Indeed I was
faced with the prospect of burying my father here after I came within a hair of
failing to meet the requirements to transport his body to New York, where
hundreds were waiting to mourn the passing of Jan Zawada, 65, an active member
of the Ukrainian community there.
He died the
morning of Saturday, Aug. 1 while visiting me and my family in Ukraine for the
baptism of his grandson. Little did I know that the immense grief of my loss
would be compounded by a predatory funeral industry, infiltrated by mafia-like
characters who prey on those stricken with tragedy.
Although I had
lived in Kyiv for ten years and I am familiar with Ukrainian society and
culture, I was unprepared for the web that awaited me in Zhytomyr, a medium-sized
city with a population of 270,000.
The first thing
to realize about dealing with the death of a relative abroad is that a timer
immediately begins ticking. In Ukraine’s case, if you don’t jump through its series
of bureaucratic hoops within a certain time period, you’ll be left burying your
parent in a grave that your friends and family will rarely visit, if ever.
My clock began
ticking on Saturday morning, when I had 12 hours to embalm his corpse before it
began to decompose.
A relative and
I called three funeral service companies in the city, only to have them all
recommend unanimously that we work with Mykola Dariyenko for all my needs,
particularly if it involved transporting the body. It immediately became obvious
to us that he had an air-tight clamp on the local funeral business.
This didn’t
bother me initially. I had a big task on my hands and I was ready to work with
anyone who could help me resolve it. If he could deliver competent services at
a reasonable cost, then all the best to his monopoly.
When I met Dariyenko,
who was dressed in flip flops and gym shorts, he was accompanied
by an embalmer who discussed in detail with my relative the medical
circumstances behind my father’s death.
As it turns
out, Viacheslav Ivanovych (Ukrainians rarely give their surnames when asked) is
a medical doctor. Apparently, in this devastated Ukrainian economy, doctors
have adopted new skills such as embalming and have teamed with entrepreneurs
like Dariyenko to cash in on funerals. Which are always in demand, after all.
So while the
doctor/embalmer was explaining the nuances of a pulmonary embolism, Dariyenko
was explaining that he couldn’t provide a breakdown of prices for the services
that I’ll need.
The total fee
for everything we need – embalming, refrigeration, an air-tight coffin, as well
as transporting to Kyiv and then New York – would be “about $3,000.” Again, no
specifics, just “everything you need.”
In his turn, Dariyenko
needed Hr 3,500 ($157) in advance for the Hr 10,000 ($448) embalming price tag.
As my relative
and I were trying to decide what to do, Dariyenko and the embalmer began
walking away. Yes, an old trick. And it certainly worked, since he knew I was a
foreigner in an unfamiliar town with no options. When I asked where the body
would be stored, they only replied, “Huyva,” offering nothing else.
The first thing
I did Monday morning was visit the U.S. Embassy to find out what documents I
needed, something that Dariyenko said I didn’t need to do since he could handle
everything.
Fortunately, I
did the opposite and got a clear list of the documents I needed to be able to transport
my father’s corpse to New York. I was also informed that I needed to bring them
by Wednesday, at about noon, in order to transport the coffin on the 11:00 a.m.
flight on Thursday, which I arranged that afternoon.
I then began
collecting prices from the funeral folks in Kyiv. As it turned out, Dariyenko
charged for embalming double the rates in the capital city.
I also found
out there are two firms in Kyiv that can handle my needed services and they
even broke down the prices for each service. That way, I was able to return to
Zhytomyr with negotiating leverage. Although I returned by 6:30 p.m., Dariyenko
didn’t come around to my relatives’ home until 9:30 p.m.
And there’s nothing
like haggling over the cost of funeral services late into the night, with the
hanging threat that this fellow could do something nasty if I sever my
“business deal” with him. He had the all-important embalming certificate, which
I needed in order to gain two crucial documents: the customs permit and
sanitary permit.
After
explaining to him that I got exact prices from Kyiv, minutes of evasiveness turned
into haggling, which knocked the price down to $2,700, which turned into half
threats and raised voices, which chipped it down further to $2,300.
At this point,
I realized that if I couldn’t trust him to be honest with prices, I couldn’t
trust him with things more important, such as securing the necessary
documentation. So I decided that night to go with a Kyiv firm, even if the
haggled-down price was similar.
