MoldovAnn

I wrote this late last Wednesday night/early Thursday morning, from my hotel room in Kharkiv. Didn’t get a chance to post it until now.

It’s officially the fourth Thursday of November in Ukraine, the traditional day of giving thanks in the United States.

I’m in Kharkiv tonight, my third city in 3 days during this tour of eastern Ukraine. A bartendar asked me tonight, after hearing me speaking English with my colleague, where I was from. It took me a moment to answer, I wasn’t quite sure how. I finally said “Originally, I’m from America, but now I live in Kyiv.” I was surprised by my own hesitation – how on earth could I be confused about where I am from? It was another one of those moments when I realized I have changed, my world is different from what it used to be.

This is my first trip significantly east of Kyiv. It’s embarrassing to admit that I have been living in Ukraine for 4 years and never been to eastern part of the country. But I’m trying hard during this trip to make up for lost time! The first stop was Dnipropetrovsk. All I can say is that I was amazed – pleasantly surprised doesn’t come close. Honestly, I’ve only ever heard about how industrial and polluted and ugly eastern Ukraine is. Well, so far, I’ve seen a quite different picture. Dnipropetrovsk was really beautiful; the city center is jam-packed full of hip cafes, outrageously expensive shops and beautiful architecture. The riverfront, excuse me, puts Kyiv to shame (then again, that’s not particularly hard since Kyiv’s riverfront is totally disgusting). I’m actually looking forward to visiting DP again, for pleasure and not just for work.

We drove to Kharkiv last night, about 2 hours from DP. It was already dark and I couldn’t get a full impression of the city, but we enjoyed a stroll through the huge (and clean!) park in the evening. We stopped for a “refreshment” at a cute-looking cafe with a display case full of decadent goodies. The waitress got a real kick out of us ordering desserts and beers – not the usual combination. She smiled and chatted with us and was all around friendly.

Wednesday we drove to Luhansk, 300 km from Kharkiv. It was rainy and foggy, the driver was on speed or something, driving like a maniac. I closed my eyes and resigned myself to a messy death on the open highway. 4 hours later we arrived in Luhansk and visited the Window on America. From there, we went to the Taras Shevchenko National University of Luhansk (not to be confused with the Taras Shevchenko National University of Kyiv, they are separate institutions).

Since my presentations are about studying in the US, I normally speak to groups of students who understand English and thus I can be lazy and present in English. So I wasn’t quite prepared when they asked me to do my presentation in Russian. I ought to be able to, in fact, I can, but I was tired, I wasn’t in my groove, there were sooo many people in the room – I don’t know what happened, but I started to get tongue-tied and all discombobulated. When my colleague whispered in my ear “Ann, just speak English”, that destroyed any shred of self-confidence I had remaining. It wasn’t one of my more shining moments, let’s put it that way. I quickly turned the floor over to my Ukrainian colleague, who did a bang-up job.

A quick dinner and another terrifying 4 hour drive, back to Kharkiv. I kept myself distracting by posting notes on the harrowing experience to Facebook. So I can’t say I have much of an impression of Luhansk, having seen very little.

A week later, I’m finally sitting down to finish this post. I started Thanksgiving Day in Kharkiv, gave a presentation at the Kharkiv State University of the Arts. We also met briefly with the university rector. I think she was the first female rector I’ve met. Her office was great – all sorts of musical instruments and other items, a big couch covered with stuffed animals (given to her by her students, she told me), and fun little knick-knacks everywhere. I suspect the “personality” of her office had more to do with her being an artist at an arts university, rather than the fact that she is female, but it was one of the most comfortable and friendly offices I’ve seen in a long time. There was also a resident cat, lounging on the sofa outside her office, entertaining and disdaining the visitors waiting to see the rector. I loved it!

I took the express train back to Kyiv that afternoon, arriving home late Thursday night. My wonderful husband had prepared a simple but lovely Thanksgiving meal for us, and we celebrated just the two of us. We have so much to be grateful for, such a wonderful life together.

Saturday we “officially” celebrated Thanksgiving, with family and friends. Igor’s mother finally accepted an invitation to visit us in Kyiv (first time in 4 years!), and it was fun to get to treat her to an enormous and delicious meal for a change. She felt very out of sorts – not her usual role to be the guest, not directing everything and everyone – but we were very happy to have her relax and just enjoy herself. Igor decided to bake a turkey. He did, as always, a fantastic job and everyone seemed really impressed with the giant bird. Friends brought a ham, pies, and lots of other great dishes. Oh, and Igor also cooked an enormous catfish. Food galore – just the way Thanksgiving should be!

Zigfried Koshinsky, aka Ziggy, aka Fat Cat, had a heyday. He entertained everyone playing fetch, sneaking nibbles when no one was looking. By the end of the night, his belly was nearly dragging on the floor. Even the cat got it right.

Well, it’s a week now since the Ukrainian government induced panic in the country about the flu. People seem to be settling into the new realities. It has almost felt like that week between New Year’s and Christmas in Kyiv, only without all the decorations – fewer people on the streets and in public transportation, not a lot of traffic.

The mask-wearing trend seems to be fading. There are less average people on the street wearing them the last couple of days, but shopkeepers, police, store clerks seem to be mandated to wear them. I’ve read enough from sources I trust that our homemade masks don’t protect us at all from viruses, so I’ve shed mine.

Friends outside of Ukraine keep asking me if this is all political – honey, everything in Ukraine is political! No politician will pass up a chance to grandstand.

At first I thought the quarantine was a pretty ridiculous overreaction, but more and more I think it was the right thing to do. If a real epidemic did break out, this country would be wholly unable to deal with it. So quarantining folks now, before there is a serious problem, just might prevent all hell from breaking loose.

Still no clue what will happen after the quarantine is lifted – events that need to be rescheduled, school time made up, etc. Let’s hope this madness does end on November 22, as is currently scheduled, and we can get on with things.

Yesterday was just weird.

