Chernivtsi

Chernivtsi (Ukranian: Чернівці, Russian: Черновцы, Romanian: Cernăuţi) is a city in Ukraine, just north of the border with Romania and close to Moldova as well. It is on the way from Moldova in direction of Lviv or Poland or the other way around.

Chernivtsi has no real bypass and a complicated road network, but if you get dropped off in the centre and wish to hitchhike onward, there are plenty of buses and trolleybuses and local people can tell you which to take. Besides Russian and Ukrainian, Romanian and German are widely spoken.

Hitchhiking out

Northwest towards Ivano-Frankivsk (H10), north towards Ternopil' (M19)

From the central train station (vokzalu stantsia) you have to follow the street to the northwest for about 2km. Turn left at the roundabout after crossing the river. Directly after the roundabout there is a small bus terminal on your right and plenty of local people trying to get a lift or just waiting for a marshrutka.

The road splits into the H10 towards Ivano-Frankivsk and the M19 towards Ternopil' at the village Mamaivtsi which is 8km further. Here you can find a great spot for going to Ternopil': a huge roundabout after which you can stand right before a railroad crossing where all drivers have to slow down if they don't want to wreck their car. Street lighting for dark nights inclusive.

n0id and M. first tried to hitch next to the locals at the bus station, but soon walked a bit further and got a lift to Mamaivtsi. Here they also had the company of a few locals coming and leaving by flagging down a ride. At around 10pm there was not too much traffic, but trucks passed by once in a while and finally one did stop (going all the way to Warsaw via Ternopol and Luts'k - they were unfortunate to have a transit for Rava-Ruska marked in their passports).

South towards Suceava (RO) (M19)

To leave Chernivtsi towards Romania, find a stop of the trolley bus #3 (ask any bus driver). From the center (Ulica Rosskaja), you could for example take bus #202 and ask your driver to advise you. Get off trolley bus #3 at the last stop and walk down the road a few hundred meters. There's not a lot of traffic, and Zenit got two local lifts before a Russian truck headed to Greece picked him up. The road enters Romania at the Siret-Porubnoe border crossing.