By Tuesday
morning, we were trying to find out just where “Huyva” was. It wasn’t a street
in Zhytomyr. My relative with me throughout this ordeal called the physician-mortician
directly to find out. And Viacheslav refused to tell him! So he called the
morgue where my father’s body was originally delivered.
Viacheslav then
called me and angrily demanded to know why we were “calling around.” Because
you won’t tell me where my father’s corpse is, I responded. “IT’S IN HUYVA,” he
shouted and warned me not to contact any authorities.
After some
Internet research, we found out Huyva is a village four miles south of the
city. This information was valuable just in case we needed to launch a
“tactical strike” to retrieve the corpse. Maybe that’s what Viacheslav was
fearing. Or he might have been evasive because he was taking payment under the
table.
In between
researching and haggling prices, trying to locate my father’s corpse, and
praying to get the embalming certificate, I also had to secure the all-important
death certificate. That was the third of four crucial documents, in addition to
the coroner’s report that was issued immediately at the morgue.
Zhytomyr’s
unanimous expert on transporting corpses abroad neglected to mention that I
needed a translated copy of my father’s American passport, as I found out from
visiting a city register first thing Tuesday morning.
If I had known
on Monday, I could have translated that page in a single hour in Kyiv. Yet Zhytomyr
had only one translation agency working that day (it was the peak of summer),
and it required four hours for a text I could have translated myself in 15
minutes!
Which would
barely give me enough time to return to the register’s office to get the death
certificate issued. I arranged for the guys from Kyiv to arrive first thing
Wednesday morning to haul my father’s corpse from Huyva. Everything had to be
shored up TODAY.
So you can
imagine the shock I felt when – with the translation in hand – I saw a sign
posted on the door stating, “The register will close early today at 4:00 p.m.”
It was 3:45 p.m.
and the door was locked shut! I felt as if I were in a scene from a tourist horror
film, like the 2006 French film “Them,” in which a foreigner gets trapped in a
sleepy town only to get devoured by its scheming residents.
To my great
relief, the official arrived within five minutes of my mounting hysteria. Next
problem to surface: when I reached an agreement with the Kyiv firm, I was told
I would have the necessary documents no earlier than 1:00 p.m.
So I called the
U.S. Embassy and my contact acquiesced reluctantly to push the deadline up to
5:00 p.m. after consulting with her supervisor.
As the close of
the business day approached, it became apparent that Dariyenko had yet to
return the embalming certificate. When he arrived at my relatives’ home a
little after 6:00 p.m., my wife pointed out that it lacked the necessary stamp
and contained numerous grammatical mistakes.
He angrily
grabbed it out of her hands, vowing we would never get the document, and left
us high and dry upon driving away. Yet I was not going to let this flip flop-wearing
derelict be the single obstacle to delivering my father to New York!
So I called a
political contact of mine, the former Zhytomyr regional administration head
that I knew from my journalism experience.
Those who say
money solves problems in Ukraine are wrong. Having political connections solves
problems, which is why the election battles are so fierce here.
My political
contact placed a call to the local authorities and magically, Dariyenko was
able to stamp the document – and rewrite its three sentences – within 15
minutes. But not without a final slap in my wife’s face. He demanded the
remainder of the embalming payment. My wife said we’d pay it when we saw my
father’s body the next morning.
“That’s not
real money for me!,” he snapped in regards to the fee that was twice the Kyiv
rates. He claimed we were responsible for the two days it took to produce a
three-sentence embalming certificate (the same one he rewrote within 15
minutes) and wanted compensation for all the “work.” My wife duly ignored him,
as she would an infant’s tantrums.
By Wednesday
morning, we hit the road to Kyiv with an agreement with Oleksandr (literally
half of Ukraine’s men have the name Oleksandr, or “Sasha”) that I will pay 13,800
hryvnias ($619) total for transferring the body (3,500 hryvnias), an air-tight
coffin (6,500 hryvnias), refrigerating the body (300 hryvnias) and securing the
necessary documents (3,500 hryvnias).