Igor was nervous about me going to the office, he suggested several times that I work from home instead. I didn’t want to give in to the hysteria, but waited until well past rush hour to make the commute. So he fashioned a gauze mask for me to wear over my nose and mouth, the latest fashion in Kyiv. I shoved it in my pocket, but reluctantly promised to wear it on the metro.

During my short walk to the metro station, I saw a handful of people wearing masks and 2-3 times as many without. On the long escalator ride down to the platform, I started to feel guilty about my promise to Igor, so I put on his homemade mask. I felt like an idiot – I can be as vain as the next devushka, I’m embarrassed to say, and all I could think was how ridiculous I must look. The station was not empty, but there were far less people than normal for a week day, a few in masks, more without.

As I waited for the next train, I felt a tickle in my nose and thought to myself “Oh crap.” Sure enough, I sneezed – one time, behind my mask. I noticed people slowly move away from me, and they entered different cars when the train pulled up. Thank goodness, no more sneezing on the commute!

I started counting the number of people wearing masks – about 25-30% in the metro, less on the street.

We swapped stories in the office about craziness over the weekend. The grocery store clerk who pulled down her mask to cough into her bare hand, then picked up Peter’s veggies with said-hand to weigh them. Nice. The guy wearing a mask around his neck, smoking a cigarette. Wish I’d gotten a picture of that one.

I kept thinking about a book I read last month, World Without End, set in an English village during the Plague of the Middle Ages – about the characters who took precautions that seemed ridiculous to most of the residents, and the people who didn’t “fall for” the hysteria and were too “smart” to believe in the silly new precautions that were suggested. I wondered which category I would fall into in an epidemic? I have to admit, I didn’t get the flu vaccine when I had the chance during my trip to the US last month. Am I an idiot or what?

I left the office at 6, the normal rush hour time when all public transportation is jam-packed. But not last night. I saw several trolleys and buses that were nearly empty. My station was quite empty for that time of day, but the car filled up at the next couple of stops, to basically the normal crammed rush hour level. More people were wearing masks than had been in the morning, though, maybe 40-50%

We finally found some statistics, on the Ministry of Health’s website. This chart shows # of cases of flu and other respiratory illnesses in 10 cities of Ukraine, 1999-2009, broken down by week of the year. Yesterday this chart, showing 2009 stats in the red bar, went up through Week 43/44 and showed us basically right on track with number of cases as in previous years. I told this to Igor last night, and his immediate reaction – oh so typical – was “I don’t believe anything the Ministry of Health says.”

Today when I pulled up the chart – well, you can see, a huge jump this week.

Now I am kinda getting nervous myself. Logically, I know these statistics don’t necessarily tell me anything either – it’s extremely likely that cases of the flu were under-reported in the past, as well as other illnesses that are generally treated at home. Lots of people get the flu and don’t even realize it, they just think it’s a bad cold or something. I can’t think of any time in my adult life when I’ve gone to the doctor for a cold or flu. So we could say this jump in statistics is just an indication of awareness and increased reporting. But still…. I may look ridiculous, but I think I’ll go for “better safe than sorry” and wear my mask today.

And speaking of masks, here’s an interesting explanation of what to wear and why (with thanks to The Heart of the Matter for sharing the link).

A colleague in the western town of Lviv wrote that his office building is being closed, so he’ll be trying to work from home until the quarantine is lifted in that region. There has been talk of the oblast borders being closed, which is like shutting down inter-state transportation in the US. I have no idea how that could be enforced, or frankly what good it could do. Markets are supposed to be closed starting today. The mayor of Kyiv wants to restrict entry into the city.

Our winter coats are still in Korosten, in storage at Igor’s parents’ house. It’s snowing this morning (the first snowfall of the year!). Another good reason to stay home today.

My colleague’s neighbor got very sick over the weekend, with a high temperature. Since the consesus has been that those who have died from H1N1-related illnesses waited too long to get medical attention, Ella (my colleague) urged him to call the hospital, to get paramedics to come check him. Instead of help, he was told that they don’t have any medicine so the paramedics wouldn’t come to his apartment. This was especially shocking after Prime Minister Tymoshenko has been all over the TV claiming there is 2x as much medicine as there are sick people in Ukraine. I’m not really sure what that means.

Greetings from Kyiv sums up well part of the reason there is such a panicky reaction to the flu:

Rumors are abounding everywhere about just what is going on in Ukraine. What some people outside of Ukraine don’t understand is that there is a history in this country of the government not giving out vital health information (check your history on Chernobyl) and a socialized medical system in which many times doctors do not even communicate to people what kind of disease they have. So it makes sense that Ukrainians are nervous about what is really happening around them.

My guess is that there are little to no reliable statistics on the flu and other seasonal illnesses from past years, and so the fact that there are statistics being quoted right now freaks people out. I have yet to see a report that compares this current flu outbreak to any figures from previous years – so how can we know whether this is worse, the same, or maybe even not as bad as past winter flu seasons?

I don’t know if the flu is worse now in Ukraine than it normally is, and I don’t think anyone else knows either. But I’m very glad to see people being more aware of basic hygienic precautions that would help all of us all year long – cover your mouth when you cough and sneeze, wash your hands with soap and water, eat healthy, drink moderately, get plenty of vitamins, build up your immune system.

The H1N1 virus has finally arrived in Ukraine, and along with it a big ole dose of overreaction and panic. Reports vary on the number of infected and number of deaths attributable to swine flu, but there seems to be clear consensus that those who have died waited too long to seek medical attention. Then again, knowing the medical care available in regional towns and villages, it’s hard to imagine how going to the clinic or hospital would have really helped many of them – sad to say.

Prime Minister Yulia Timoshenko, in an attempt to scare the living bejeezes out of people, oops, I mean protect the population, has extended the autumn school break for another 3 weeks and advised people to avoid public gatherings. Once the announcement hit the wires this afternoon, parents started panicking – the flu immediately forgotten as they tried to figure out what the hell to do about childcare for another 3 weeks. Ex-pats were openly hoping the “quarantine” wouldn’t affect the international schools.

