Luhansk Warnings Or Dangers

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One day my American friend and I were sitting at a bar having beer. Soon another company from a neighboring table, hearing that we speak English, started inviting us over to their table.
My American friend was affable enough to agree and we went over to their table. The guys spoke decent English and were quite affable. I continued with my beer, but my friend had to start drinking vodka offered to him by the "new friends".
As a result we were invited to what the guys called "hare hunting" the next day. They would pick us up at a bar downtown.
Thank God my friend woke up the next day and was sober enough not to go to the appointed place of departure. Thus we did not become targets instead of hares and the local guys missed their fun...
Here's a tip for you:
No matter what, it is NOT customary here at all to invite the customers from a neighboring or any other table to your table. It looks rather odd and is not practised at our cafes and restaurants at all.
If you come across something like that, be careful about your new "friends".
You don't even have to turn your head to answer any shouts or invitations from any table.
If the loud invitations persist and you are sober-minded enough, ask the security guys who will help you.
Look before you leap and don't plunge into any dark affair with fun-loving locals...

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Be careful about making friends at local pubs with young people who, after hearing you speak English, come up to you speaking decent English and saying, "Hi, bro! I love your country, your lifestyle", etc.
They might extend their hands to greet you, which is very weird for strangers here. Even if we see friends at a table in a pub, maximum what we would do is just to nod to greet them, to say nothing of intruding into their talk with their friends over dinner.
And, of course, do not disclose the cafe/bar customers where you are staying in Luhansk or leave your "potential friends" your local phone number.
They might plague you with their phone calls or unexpected visits afterwards like they did to my English friends who had come to Luhansk once.
After you "make friends" with those guys they will come to see you at your apartment or wherever you are staying, bring vodka or/and girls with them or even offer to make an orgy at your accomodation place.
Also, they might ask you to lend them some money (starting with $5 and finishing with $$$).
It's up to you how to behave...
If you have money to burn (as they think) and are not too proud or picky about your friends, you could do stupid things, but better avoid leeches and don't become a laughing stock.
I personally felt a very appauling negative aura of the guy who tried to "make friends" with an English friend of mine at one of the bars downtown... We were speaking over lunch and the guy apparently thought we were both foreigners. He left his table, came up to ours and started speaking English. He was shocked when I turned out to be a local... I merely asked the guy, in pure Russian, to let me speak to my friend...
Thanks to me our foreign guest could leave the bar quite safe and with all his money and belongings... I could resist the "black magic" of the leech. I doubt if my English friend would resist the guy's "charm and friendliness". I think I could literally feel them on my skin...

I do remember the quote from my students' years: Quidquid id est, timeo Danaos et dona ferentis.
A rough translation would be “Whatever it is, I fear Greeks even when they bear gifts“. This is Laocoon’s line in The Aeneid when he tries to prevent the Trojans from accepting the Greeks’ gift of a huge wooden horse.

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We do not have roads, only directions...
This is an old Russian saying that is still popular today...
Now there are not many pieces of roads or sidewalks paved a hundred years ago with cobble-stones.
They were all covered with asphalt in Soviet times...
All the streets of the city used to be paved a hundred years ago before the Bolsheviks seized the power and ordered to cover them with asphalt to turn over a new leaf....
You can see some remains of the old cobble-stones in some places in the streets of the Old Town now...

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They say stray dogs are a big problem in the city.
Our mass media often calles Luhansk "A Stray Dogs City"...
There are dozens and dozens of them in every district of the city, especially inside the blocks.
So it can be a nuisance for you, if you're staying at an apartment somewhere in the eastern blocks.

According to the data of the City Sanitary Service, more than 1,500 city residents suffered from stray dogs in 2007, which means every six hours a stray dog bit a person.

Use the same common sense as you would in any big city.
A pack of hungry stray dogs can surround you and start barking at you, if they don't like something about you.
If you have no food to offer them, make an abrupt movement to lower your arm to the ground as if to grab a stone to throw at them. That will help or, on the contrary, drive them even wilder... You never know.
A barking dog does not bite?
Anyhow, a barking dog CAN bite after he/she is through with barking, you know...
Keep your eyes open please and do not find yourself among the victims of our stray dogs' anger.

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Be careful while traveling in overcrowded municipal streetcars or buses. Beware of our deft pickpockets "working" there. They usually "work" in pairs and make wallets disappear like snowflakes on your warm hand...

Our roads and sidewalks tend to be dusty in dry weather and muddy in wet weather, especially in the Old Town, inside the blocks in all districts and in what we call "private sector" in Stone Ford District.

Be especially careful about the puddles: do not step into any of them, especially in rainy weather, for you never know what huge pot-hole awaits you inside the puddle...

The quality of roads and pavements leaves much to be desired.
A lot is being done about it every year, but at the same time a lot of roads and sidewalks seem totally neglected and can make you think you are a time traveler who has found himself somewhere at the beginning of the last century.

Please watch your step when walking at night. Stay in well-lit streets. A small flashlight would be a good idea.
Do not talk loudly and advertize you are a foreigner.
There are locals who only wish to make a foreigner a laughing stock or a cash cow, especially if they find out about the aim of his stay here...
If it's to meet young (Internet) ladies who call themselves "marriage-minded", you are done for. I mean you are regarded as a sex tourist by many people here and as a candidate for a good old laughing stock... Have fun then!

Please take a look at this interesting article of a VT member:
An_American

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“Focus” magazine reports that as of April 2009, Luhansk has become the criminal capital of Ukraine.
Who could have thought!
The stubborn statistics lets us know further that the number of crimes in Luhansk per 10,000 people is 57 within the first four months of 2009.
Two more cities of Luhansk region are top five criminal cites of Ukraine:
Lissichansk
(54 crimes per 10,000 people)
and Krasnodon
(46.9 crimes per 10,000 people).
Robberies (including armed bank robberies) and burglaries are among the most frequent crimes...

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According to the data of police general Vladimir Guslavsly, a candidate for the post of the city mayor in 2011, there are 109 industrial enterprises in the city that discharge a lot of harmful substances into the environment.
The statistics says that within the first quarter of 2010 there were 83 kg of harmful substances for every resident of Luhansk.
You can often feel it by a specific smell.
We are also annoyed by the road dust, especially the one present in Defense Street on the tram line. There are clouds of dust there after a tram passes or a car drives along the tram line.

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This is just a small example for you.
I wonder if you have ever seen such roads.
It's the worst asphalted road I have ever seen.
It's Kuybyshev Street connecting Artiom Street and Voykov Street in Stone Ford District in the north of Luhansk.
It is round the corner from the former Rodina leisure center not far from the bridge across tghe Luhanka.
I wonder how cars manage to drive up and down this street.