No foreigner
will succeed in securing the necessary documents in time for a corpse shipment
without one of these intermediaries, who are not only not regulated in any way,
but utterly unaccountable. Moreover, I found no more than three companies that
offer these services in Kyiv.
I never met any
of these employees in any office, and I knew only one surname. Yet another
example of how Ukraine’s post-Soviet rotting bureaucracy creates enormous
profit for a few parasites, while undermining the country’s normal and civil functioning
in the process.
I tell Sasha
that I need the documents by 1:00 p.m. to get them translated in time for
submitting to the U.S. Embassy by 5:00 p.m. No problem, he reassures me, and
doesn’t seem the least bit phased when we hit traffic in Kyiv.
These parasites
leave no stone unturned when it comes to making even the smallest profit. When
I generously offer to make the first of two payments of 7,000 hryvnias in U.S.
dollars (which I know are much preferred over hryvnias), he dissatisfiedly
suggests an exchange rate of 22 hryvnias per U.S. dollar, when almost every
exchange booth is proposing 22.3 hryvnias. I refused.
Sasha dropped me
off at about 11:00 a.m. at a McDonald’s, promising to return by 1:00 p.m. He
ended up being late by a half hour, and we spent another ten minutes exchanging
documents and money in a bus under a nearby bridge (again, no offices).
In a situation
in which every minute counts, that’s 40 minutes less to get to the translation
agency and get the documents translated by 4:15 p.m., which would have afforded
me 45 minutes to get to the U.S. Embassy by 5:00 p.m.
When I arrive at
one of the top agencies at about 2:20 p.m., the receptionist tells me they need
three hours for both documents.
I then realize there’s
no way I can get to the U.S. Embassy in time. I begin to imagine having to bury
my father’s body somewhere in Kyiv and having to deal with a whole new set of
pitfalls and predators. I call my contact at the American Citizen Services to
inform her that I wasn’t going to make in time.
She was
surprised, “Why not?”
“Because I’ve
been working with a funeral mafia!,” I responded in frustration. “I can come at
5:45 p.m.”
“We’re closed
by then. Bring the documents at 8:00 a.m. tomorrow. You’ll have them ready by
8:30 a.m. and you can be at Boryspil by 9:00 a.m.” Without any traffic. And barely
in time for boarding.
My final task
that evening was to make the $1,935 payment to ensure that my father’s
air-tight coffin would be included in the UIA flight’s cargo.
As with Sasha,
I met Dima in a parked car under a bridge. As with Sasha, I didn’t know his
surname. As with Sasha, he was curt. As with Sasha, he demanded an exchange
rate of 22 hryvnias per U.S. dollar, below the market rate. Since I was at the
final lap and it didn’t involve a large sum ($35), I caved in.
The next
morning, I visited the U.S. Embassy at 8:00 a.m., got the vital documents by
8:30 a.m (including 20 copies of a death certificate valid in the U.S.), sped
off to Boryspil and met Dima on another street, in his car, to transfer the
documents to him. The monkey was off my back and I could finally begin to …
mourn.
The U.S.
Embassy needs to offer more guidance to foreigners caught in this situation. It
should research and provide a list of legitimate funeral intermediaries to deal
with in each regional center, taking into account the feedback of U.S.
citizens.
It should also
accept, register and review complaints, relaying them to the appropriate government
body in Ukraine. It should update its list of prices for various funeral services,
at least annually.
The U.S.
Embassy should request that the Ukrainian government establish licensing for
funeral services providers. This state body should periodically review the
qualifications and performance of those licensed, and review complaints for
possible criminal violations.
The Ukrainian
government should also provide for securing necessary permits and certificates with
the minimum of difficulty, without the need for seedy intermediaries.
I thank the ACS
staff for being flexible enough to issue the necessary permits at very last
minute, literally. It was thanks to their efforts that my father was buried with
dignity, with his friends and family present.
I thank my
relatives and friends in Ukraine, who helped me with every step as I navigated
the jungle of Ukraine’s funeral services industry.
I also take
this opportunity to advise any foreigner with ill elderly parents to discourage
them from visiting Ukraine, especially beyond the capital city of Kyiv. They
might not make it back in time for the funeral.
Zenon Zawada is a political analyst at Kyiv-based
investment bank Concorde Capital and is a former chief editor of the Kyiv Post.