I saw three people wearing masks today, and another half-dozen covering their noses and mouths with scarves. Igor went to several pharmacies to buy echinacea and flu medicine, but no luck. Every place around us was sold out of both. So he bought a dozen lemons and insisted I drink the “family recipe” for good health – a potent concoction of vodka, lemon juice and honey.

I wonder how many of the unfortunate victims of H1N1 in Ukraine also thought their homebrew medicine was the right way to go. My father-in-law’s insistence that salo and vodka will protect you from and/or cure you of anything doesn’t seem like the best way to go right now. But what else to tell people to do?

Another great weekend in Korosten – we need to take friends every time! It gives us a great excuse to do something new and different. This time we took up the offer from Igor’s old friend Sasha to check out the Precious Gem Museum in Volodarsk-Volynskyi, a town about 55 km from Korosten, in an area known as the “little Urals”, not for the mountains (not in flat, flat, flat northern Ukraine!), but rather for the rich mineral deposits. My beautiful blue topaz jewelry comes from this area, and the bountiful granite deposits have contributed to Korosten’s many colorful monuments, walls, walkways and buildings. The particular rose-colored granite of the region is especially well-known, and in fact Lenin’s tomb on Red Square is made from the rose-colored granite deposits around Korosten (a fact I learned in the Precious Gem Museum!).

We were thoroughly impressed with the breath-taking examples of quartzes, topaz, and many, many other minerals and crystals whose names I would hardly recognize in English even if I knew the translations from Ukrainian. Sadly, pictures weren’t really allowed inside the museum – well, for a measly 5 hrivna a shot, which hardly seemed worth it when the museum booklet, with numerous photos, cost only 7 hrivna (I’ll have to scan some of the pictures and post them!). This museum was quite a little treasure, no pun intended.

I love village museums, they are often chock full of things the local residents think are ordinary, but I find them fascinating. More than once I’ve managed to get someone to open up the village museum for me. They are usually just two, sometimes three rooms, and the folks with me (often Ukrainians who’ve grown up in cities) are stunned by the history held within the simple walls. Looms, spinning wheels, farm implements, intricate embroidery and cross-stitched clothes and linens, decorative blankets for horses, folk paintings, pottery, children’s arts and crafts – I have thoroughly enjoyed every village museum I’ve had the good fortune to visit in Ukraine and Moldova, and I hope to see many more! Anyone traveling around Ukraine – make a point to stop in any little museum you come across, and if it’s closed, ask around. Chances are, someone can find someone who just might let you in for a look around.

Two awesome weekends in a row – woohoo!

Independence Day weekend was great, but more than we could handle. Igor and I went to the Kyiv auto market on Saturday afternoon (completely unrelated to the weekend festivities, but an interesting side adventure on its own). Not a lot going on, being a holiday weekend in late August when most of the country is on vacation at the sea. But I learned some colorful new words as we walked around among the rather tough-looking men who seem to spend a lot of time there. I tried one out and got a shocked look from Igor – will have to save them up for moments when shock factor may be needed.

We had “dinner and a movie” night at Sasha’s, where we watched the hilarious “One, Two, Three” with James Cagney. Sasha said it’s hugely popular in Germany, but none of us Americans had even heard of it. Some of the jokes haven’t survived the test of time, but for those of us who grew up during the Cold War and still sometimes find it hard to believe we now LIVE in the land of the former Evil Empire, it was a fun flick to watch.

Being the popular people that we are, Igor and I went to an Independence Day party after movie night, hosted by a Ukrainian-American woman. Igor and I find the diaspora crowd very interesting, but that really deserves its own post. The party was interesting, let’s just leave it at that for now.

Sunday we went to the Flower Festival, where different neighborhoods around Kyiv create beautiful works of horticulture art. The theme this year was Fairy Tales, and most of them were really impressive.

This seascape, with an octopus king and little fishies, was my favorite.

But the crowds of people were really too much for us. It was difficult to move around, almost impossible to see some of the displays, and truly impossible to walk back up out of the park against the flow of people coming down into it. We scouted out an alternative route down and along the side of the hill, and ended up just below the Lavra, by the holy spring I had heard about but had never walked down to see.

There was a lovely rose garden, and a heck of a lot less people, so we enjoyed the elbow room and a calm walk among the roses.

Bill enjoyed the bench.

Smart guy – we still had the hill to walk back up!

We rounded out the day with dinner at our favorite “Sushi Ya!” restaurant, which always hits the spot. On our way home, Igor and I stopped at the grocery store for a couple of things, and were intrigued by a special display of Indonesian and Vietnamese teas. We bought a little of both and dragged our exhausted selves home to try it out. Well, it was as black and strong as espresso, and just one cup get us both wide awake until 2 am! So much for our plans to get up early on Monday to meet Bill and Eilene for the Independence Day parade. We were still asleep when Eilene called at 8:30, and although we felt really bad for bailing on our friends, we were still exhausted and also not really ready to face another immense crowd of people. Bill and Eilene stuck it out as long as they could, but I guess they eventually had enough of being pushed and shoved and stepped on, too, and left before much of the parade was underway.

We finally got up to watch the end of the parade on TV and we heard the air force jets on their fly by (which sounded quite impressive, I have to say! even though we didn’t see the actual planes, we couldn’t have missed the sound). We celebrated Ukraine’s 18th year of independence at home, quietly yet proudly.

This past weekend we celebrated another holiday – Bill’s birthday! We were delighted that he and Eilene accepted our invitation to visit Igor’s family for the weekend and to celebrate his big day in Korosten with us. Igor went up on Friday, and Dad, Bill and Eilene headed up early Saturday morning. We were greeted, as usual, by a gorgeous table with enough to feed an army. We worked hard on it, and finally we all succumbed to food comas in mid-afternoon. A round of naps was thoroughly enjoyed by all. In the evening we went to the lovely city park, which seems to have something new every time we visit. The weather was perfect, there had been lots of weddings throughout the day, and there were still many families and groups of friends picnicking, strolling, and just generally enjoying the beauty of the park. There were some new signs encouraging people not to litter, which really impressed me. I hope they have some influence!

