured out that Vlad has been jerking him around and making a fool out of him.