Busy, busy. Lots to tell, but no time… except for this one tidbit:
The highlight of my first full day in Kiev was the attempted scam two jackasses tried on me. I was walking down a fairly quiet street about 100 meters from a hotel I was visiting for the article when a guy pulled up next to me and started to match my stride. He walked awfully close to me, which set off my Danger Sense right away and I didn’t have long to wonder what was up. He did a nifty pretend-to-pick-up-off-the-ground, slight-of-hand move with what appeard to be a wad of cash (there was a fifty dollar bill on top, but you couldn’t see the rest of the wad), wrapped in plastic. He was like, ‘Oh wow! Yeah! Hey you! Good luck huh? You speak English?’
‘Yes, funny you should ask, I speak the hell out of English. Congratulations.’
‘Hey, Russian tradition, we split it! Go to a bar! Come on!’
‘No man. I’m working, it’s all yours. American tradition is ‘take the money and run!’ Bye.’
‘No, no! Wait! Russian tradition, we split it! Get some girls…’
‘I’m going in this hotel now, goodbye’
Just then another guy came running up, ‘Oh! You found my money! Please, can I have it back?’ and by then I was 10 meters away and accelerating.
I have to assume that in the end, the ‘owner’ of the wad of money would count it, claim money was missing and demand that I give him all mine. Furthermore, I’m willing to bet that if some cops happened to show up, they’d be in on the act too.
The moral of the story is, never accept free money from anyone under any circumstances and be extremely cautious around anyone that wants to be your instant friend. Females included.
OK, back to work.
Seemingly related to the classic Tourist Police scam in (at least) Romania, which I have encountered numerous times there (but only in Bucharest).
Thanks to the heads-up I got in Lonely Planet (or it could have been the Rough Guide) I was onto it from the git-go.
This happend to me in Kiev. Exactly the same way. The Guy collected money(Man B) and I suggsted to give the money back to the guy who dropped(Man A). So Man A came back thanked us and said he dropped 2 packets of money. Police man arrived and wanted to check man B and my wallets. Luckely I am from Britain and did not have $. Only £s. So I escaped from that scam.
Leif, I’m surprised you were correct in how the scam would have continued, according to Peter. Dirty trick, dirty people. Even if you completely deny the money, just sticking around to talk to them could get you scammed.
Lost money scam is alive and well at Kiev airport, It was tried on me in the parking lot last week, just keep on walking.