MoldovAnn

I spent yesterday with my buddy Blane Lowe and his family. Blane is on a six-month consulting mission with UNDP/Ukraine as an Avian Influenza Expert (aka “bird flu”). His family is here this week visiting him – wife Julie, daughter Aleisha and son Miles. Blane wanted them to see more than just Kyiv, and his wife was very interested in visiting the Korsoten China factory store, so we arranged a day trip to Korosten with some special sites along the way.

Our first stop was about 30 minutes north of Kyiv at the huge lake locally called the “Kyiv Sea.” This artifical lake was created when the Dnipr River was dammed, flooding hundreds of square acres over a 2-year period. Several villages were, unfortunately, in the area to be flooded, and the residents were all re-located to other towns. A cemetery was also flooded over, and since the graves were not relocated, we were told that caskets started surfacing at one point. Yuck.

The lake grew so big that it actually affected the climate in and around Kyiv, changing it into a more humid and damp environment. The change was so significant and undesirable that it was under discussion to drain the lake and return the area to dry landscape. Then the Chornobyl accident occured, and now the silt on the lake bottom is so contaminated that it would be more dangerous to expose that soil to the air and release all that trapped radiation into the atmosphere over Kyiv.

Our next stop was at the checkpoint to the Exclusion Zone. We drove through a little “bubble” of the Zone, an area not originally evacuated and closed. In fact, this area was originally developed and populated with re-settlers from inside the Exclusion Zone. Huge amounts of money were put into infrastructure, building apartments and other buildings, and creating new towns for dislocated peoples. In 1989, it was determined that the area was actually extremely contaminated and unsafe for human habitation, and all the new residents were re-located again to other parts of Ukraine. Because there are communities on both sides of this “bubble” of closed territory, some traffic is allowed to pass through the area, as long as you do not stop or get out of your car during the 10-15 minutes it takes to drive through the area. Most of the area seems just like other rural areas of Ukraine, and if it weren’t for the check-points going in and out of it, you wouldn’t really think anything special about this area. And then you drive through an abandonded town. Crumbling buildings peek out at you from behind trees and bushes. A decrepit multi-story apartment building, a school, a post office that still has the sign on it. As always when I go through these places, I am overwhelmed by the sadness of the place. The emptiness, the heartache, the lost hopes and dreams, the lives disrupted again and again.

Just a few kilometers from that piece of the Exclusion Zone we drove through a partially evacuated village. Literally right across the street from, or even right next to, an evacuated home or apartment building is a non-evacuated home or apartment building. We couldn’t make rhyme or reason of why one building was labeled contaminated, and why right next door, or across the street, was safe. Blane said the practice sounds suprisingly similar to what the Ukrainian health officials claim is their plan for the next Avian Influenza outbreak. Instead of culling whole flocks of birds (as they did last year during the AI outbreak), they claim they can separate out and slaughter only those birds that are contaminated within a village or flock, and they won’t need to cull all the birds in an area. Blane doesn’t think the plan sounds very realistic.

We continued our drive to Korosten and stopped at two other sites along the way, to see some monuments, including WWII truck dedicated to an unknown soldier/driver.

In Korosten, we went to the school where Igor’s mother is librarian. Igor had arranged a short meeting for Blane and his family with a club of students, ranging from about 9-10 years to 16-17 years old. The school’s English teacher facilitated the meeting, encouraging her students to ask questions of the American teenagers. Everyone was pretty shy, but Blane’s son Miles soon warmed up when he was asked about the kind of music he likes and what his favorite hobbies are. I’m not sure many of the school kids understood what he was saying, but every now and then the teacher would translate into Ukrainian, and I helped a couple times translating into Russian. Blane showed them on a map of the U.S. where their home state of Colorado is, and told them a bit about his work in Ukraine. He wowed the class with a few Ukrainian phrases he’s picked up.

From the school we went to the Korosten Center for Social-Psychological Rehabilitation, where Igor works as a psychologist. Blane had a brief meeting with the Director, and Igor gave a nice tour of the facility, describing the physical, psychological and social therapy he and his colleagues conduct there.

We then went to the Korosten China Factory store, a must-see on any trip to Korosten. The factory has been in operation since 1904, and claims it’s china is sold across the former Soviet Union and Europe. The inventory in the factory store changes regularly, based on whatever is in excess or going out of production. I bought a beautiful tea set with hand-painted tulips on the six cups, teapot, sugar bowl and milk vase, and delicate vines painted on the saucers – for $20! The prices on most items there are ridiculously low, although they do have some extraordinary works of porcelin art, with prices to match.

Thursday was the shortest day of the year, and by 5:00 pm it was as dark as midnight. We headed back to Kyiv, everyone tired and full of impressions. It was the only day during the quick visit Blane’s family made to Ukraine for them to see part of the country outside of Kyiv, and their only opportunity to interact, however briefly, with Ukrainian school kids. I think it was a worthwhile visit.