"They're gonna shoot a plane down, I tell you"

Today 10 years ago Malaysia Airlines flight MH17 was shot down in Ukraine... 2 hours after I arrived in Ukraine.

The Malaysia Airlines plane was already in the air and flying the same flight path as my flight from London was coming into land in Kyiv.

This was in the months after the Maidan protests had happened. There was still a large number of protestors camped in the square, along with mountains of old tyres piled ready. The travel advisories for then were to avoid travel to Ukraine, but as the apartment owner Valentina told me when I left, "please tell the world that Ukraine is a normal country". Indeed, it was very safe and peaceful all throughout Kyiv, though I was warned to avoid Maidan at night (obviously).

After arriving into central Kyiv, I dropped my bags at my rental apartment (trés Sovietique) and went to buy groceries from the local supermarket. As soon as I returned to the apartment, I turned on the TV and there the news reports that a Boeing 777 had crashed in eastern Ukraine in the Donetsk region where heavy fighting had been waging.

At first I couldn't believe my eyes or what I was hearing, but after checking various other sources, it was all true... and spooky... because I had been told that this was going to happen! I'm being honest here. And out of all the times that it could happen, it happened to be when I had just arrived in Ukraine.

Here's how I was told...

Two months earlier, in May 2014, I was in Tallinn, Estonia for my first time. It was an unusually hot day (30°C!), so I sought some shade under a tree in the courtyard of the Aleksandr Nevsky Russian Orthodox Cathedral. Soon after, an old Russian pensioner approached me attempting to sell old Soviet coins. I wasn't interested, but this dedushka seemed very chatty, making for a great opportunity to practise speaking Russian. He had all the time of the world, spoke slowly and was patient. It was like talking to my own grandfather, so I knew exactly where the conversation would be heading: western-hatched anti-Russian conspiracy theories. I know how to play along. Conversation quickly went to the hot topic at the time: Maidan and Crimea, so I let the pensioner go on. But there was one thing the pensioner said with full conviction. He asked me if I remembered when Siberian Airlines flight 1812 was shot down by accident in October 2001? As a plane buff who loves the Tupolev Tu-154, I certainly did. So the pensioner then told me "mark my word, another plane will go down like that in Ukraine. They're gonna shoot down a plane, I tell you".

By this time I thought the dedushka was going completely crazy, so I said goodbye, left and didn't think anything more of it... until I turned on the TV 10 years ago today. 

Shocked, saddened and spooked!