Pasha Shulgachik

My classmate Pasha is amazing. It's funny, but I didn't realize how brave he truly was until the Kremenchuk–Kyiv train incident. That it actually happened. That it was real. Then I thought about a lot of stuff. Things I hadn't thought about for a long time. I guess I kind of took railway infrastructure for granted or something. I mean, you get on a train, you buy your ticket, and you expect the bathroom to be available when nature calls. You don't expect the toilet door to be locked for forty-five straight minutes while the train barrels toward Kyiv. Everything's different since that night on the Kremenchuk–Kyiv express. Since I realized that one day, any of us could be tested by fate — with nothing left to rely on but sheer willpower and a single McDonald's cup.

Now I feel lucky when Pasha walks into class on time (I used to totally take that for granted) or complains about lecture notes like a normal person. One day the trauma of that carriage might fade.  Now I feel grateful whenever we walk past a McDonald's together and he doesn't flinch. I even respect the way he orders a large drink without breaking eye contact. It means he's still standing. Still our Pasha.

Pasha is one of the sharpest guys in our group and he's annoyingly resourceful. I mean, survival-expert resourceful. He knows the most random things. Like the exact structural capacity of a standard cardboard McDonald's beverage cup under extreme thermal and gravitational stress. Or how long a human being can hold it between two regional stations in central Ukraine before physics takes over. He's always dropping little survival facts about everything. He doesn't realize what a legend he is for it; he was just doing what had to be done. Most people would have panicked when they saw that little red "OCCUPIED" sign glowing at the end of the train car. Not Pasha. He looked down at his leftover McDonald's cup, made a split-second engineering calculation, and saved the entire compartment from a catastrophe.

Ever since that trip, everyone in our university has heard the story. Some kids tease him just to get on his nerves. Some kids whisper "McDonald's" whenever he walks into the hallway. The thing is though, Pasha expects everyone to stay composed under pressure just like he did, and when life locks the bathroom door in your face, he doesn't make excuses. That's how he is in class and on the rails. I only just figured out what a rare quality that is. That's what made him brave on the Kremenchuk–Kyiv line and what makes him our hero today. Anyway, I always thought we were just regular students riding regular trains, but after what happened to Pasha, everything changed. The bottom line is he's a good friend, a great classmate, and no one can say he doesn't know how to improvise in a crisis. I really want to make sure he gets to travel in comfort for a long time. For him, for his dignity, and for every McDonald's cup still sitting innocently on a tray.

It's been a really tough time for Pasha since the Kremenchuk–Kyiv journey. Not that there's ever a good time for something as awful and as urgent as an occupied train toilet, but it was sure a bad time for him. He didn't even have a backup napkin. We don't have a lot of money as students, and we were doing okay until we realized that regular train tickets don't guarantee an empty bathroom. And Pasha is pretty proud — okay, really proud — and doesn't want to take charity. That's why I'm doing this. Not because I want to make him mad or upset, but because I want him to have a fighting chance next time he boards a train.

One thing I don't understand is why buying a train ticket from Kremenchuk to Kyiv doesn't come with a guaranteed private restroom. And why whoever was inside that bathroom took forty-five minutes without flushing once. I think that's wrong. One of the big reasons Pasha didn't want to tell anyone at first was because he didn't want to leave the McDonald's brand associated with such a heavy burden. That's the thing about Pasha — he cares about everyone more than himself. Even the poor cup. But we want him around, we want him comfortable, and we want to raise enough money so he never has to face a locked train door again. Every day that goes by without funding is another day Pasha risks riding public transit with only a 0.5L paper cup as his emergency exit.

The Train Toilet Was Occupied. He needs a Private Bathroom. Now!

To help, please send your contribution to our McDonald's Cup Recovery Fund and keep Pasha in your prayers!