Ukraine #2 - Penderyn Distillery Chairman Nigel Short at Poland
“In just the recent past, in the first month of the war, half a million Ukrainian refugees came through this one train station.”
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00:00So, next leg of the journey, and where we are, and apologies for the pronunciation to anyone Polish,
00:06Szezow, Szezow Airport, and the weather is absolutely glorious.
00:12As you can see, all around, and I've got my driver, Smerzow, who's hopefully going to take me to the rail station.
00:26And as far as I know now, we're about 100 miles from Ukraine, I guess. So, getting closer.
00:33So, we're actually really near Krakow, which I have been to before. It's a wonderful town.
00:42I can recommend a visit. Fabulous coffee culture, and famous for one of the biggest salt mines, or the biggest salt mine in Europe, which was well worth a visit.
00:51Also, I'm afraid, infamous for Auschwitz and Birkenau, and we brought our boys here probably 10 or 11 years ago.
01:00And as distressing and horrific as it was to visit, I think it is good for youngsters to know what happened, and to understand some of the history.
01:09So, if you want to come to Poland, I would suggest Krakow. It's a great place for a long weekend.
01:18And we're just in the car now, off to the border.
01:22Right, so I'm at the rail station. I'm going to try and pronounce this just once, because it's going to be terrible.
01:28Przemysl Mówmy. I'm told it's very difficult to pronounce, so perhaps when the Poles come over to Wales, they get the same problem. I don't know.
01:37But I've been reading a little of the history of this town, and it's just phenomenal.
01:42In just the recent past, in the first month of the war, half a million Ukrainian refugees came through this one train station.
01:55And reading a bit, like I say, of the history, the wars and the tragedies that this area has seen for hundreds of years is just unbelievable.
02:06We really don't know how lucky we are in Wales. We've got Swansea, Cardiff. We've got great history, and we've seen good times and bad times.
02:14But what this area has seen is just remarkable.
02:19Even back well before World War II, but during World War II, this was the border between the Nazis and Soviets in the early years of the war.
02:29And then, of course, it was overrun initially by the Nazis, and then later on by the Soviets.
02:34So it is quite sobering.
02:40But this station has become very famous recently as well, because a lot of the world leaders who have gone to Ukraine, including President Biden, have actually gone from this station.
02:52Of course, there's no commercial flights into Ukraine now, so by train or bus or by car is the only way to do it.
03:00I'm really looking forward to this journey. It's a number of firsts for me.
03:05I've only ever been on a train in the UK a couple of times, in France before, usually Swansea, Paddington, three and a half hours.
03:14I've never been on a journey for 13 hours on a train, never in Eastern Europe, and I've never been on a sleeper car before.
03:21So I'm told I'll be in a sleeper car with four berths altogether.
03:26Nor am I likely to have some big burly East European powerlifters as company, but either way, I'm looking forward to it.
03:34There's something very romantic, I think, about taking a long train journey.
03:39And looking at the trains, they look fairly modern to me.
03:44I'm just hoping that I'll get some sleep anyway.
03:48So I'm well into my journey now, 30 odd hours, and apart from a couple of hours waiting around the town here, I'll be on my way to Ukraine fairly shortly.