Sunday we started the day with a visit to the Korosten market. Eilene has been wanting to buy some Korosten china, but the factory recently closed its doors for good and my beloved factory shop has closed down, too. I asked Igor’s mom is she knew anyone with a garage full of china (since the factory was notorious for paying its employees in product instead of with actual currency), but she couldn’t get ahold of anyone right then. She told Igor about a couple stands in the market that usually sell Korosten china, so we went on a mission, which quickly expanded in focus.

Dad remembered that he needed a jacket, since he’d forgotten to bring one with him on this trip. Igor took him to vendor with leather coats and in a matter of minutes Dad was the proud owner of a really sharp leather jacket. Being the full-service kind of place that it is, the vendor walked us over to the nearby seamstress, who within the hour had shortened the sleeves and resewn the buttons – total cost, coat and alternations, under $120!

Bill got a new leather wallet, Eilene got a lovely Korosten china coffee set, we both got cool baskets. Oh, and Campsey’s got a 40-liter pot to make sauerkraut and Dad got a french press so he can finally have coffee at home. All in all, a very successful trip to the market!

The only challenge was packing it all in the car with enough room left for food Igor’s parents heaped on us – bags and bags of fresh tomatoes (last of the season!), pears and apples. No surprise, we somehow managed to get it all in!

We visited Igor’s dad in the village for a few minutes, and were delighted to see a half-dozen okra plants had grown to a decent size and produced a bit of fruit. Bill and Eilene had brought the seeds at Easter time, so it was probably a bit late for planting, but nonetheless, they got a couple handfuls of okra this year, and hopefully we’ll have an even better harvest next year. The American pumpkins were true to their origins – supersized! Next item we want to introduce to Ukraine: acorn squash!

As we walked around the farm, admiring the garden and the growing animals, a little black kitten romped along with us, following us like a puppy dog. Igor’s father said she had shown up a while back and he couldn’t resist her, so he’d been feeding her, letting her inside the house and even trained her to use a litter box. She just loved everyone, purring like a fiend when I picked her up and scratched her. Ivan invited us to take her home, which thrilled me. Igor was a bit reluctant, but with the added pressure from my father and our friends, he caved pretty quickly. She was the most relaxed I’ve ever seen a cat in a car- curled right up and went to sleep for most of the 2 hour trip, purring away. Not in the least bit fazed or nervous. No crying, not even a little peep.

After dropping everyone else off, we stopped to get cat supplies, including flea shampoo, and headed home. She didn’t fuss a bit when I clipped her nails (front and back!), but of course the flea bath was more than any cat could take. But she survived it, and even seemed to enjoy the blow dry a bit. She scarfed down a full bowl of food and spent the rest of the evening curled up with us on the couch, motor running! We were starting to get nervous about whether or not she’d use her box, and so we were quite relieved when we heard her scratching around in it early in the morning. She slept with us all night, and is still curled up close to Igor snoozing away. It’s going to be hard to go to work today!

Ivan was calling her Cheetah, but we haven’t decided yet to keep that name or go with something different. She’s all black, with rusty highlights behind her ears and on the back of her neck, and she’s got one white whisker. Panther seems like the more appropriate namesake, but it doesn’t seem to be sticking either. She’s way to sweet and loving, and just the tiniest little thing, to be a panther, I think. Any suggestions?

My “Aha!” moment of the month was realizing there is a card reader built into my laptop – d’oh! No more excuses for not uploading my pictures because I can’t find the camera cable! So I am finally, slowly but surely, catching up on my photos to Flickr. I’ll post some highlights here eventually.

Last weekend was great. Saturday was an absolutely beautiful day and we went for a long stroll with friends Bill and Eilene, starting at the Lavra and then on to the new Holodomor (famine) monument. I had only seen it from afar, so walking up close and around the plaza I had mixed feelings. There was some controversy last year about the huge amount of money spent to build yet monument to the 1930’s famine. It wasn’t really clear why anothe rmonument was needed not very far from the simple yet elegant monument at St. Michael’s Cathedral. The new one certainly doesn’t touch me the same way. They did a really fantastic job landscaping the hill below the monument, though, with stairs and paths down connecting to the paths all along the hillside. The, honestly, impressed me much more. There are several sets of stairs going down below the monument plaza, which were roped off. We looked over the side of the plaza, down one level to kind of courtyard, where old tools and canoes and other items were strewn about. A man was working on some of them, and we went down to check it out. He snapped at us that the museum wasn’t open, the courtyard was off limits still. I translated for Bill and Eilene, and when the man heard us speaking a foreign language, he seemed to warm up a bit, or at least he stopped yelling. I asked him if the things were old, as we all looked at them closely and admired them. This really won his favor, and he got interested in telling us a bit more. He showed us the flour mill he was working on, and demonstrated how it worked by cranking the handle, which turned the millstone, and he pointed to where you would pour in the grain and where the flour would come out. He invited us to come back on opening day, August 24 (Indepedence Day), and we promised we would be there.

We continued on with our stroll, with a quick stop in the underground shopping mall at Ploschad’ Slava (Glory Square). Eilene and I found a huge box of Ukrainian motif cross-stitch patterns at the Ukrainian book store and we just went nuts! We both bought enough patterns to keep us busy for the next couple of years, I suspect, while still drolling over the beautiful patterns for shirts (which are far beyond my skills, that’s for sure). The walked continued through Marinsky Park, to European Square, past Indepedence Square, and down Khreshatyk. We ended up – tired, hungry and thirsty – at a cafe where we relaxed and did some people watching. We were looking forward to quiet evening at home.

