You're reading: British Top Gear trio gives Kyiv fans jolt of star power

Anyone in the vicinity of the Premier Palace Hotel on the afternoon of Nov. 27 could have heard the excited screams of some 30 freezing fans, all fighting to get closer to the three British celebrities trapped in the center of the crowd. The cause of all the commotion was the three hosts of the popular BBC Top Gear series: Jeremy Clarkson, James May and Richard Hammond. The three stayed in Ukraine for several days filming an episode for the show.The Top Gear trio, perhaps the world’s most famous show about motor vehicles, never revealed their intention to visit Ukraine and only tipped off its fans in a tweet by Clarkson saying that he and May will meet Hammond in a “secret location.” They only hinted that they were “going where the girls will make us sing and shout.”

The truth about the secret location was revealed on Nov. 22, when one of the three hosts, Hammond, was spotted arriving in Sevastopol airport in Crimea. Since then, fans have documented almost every part of their journey. Local media have also monitored Top Gear’s every movement. Top Jir, a local online media that focuses on cars and which is named after the British show, patrolled the road leading to Kyiv to intercept and film the trio.

While the plot of the new episode is kept secret, the three hosts were spotted driving a Volkswagen AP, Ford Fiesta and Dacia Sandero on the way from Crimea to Kyiv, and reportedly took a trip to Chornobyl.
Nearly halfway to Kyiv during a pit stop in Mykolayiv, Ukraine’s rickety infrastructure started to take its toll. “There are no roads. Only holes,” laughed Richard Hammond when speaking to the local NUK-TV.
When the British show’s hosts and crew arrived in Kyiv, a crowd had already gathered outside their hotel, tipped off by observers on various social networks.

Vlad Sen waited for five hours to see the celebrities next to the hotel on their last day in Ukraine on Nov. 27. After finally getting an autograph, he slowly and carefully inserted it into a plastic file and gently tucked it into his bag. Once finished, Sen said that “waiting was cold, but when I saw them the cold disappeared.”

Other fans were getting signatures on anything ranging from iPads to rules of the road books.
“People of the Ukraine. Thank you for a very warm welcome. Well, warm for me because I’m indoors,” Clarkson tweeted on Nov. 24.

One can only speculate what else Top Gear experienced during their five-day stay. Komsomolskaya Pravda newspaper reported how the hosts broke down into laughter when their car refused to start after being refueled at the Chayka race track in Kyiv. Their trip to Chornobyl was equally memorable after a Cobra road police unit pulled them over, but released them immediately upon recognizing the driver as reported by TSN.

Overall it seems that the three guests enjoyed their stay, though what they enjoyed the most was “the weather,” they said before their departure on Nov. 27 without a hint of sarcasm, despite the past week being mostly wet and misty. Perhaps the fog reminded them of home.

Kyiv Post intern Nikita Predtechensky can be reached at [email protected].