ukraine

The Colors of Ukraine
During this trip, I've felt very powerfully that all people around the world are more similar than different, and then I arrived in Ukraine.  Really, I'm kidding...mostly.

After our quite somber time in Krakow, Poland, I was feeling a bit depressed, and hoping that going to Ukraine would be a bit of a pick-me-up.  Not entirely the case.  We began in the beautiful city of Lviv, (on the western edge of the country) which is quite a bit more "European" than the rest of the country.  There were elements, definitely, that reminded me of Prague, with beautiful buildings and churches.  Truly, we didn't visit a single one, and instead climbed 400 stairs of a clock tower to take in the city view from atop.  I hate to sound jaded, but one can only look at so many beautiful buildings and churches.  Instead, I began to take in the culture, and the people around us.  Well, I didn't really decide, so much as have no choice, since its pretty much impossible to ignore!

Take for example, Sunday afternoon in the main square.  We spot someone selling balloons, then a young woman selling something in a renaissance outfit.  I walk closer to her to get a look at what I realize are giant turkey-shaped lollipops, as I practically get run over by a small boy driving a small plastic car.  Then I realize they are everywhere (the cars, not lollipops).  And child-sized segways.  And ponies.  It was a chaotic, colorful dream of any child. 

Then I noticed the mothers chasing the children.  They were not donning "mom clothes."  They all were wearing 6 inch heels (ok, maybe not ALL of them were 6 inch but at least 4), which created a chorus of horse-like "clops" across the concrete.  And this is where I began to learn about Ukranian women.  If its not sheer, tight, sparkly, or be-dazzled, its not to be found on (most) women.  I am pretty sure there is an unspoken contest of who can wear the most, um, extravagent boots.  Shiny red, zebra, furry, gold, stone-washed denim, and sparkly were all spotted by moi, and all were just your normal, everyday wear.  Beyond that, I do believe its illegal to retain your natural haircolor, as platinum, raspberry, fire-y orange, and black were all common.  The grandmas even sport the raspberry and lavendar variety.  My worn-out hiking boots and plain brown hair were beyond out of place, needless to say.
 
After taking a rather sad horse-drawn carriage ride around the center with our disinterested driver, we were out of "fun land."

Back on the Train...
As we were approaching the end of our world of train rides across Eastern Europe, I thought we had gotten through rather nicely without too much drama (unlike our 3-day extravaganza in Africa).  With only two more to go, I thought we were set.  Then we got on our train from Lviv to go to Simferopol, a 24 hour gig.  It started out well enough, we had our own compartment for about 2 hours, and I was hopeful we may even get through without anyone else overnight!  Then hopped on our new friends, Victor and Nikolai.  Construction workers on their way to a southern city in Ukraine, they were eager to chat with us and share their goods with us as well.  Victor spoke Ukranian and Nikolai actually knew a little English since he lived in Canada for 6 years.  They were very friendly and nice enough, but all I could think was "I'm sharing a compartment with 4 boys, and the walls are closing in on me." 

After a little conversation, out came the food.  As we learned from our Ukranian train companions in Africa, Ukranians are incredibly generous people and want to share everything they have.  So out came the chicken, hard boiled eggs, and bread spread with deer liver pate (which admittedly was pretty tasty) and salo, which is simply cured pig fat.  Its white and pretty flavorless, and frankly, its just a slab of fat.  I don't need any more fat in my diet, especially so blatantly!  Then came out the liquor.  I could feel my anxiety levels rise.  Guy had warned me of the infamous Ukranian drinking, and I was worried where this all was headed.  They explained that it was homemade vodka, and of course we all had to have a shot of it to cheers (За здоровя) our time together.  I learned quickly that no means yes (no matter how firmly you mean it) to Ukrainians when it comes to food and drink.  There is NO refusing.  So after Victor did a couple of rounds I became as belligerent as I could politely muster in front of a complete stranger and told him I was finished.  I am not about to match my drinking pace with a 55 year old seasoned alcoholic!

As much as I envisioned our compartment turning into a party hall as the evening progressed (it was only 2 in the afternoon at this point), Victor and Nikolai were fairly mellow in their countinued drinking, and rather than getting rowdy, they simply got tired.  And snored.  Louder than I've ever heard anyone snore.  Me and three snorning men?  I would never get any sleep!  But luckily I think they slept things off before bedtime, and I was miraculously able to get a GOOD night's sleep.  Oh, how differently things all could have gone...