As we were heading home later, a friend of Igor’s from Korosten called to ask where the Fortress is. Turned out he was in town for the weekend with his new girlfriend and wanted to see the place Igor has raved about so much. He tried to explain how to get there, but when Vlad called back about 10 minutes later, we realized it would be easier to just take them there ourselves. Many native Kyivans don’t even know there is a fortress right smack in the middle of the city, so we weren’t surprised when Vlad said he kept asking people where it was and no one could tell him. So we met up with them and took them to the fortress. The main exhibition hall, which has an incredibly impressive collection of Trypillian artifacts was closed for an exhibit change. We were afraid the fabulous collection would be taken away, but the ladies assured us a different exhibit was changing and the Trypillian items would still be on display. We’re curious to see what will be there next! So we suggested Vlad and friend check out the smaller exhibit hall, in a different building. We went to the little building near the exhibit halls where we’ve always bought tickets before, but were re-directed to the actual ticket booth at the entrance to the grounds. Looks like they’re getting kinda fancy, maybe even professional! So Igor and I walked over to the booth and checked out the schedule and prices. We asked for two tickets.

“No,” said the lady in the booth. “It’s too late, we’re closing.”
I paused, checked the sign again, checked my watch.
“It says the museum is open until 6. It’s only 5:10 now.”
“No, it’s too late. You won’t have time for a tour.”
“But we just want to look on our own, we don’t need a guide.”
“There’s not enough time.”
Finally Igor chimed in, tired and grumpy after our long day.
“We can manage it. We’ll be OK. Two tickets please.”

I was getting a bit slap-happy, started laughing and asked the lady if the museum doesn’t need to earn any money? There budget is OK these days? On pretty much every of the numerous occassions Igor and I have been to the fortress, we always get a lecture from the ladies about the poor state of the museum’s finances, so it just seemed utterly ridiculous that they would be turning away 2 paying customers. Then again, I’m sure she was at least partially concerned for us, that we wouldn’t get our money’s worth out of a 45-minute visit (I’ve run into this before, especially from older women,). It’s sweet that she was concerned, especially since the tickets cost 7 UAH each, less than $1. But it still makes me chuckle that the employees of a cash-strapped museum would refuse to sell someone an entrance ticket!

So we passed the tickets on, walked Vlad and friend to the door and headed again for home. His phone rings; another friend from Korosten is in town for a seminar and wants to meet. Igor (much to my guilty relief) sends me on home while he goes to meet Olga. He calls soon after and asks if it’s OK for her to come to our place, she doesn’t have a place to stay the night. Of course! So I whipped together some dinner, and having company was the perfect excuse to bake a chocolate chip cake. It was a fun evening, but man were we ever exhausted when we finally collapsed into bed!

Sunday was brunch at Arizona BBQ, always a pleasure, followed by a quick stop at a arts & crafts booth I like in the underground shopping mall at Bessarabska Square (such a great use of space in a densely packed city – go underground! Wish they’d make some parking garages that way, too). Eilene and I got some fabric and thread for our new cross-stitch patterns, and she loaded up on yarn for the hats she’s knitting for cancer patients. We finally ended up at home, blissfully vegging on the couch until bedtime. Whew!

The week has been equally busy, although with fun social stuff. Saw “District 9″ one evening – a lot more gore than I care for, but a good story line. Looking forward to the sequel (will it take 3 years to make?). Also went on a “Caribbean Cruise”, organized by the American Chamber of Commerce, along the Dnipro River. It was OK; the best part was hanging out with Igor and friends Bill and Eilene. Igor commented that there were a lot of “huntresses” on board, or “working devushkas”, as Bill put it. Dad hooked up with a couple pretty quickly and disappeared for the rest of the evening.

Igor and I are in week 2 of a “drying out” phase. We decided it was time to take a break from alcohol – too much of in the past few months, and way too many of the corresponding calories. Considering the main selling point of the Caribbean Cruise was the free “tropical” cocktails, we weren’t sure how our resolve would hold up. But we stuck to our non-alcoholic beer (which was surprisingly thoughtful of the organizers to have available!). When we got home, Igor commented, “Well, we made it through our first event without booze. Kinda boring, but we did it.” I don’t think it would have been more exciting or entertaining if we had been drinking, though. But it was a pleasant evening, something different to do.

The coming weekend will be chock full of fun stuff – Sunday is Flag Day, Monday is Independence Day, so lots of events planned throughout the long weekend. Saturday is the flower festival at the park by Rodina Mat’. Sunday is a flag-raising ceremony at Marinsky Palace. And after the parade on Monday morning, we are looking forward to checking out the new museum at the Holodomor monument.

I heard a report on the BBC World Service podcast about 2 new Russian and Ukrainian plays being produced this autumn by the Royal Shakespeare Company. I’ll be damned if I can figure out how to listed to the report again from the website, but I did find a brief overview of the play on the RSC website, and a press release from the RSC with a bit more information about the Ukrainian play. And there is a long article in the Financial Times about the play. Very cool!

I added a few more items to each column in the What We Love in the US and Ukraine list.

US: ice and its easy availability (hotel ice machines rock, bags of ice you can buy in grocery stores are bee’s knees).

Ukraine: the free luggage carts at Boryspil airport; the way drivers thank each other on the road by flashing their hazards a couple of times (like if you move over towards the berm to let someone pass you on a narrow road) – one of the only polite things drivers do on the roads here.

What are your favorite things?

We had a great 4th of July here in Kyiv. Since it actually fell on a Saturday this year, we got to celebrate the great day on the actual day even!

We loaded up the car with friends and tons of food, met up with some other friends in their car, and proceeded to drive back and forth across Kyiv for a couple hours. That wasn’t the fun part, believe me, but it took us awhile to find an acceptable spot for our cookout. The folks in the other car wanted to go to a beach along the Dnipro River in the southwest part of Kyiv, but when we got there we were all disappointed and disgusted with the mounds of trash everywhere. Igor put it rather mildly – “not appetizing.” So we headed back across town to the forests on the northeast side of Kyiv. The spot was perfect – no one else seen or heard, almost no trash, and the added fun of getting to test our Toyota 4-Runner off road – woohoo!

