Yesterday, I felt like I’d been sent back two years. I had to get a power of attorney for our removers. Just like when we were arriving, I had to burn a day waiting in a hot cramped office for someone to sign an impressive looking but essentially meaningless document.

That was easy though. I am not looking forward to getting all of our stuff out of Ukraine. The removal men arrived today they took one look at our (relatively modest) DVD collection and phoned the mother-ship. I was handed the phone to discuss the problem with Vlad.

“Our customs manager said you can’t have more than 20 CDs”
“CDs or DVDs?”
“Both. Anything. Discs”
“We can take them out if you pay one euro per item. It is not official”

Ukraine has been targeted as one of the world hot-spots for DVD piracy, obviously they want to keep the legal DVDs in the country to keep the ratios up. At least I’ll be back regularly, I can stash them at the office and carry them out in batches.

I’m now convinced that not bringing our stuff into Ukraine was the right idea.