In the Circus
After we safely reached our destination of Simferopol the next morning, we quickly got settled into our rented apartment in town.  It was clean, small place, but it was all ours!  I think I haven't mentioned yet that a big part of traveling to different places throughout Ukraine is due to the fact that Guy spent some time there for the Peace Corp.  He was stationed (is that the right word?  It sounds a bit militant...) in Simferopol for a few months where he taught English to teenage students.  We met his teaching counterpart, Olga, for dinner, and although she wore flat boots, she didn't disappoint my expectations - a scorpion belt buckle and shimmery jacket made appearances that night.  She was very nice and kindly spoke English for our benefit the whole evening.  In another true typically Ukranian move, she asked blunt questions.  I was warned of this as well.  "How much money do you make?" - is apparently a common question asked, but it didn't come out that night.  What did come out is "Why did you get divorced?"  Nothing like sharing personal details with a complete stranger.  It certainly isn't meant to be rude or anything, its just one of those glaring cultural things. 

After our dinner (where I "enjoyed" a lettuce-less caesar salad of chicken, mayo and cheese) we headed outside to a fairly common scene - people drinking on the street, playing music - in this case, a guitar.  Olga recognized a colleague of hers, so we joined them while the "Amerikanitzi" were honored with a badly slurred and barely audible (this man didn't speak a word of English) rendition of none other than "Blue Suede Shoes" (It sounded more like Blue Sway Show).

We did spend one day actually sight-seeing, with a day trip to the near-by town of Yalta, where we saw a charming sea-side mini-castle, and the Livadia Palace ( The Yalta Conference was held there in 1945).  Both interesting, but seeing that my sight-seeing tolerance is rapidly declining, I won't go into detail.







On to the circus. 

I don't like the circus at home.  The circus in Ukraine is even freakier.  Guy wanted to go, and since I was growing tired of typical sight-seeing venues, I obliged.  While there were certainly times of talent and entertainment, there were equally times of hilarity (when they weren't intending to be) and oddity.  One of those times included a clown pointing a fake gun (although it didn't look THAT fake) at a dog, then at a child in the audience, then at his own head!!!  So weird.  Then it was serious bum-out time for me when the dressed up bear and monkey came out with their muzzles on.  Please leave the wild animals out of the circus, people.

First Class and More Serious Things

From Simferopol we headed north to the capital of Ukraine, Kyiv.  The most wonderful thing in the world happened.  Guy went to buy train tickets, and came back with First Class tickets.  It was a fluke.  He had not intended on buying them, but they were all that was left.  While he sulked, trying to get over the cost, I jumped up and down in excitement.  It was GLORIOUS.  Only two beds, down pillows, a TV screen (who cared that the only channel was in Russian and we didn't watch it ) and everything looked clean and new.  Heaven.

In Kyiv, we walked around the city center, along the river, visited the craft market, looked at a couple beautiful gold-domed churches and visited two museums: the Chernobyl Museum, and the Great Famine Museum.  In light of the recent events in Japan, it was even more interesting to learn about the nuclear accident that occurred on April 26, 1986 at the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant.
Perhaps lesser known (at least to me) was the "Great Famine" or "Famine-Genocide" of Ukraine from 1932-1933, where millions of people died due to starvation caused by terrible political/economic policies.  Both exhibits were very eye opening, and very sad.

Final Stop

From our stay in Kyiv, we headed to the small town of Kozelets (population 8,000, about an hour out of Kyiv), where we would visit the other city Guy was in during his Peace Corp training.  Andrei and Valentina were Guy's "Host Parents" during his 3-month stay, and they became very close.  They were looking out their window, waiting for us as we walked down the road to their house, and excitedly met us, grabbing Guy's face by the beard and laughing (not many men have beards or long hair here).  They were darling, wonderful people, and I quickly learned why Guy is so fond of them.  They have a simple, cute house where they grow much of their own food, make their own wine, have chickens, a cat and a dog, Valentina hand washes everything in their bathtub and makes everything from scratch.  They have no car, but recently acquired a DVD player, so we were able to share some of our trip photos with them.  Andrei has a mouth FULL of silver, and he's full of mischief like any other "grandpa" of that generation is.  He really was into his role of over-feeding me, and practiced his remedy of mole-removal on me and Guy by placing a potato half on our faces.  We have been instructed to continue this 4 more times at home...and our moles will be gone.  He swears by it.  They were so generous to us, and even had the neighbors over for a party one afternoon.  They have been married for 52 years and are so cute and hilarious together.  My favorite moment was this morning when they both insisted my hair was too damp for me to go outside in the cold.  They found their 20 year old hair dryer (which was about 4 inches long with no handle) and the two of them hovered over me drying my hair before we left.  It was sad to leave from the bus station today, but staying with them was by far the highlight of my time in Ukraine.

Ah, Ukraine.  It certainly is a unique place.  :-)