The Americans cooked hamburgers, the Ukrainians cooked shashlik. Everyone ate the too-die-for brownies that Eilene made (although I noticed only the Americans were excited about the also too-die-for peanut butter cookies). We grilled fish and veggies. We had salads. And of course beer, wine, juices and other drinks galore. We played frisbee. We laughed until our sides hurt watching Bazooka the dog try to bury her stick somewhere close to China.

We dragged ourselves home late in the evening, tired and content. It was a really great day, and best of all that we could spend it with friends.

That’s the question I get asked frequently from both sides of the pond. Actually, Ukrainians usually say “It’s better in America, right?” and Americans often ask “What do you miss about living in America?”, but the general idea is an interest in what is different between life in the US and in Ukraine (or at least that’s how I choose to interpret those questions).

I always answer the Ukrainian question by saying “Some things are better in Ukraine, some are better in the US”, which opens the door for me to comment on a few of the areas where the average Ukrainian could contribute to improving society: litter, reckless and dangerous driving, smoking, etc. Being in the US for a month recently, I was asked several times about what I like better about life in Ukraine, and I talked about the delicious, truly organic food, the safety, the freedom. While it wouldn’t hurt to have a few more regulations in some areas (consumer protection, for example), I don’t get a 12-inch long receipt from a Ukrainian store with extensive warnings that are common sense and detailed outlines of how they are NOT liable for anything at all. I think we’ve gone off the deep end in the US trying to shirk all responsibility for anything and everything. Don’t get me wrong, Ukrainians don’t like to take responsibility either, that seems to be human nature. But at least they haven’t codified it in the law and the lawyers haven’t created a whole industry of trying to make someone else pay for the fact I spilled my hot coffee or I don’t know how to properly use a toothbrush.

Anyway, before I digress any further, I thought I’d share the non-comprehensive lists of things Igor and I love in both countries. We’ll keep adding to it as things come to my mind, and please feel free to leave comments about what you love too! (And if anyone knows how to insert a table or columns in a WordPress post so these can be side-by-side lists, please email me.)

United States

Ukraine

Much to our surprise, the internet guys came out on a holiday (Constitution Day) to set up our new connection! Yeah, we are back online!

We’ve been back in Ukraine nearly a week and still not sleeping normally. Man, ten hours is a bitch of a time difference. Tonight I quit fighting with it though; I’m going to plow through until 10 pm (I hope!) and take a sleeping pill to get me through the night. I can’t function like this anymore.

The week has been good. We went to Korosten for Igor’s nephew’s high school graduation. It was the usual Ukrainian semi-organized chaos that is typically of nearly all events here – I’m sure they rehearsed but it still nonetheless looked like they’d pulled it together only a couple hours earlier. That kind of stuff used to drive me nuts (having planned many an event in my day), but now I just find it entertaining and I get a good chuckle. It was hot as hades in the auditorium, though, so Igor, his mom and I ducked out after Denis received his diploma. We hussled home and worked on getting things ready for the family party. Denis went out with his classmates, while his parents, grandparents, Igor and I celebrated at home together.

Somehow all my clothes shrunk while I was in the US- and not just the clothes that I took there with me but all my clothes here in Kyiv too. Since I can’t afford a whole new wardrobe right now, the only thing to do is lose some of this American fat that I brought back with me. As long as we keep the trips to Korosten (where’s my mother-in-law’s fantastic cooking is always oh-so-tempting), we should do OK since the beautiful and delicious Ukrainian fruits and veggies are coming into season. We’ve been devouring the gorgeous tomatoes and cucumbers – gazpacho soup, yum! Blueberries and cherries are available now; I bought peaches yesterday. Soon the melons will be ready…. Hmmm, I think we might need to take a road trip to Crimea to really get a full dose of all the fabulous fresh fruits!

Speaking of road trips, we picked up our “new” car this weekend, a 1992 Toyota 4-Runner. The registration is still not completed, so we can’t drive it yet, but hopefully we can finish it up in the next week or two. It’s the most enormous car I’ve ever owned (although still relatively modest in size compared to the gi-normous monsters on the streets of Kyiv). It will be good for us, though – tall and rugged, able to tackle the roads and so-called roads in the places we like to travel to. I just need a step ladder to get up into the thing! Looking forward to some more road-tripping this summer!

And summer is in full force here. We sat on our balcony last week trying to boost up the rather feeble tans we got in cloudy and cold California – no one will believe us we spent over three weeks in the southwest! It’s hot and humid here in Kyiv, though. Now if only we had a beach or swimming pool next to the hotel, I mean apartment.

Igor arrived late last night, after a long but uneventful trip. He has a new apprecation for the size of the US, after the 6-hour JFK-LAX flight. I have to admit, it left quite an impression on me too! I guess I’ve always flown with a layover somewhere, so never really understood that it takes that long even with just one direct flight. 6 hours after a 10-hour trans-Atlantic flight, though, and the only words you can say are “sore butt.”

Wednesday was the Country Fair at NAFSA, one of the best parts of the entire conference (IMHO). EducationUSA advisers from over 130 countries decorated booths, dressed in traditional costumes and met with thousands of university representatives who are interested to recruit international students.

We had an Armenian princess

And some Russian ones too

And of course a great team from Ukraine

It was the first opportunity I’ve had to wear my embroidered shirt from Kosiv (western UKraine).

Several of the US university reps thought I was Ukrainian, since I was wearing the shirt, and I even was complimented on my good English!

The full set of photos are on Flickr.

This week, Armenia, Azerbaijan and Georgia all celebrated their Independence Days. I was invited to a reception hosted by the Consul General of Azerbaijan last night. Wow, what a spread! And it was exciting to learn so much about the country. Did you know Azerbaijan was the first secular Muslim-majority country in the world? It had a brief indepence for 22-months in 1918-1919 before the Bolsheviks took over and incorporated it into the Soviet Union.

We had a little scare a couple weeks ago when Igor got his new passport – the brilliant Ukrainian civil servants spelled his last name slightly differently in English from how it had been spelled in his old passport. While this normally wouldn’t be such a big deal, the problem was that his 5-year US visa was in his old passport, and now did not match the information in his valid travel documents. Some friends at the US Embassy said he technically should be able to get across the border with the slight discrepency, but who wants to take a chance like that? So he applied for a new visa, and thankfully he was able to get in quickly for his interview, which seemed to have been one of the more amusing moments of the Consular officer’s day. He chuckled at the story, and told Igor he’d have his passport back with a new visa within a week. It was delivered two days later!

And now we are counting down to the day he meets me in LA and we start a much needed and long anticipated FABULOUS vacation! The conference is great, don’t get me wrong; it’s wonderful to see my colleagues, meet new people and learn so much, but I am looking forward to putting it all behind me and hitting the road with my wonderful husband for three weeks of rest, relaxation, good food, interesting sites and new adventures. One week to go!

Chestnut trees in Kyiv – they are everywhere and they are really gorgeous

A walk in the Botanical Garden

Igor got new glasses, which he actually likes (and so do I!), despite the grumpy look he’s giving me.

Last weekend was just about as perfect as spring can get. I don’t know what’s different this year, but this spring looked and felt much better to me than any other spring in Kyiv. The chestnut trees were just explosions of delicate blooms literally all over the city. There are more pink chestnuts now, too. The apple trees, the lilac bushes, the bright sun, the warm temperatures. We went for long walks – in the botanical garden, on Andreyevsky uzviz and on Khreshatyk – all three days of the long weekend. It was gorgeous everywhere we went!

Most of the country celebrated Victory Day. Igor and I celebrated two years of life together in Kyiv. Although the wedding anniversary is in December, we made our commitments to each other when he moved to Kyiv in May.

Two weeks until our great Wild West adventure. Oh man, do we ever need a vacation! The plans are coming together really nicely. We bought some guide books in Russian last week, as well as Bill Bryson book which is titled in Russian “Uncle Sam’s Country”. I thought he must have published a new book and I was a bit jealous that Igor would get to read it first (a whole book in Russian is still more than I am up to). Turns out it’s Notes from a Big Country, just titled differently in Russian. I’m excited for Igor to read it, I hope the humor translates well. He was chuckling a bit last night, so something got through OK.

We weren’t very happy with the guide books, though. They are mostly hotel and restaurant listings, with just a page or two of history, facts, etc. Anyone know where we can get good guide books in Russian or Ukrainian? I tried to search on line, found a couple bookstores in Russia, but we need something in Kyiv.

I got home yesterday afternoon, after a long and tiring couple of flights. Bummer I couldn’t get a direct NY-Kyiv flight on a Saturday. But I’m glad I didn’t spend the extra day in that assaulting city of New York – way too loud, way too crowded, way too much concrete for me.

I think this was the first time I’ve flown on Air France – aside from the stressful check-in at JFK, they were great. The vegetarian dinner was really good, with fresh rolls and good wine. Like on many flights now, each passenger had their own TV screen. But instead of one or two prescribed films, each person could choose their own movie from a pretty big selection. Since I’m so out-of-touch, I usually don’t know anything about the movies if they are less than a year old. I watched Marley and Me because I love Owen Wilson – he was good, but I still don’t understand what the movie wanted to be about and who wants to be crying on an airplane? Then I watched Revolutionary Road – great acting, but also not really what I would have thought of as first choice for a flight. I finally skimmed through the Comedy and Drama category – Nights in Rodanthe and a couple others I don’t recall right now but remember thinking “Lord, are there any movies without someone dying at the end?” But still, Air France was great.

It was a lovely 18C when I landed, sunny and beautiful. I sat out on our balcony for the first time, enjoying the sunshine and Sunday comics that Dad sent home with me – while Igor cooked up a batch of green borscht with the fresh sorrel he brought back from Korosten this weekend. With a dash of green Tabasco sauce – ah, the perfect blend of hot and sour! I enjoyed the food fest that is the US, but nothing beats Igor’s home cooking.

Pepette had another freak-out while I was gone. Her last one (and actually the first one) was in October 2007, also coincidentally when I was away on a business trip. She was hysterical, growling, screeching, acting like she not only did she not know Igor but like he was Enemy Number 1 who must be eliminated immediately. She actually bit him quite seriously before he managed to get her isolated in a spare room, where she spent most of the past week. She was calm when I got home, so I let her out for a bit when Igor went to the store. She’s still anxious and a bit nervous, and she seems hyper-sensitive to what are normal common sounds in our apartment – like water running through the pipes from upstairs neighbors. She was fine for awhile when Igor returned from the store, but when she did finally growl at him again, I herded her back into the spare room. We let her out again in the evening, and she even sat with me on the couch, snuggled under the blanket for a bit, but it seemed like she just couldn’t relax. When this happened before, the vet we took her couldn’t make any conclusions, and a friend who’s a vet in the US had three possible diagnosis: reaction to the drugs used at the pet salon when she was groomed, contaminated pet food, or good old-fashioned psycho-cat. We’ve done all the grooming since at home with no drugs, and changed her food and stuck to that brand only. Which leaves us with Psycho-cat. Demon-cat is more like it.

She’s purring on my lap at the moment, but we’ll see how things go when Igor gets up. We can’t live in terror of a small furball, never knowing if or when she’ll freak out. Both times happened when she was in heat, although she’s been in heat many more times with no freak-outs. But Igor suggested last night getting her sterilized, which is OK by me. I don’t know if it will help Psycho-cat syndrome, but our lives will certainly improve if she’s not in heat 2-3 times every spring and fall.

I leave tomorrow afternoon for my next trip – the beautiful country of Georgia. If all goes well, I’ll get to Batumi on the Black Sea for a day or two. It’s still on the cool side, so no swimming, but food extravaganza is guaranteed! Oh, and the steam baths… to die for!

Today is Easter in Ukraine, and for all Orthodox Christians. We spent the weekend in Korosten, and had a great time (as always). Our good friends Bill and Eileen joined us, which of course was a big hit with Igor’s family- fresh ears for all their stories, fresh taste buds to appreciate the fantastic cooking, and fresh hands to take a try at some preparing some traditional dishes. Bill and Eileen both love to cook, so we made a special request to Igor’s mom for a lesson on preparing pelmeni (meat dumplings) and vareniki (dumplings with non-meat fillings, we made them with potatoes this time). It was a blast.

We rented a car to make the trip easier (and because I don’t trust any public transportation on a holiday), which meant I was the designated driver and had a good excuse to not drink the requisite obsence amount of alcohol. We arrived on Saturday at lunchtime, which was fantastic and overwhelming. Eileen’s mother and step-father live on a farm, and apparently have a lot in common with Igor’s parents, so it was fun to talk about the things familiar and the things different. We went to the village house to take a basket of goodies to Igor’s father, who took it to the middle-of-the-night mass to be blessed. He’s got the whole she-bang now out there – 5 sheep (one lamb born not too long ago), 2 pigs, rabbits, chickens, and his cow recently had her first calf, a beautiful cappucino-colored little guy.

This morning, Easter Sunday, started early, as always. Igor’s father is the religious one in the family, so he went to church at 2 am. I picked him up from the village at 7 to bring him to town for the traditional big Easter meal. He’s been “fasting” (as they call it) for 40 days, which means no meat or dairy products. And he was on total fast (ie, no food at all) since Good Friday. So by the time Easter finally arrives, he is SOOO ready to eat! They had slaughtered a pig and a turkey last weekend in preparation for Easter, and the table was full with meats in various forms – multiple kinds of homemade sausages, baked turkey, potatoes baked with pork (which Eileen said was like a stew), and of course the beloved Ukrainian salo (pork fat). It’s still too early for the most vegetables, but the green onions were ready in the little greenhouse in their yard. We had lots of fabulous salads – radishes and green onions, boiled eggs with green onions, Chinese cabbage with green onions… all utterly delicious! And of course the traditional Easter eggs and Easter bread.

Today was a bit tiring for me – it’s kinda boring to be the only sober person in a group of really drunk people, but it’s exhausting to be the only translator in a multi-lingual group. I love being part of the cultural exchange, don’t get me wrong! New guests always ask interesting and different questions, and I love being part of the dialogue. But when they get all excited, and everybody wants to talk and ask questions and give answers, it’s hard to keep up and I get really tired and grumpy. I had a few moments today that I regret, when I snapped at Igor’s family and at him, but I hope they understand that it’s hard when everybody wants me to translate for them at once.

I just have to pause to say the sky is absolutely gorgeous tonight. For all the things we dislike about where we live right now, one good thing is that we are up high (10th floor) and have a fantastic view of the setting sun. It’s like a giant rainbow out of my window right now – from indigo to cranberry. Just gorgeous.

And back to the weekend. Igor’s college roommate and best friend Sasha called yesterday from the hospital to tell Igor that his daughter had just been born. Igor is godfather to Sasha’s first child, Viktor, who is about 1 1/2 years old. So we made a quick stop at yesterday to buy presents for all involved parties, namely the newborn baby and her older brother, which were delivered today after the feast in Korosten.

In short, it was a great weekend- extreme calories (although we decided any foodstuffs blessed at church were calorie-free), lots of booze, great friendships established, lots of hugs and invitations to visit again.

Tomorrow I’m off to New York for a conference. It’s a quick trip, just a week, with no visits to Ohio. But two Peace Corps friends are in New York and we’ll be celebrating Emily’s birthday together. It’s hard to believe we were last all together four years ago, in Moldova.

Speaking of which, Anya and Grisha called today to wish us a Happy Easter. Anya was again in charge of voting in Tvarditsa and with great satisfaction reported to me that the recount of her district had the same results – that is, no errors under her leaderhship. Who would have expected otherwise?!

The sun has set now, it’s been a long day with lots of adventures and impressions. I’m ready to curl up with a good book and call it a day. Tomorrow is an early start and a long day. Hard to believe I’ll be in the motherland tomorrow night…

Spring is definitely coming out of hibernation these last few days in Kyiv. There’s such a feeling of relief each year when I realize we’ve made it past the hump, we survived another dark and dreary winter. I always stock up on something to keep me occupied during the winters, and this year it was cross-stitch and American TV shows. I watched the entire series of Homicide: Life on the Streets and The West Wing. I’d loved both series when they originally aired, but never saw the first season of Homicide, or the last couple seasons of either series. Can I just say, holy cow did West Wing ever rock! And talk about life imitating art – it was a bit freaky to watch the last two seasons of West Wing in the months following the election and inauguration of Barack Obama. Homicide was a great series, too, but it got under my skin to watch it so intensely, so many episodes back to back. I realized I needed to take a break when I started to see killers and rapists everywhere around me. Kind of like if you watch The Sopranos too much you start dropping F-bombs like there’s no tomorrow.

I also caught up to the broadcasts of Battlestar Galactica and Lost. It was bittersweet to watch the BG series finale last week, but frankly I can’t wait for Lost to wrap up too. Both series seem to get a bit lost (no pun intended) for awhile there, but BG pulled it together really nicely at the end. I’m gonna miss those folks. They had some interesting lessons to share, for both the business and political worlds.

And during all this TV watching, I’ve been making good progress on my cross-stitching. I finished two small projects then moved on to two bigger and more complicated ones. I finished the second of those last week (I thought it was never going to end!) and decided it’s time to try my hand at what I really wanted to be doing – a rushnik, or Ukrainian embroidered towel. It’s daunting to pick up the long cloth and start the first of what will be thousands of stitches, but it’s exciting. I honed my skills all winter long with this project as my goal, and with the new spring I start working on that goal -yeah!

The only downside to all this cross-stitching is that I haven’t been reading much, since the two don’t really go hand-in-hand, so to say (hence the extreme TV watching all winter long). I did read a few good books in recent months, but not nearly as many as in past winters. As usual, my reading list is on GoodReads.