Duct tape: the organizational system for when all else fails.
Thursday, January 31, 2013
Wednesday, January 30, 2013
I remember that the introductory material for one of my study aboard programs to Moscow said that Russia is a smoker's country, and that couldn't be more true. Russia is the world's top consumer of tobacco, and a staggering 60% of Russian men smoke (40% of the overall population smokes--double the US percentage). Cigarettes are cheap; a pack costs somewhere between one and two dollars. Also, you can smoke almost everywhere. There are very few non-smoking areas in Russia, and people even smoke in the few non-smoking places that exist (the bathroom at the Vladimir Business Institute, where some of our classes are held, has a big "No Smoking" sign on the door, but usually there is a haze of smoke inside). Even some of the guys who are always at my gym smoke, and they will occasionally take smoke breaks in the middle of the workouts.
All that can be kind of annoying for a non-smoker. I don't really care what people choose to do, and quite a few of my friends in Russia are smokers, but I hate coming back from a night out and smelling like I rolled around in an ashtray. In a lot of bars and clubs, the cigarette smoke is so thick that you can practically taste it.
My trip to Ukraine made me aware of just how smoky Russia is. Ukraine enacted an indoor smoking bar in late 2012, and it was great to be able to go to a bar, cafe, restaurant, or pool hall and not come out reeking of cigarettes. I was actually against the Ohio indoor smoking ban when it came up for a vote in 2006--I thought each business should have the right to make the decision of whether to go no-smoking or not--but now I'm thankful for it.
Russia's government has realized the enormous problems that having so many smokers poses, and a law was recently passed that will increase cigarette prices, ban advertising, and enact an indoor smoking ban by 2015. This is one time that I am really glad that Putin is president of Russia because he is an athlete and anti-smoker, and if anyone can stand up to the tobacco lobby, it is VVP. As one of my Russian friends (and a chain smoker) once pointed out, the cigarettes being smoked in Russia are made by American or British companies. He called it the West's punishment for the Cold War.
My teenage students tell me that it is cool to start smoking around age 12 and really cool if you can quit by age 17 (the success rate is probably pretty low). It makes me sad to see young teenagers walking down the street puffing away and enriching the coffers of some slimy American company. American tobacco companies have looked to Russia as their salvation as smoking rates throughout most of the world have dropped, and it is disgusting to think that these fat cats are making profits by robbing the health of the youth of this country. Maybe Putin can turn things around.
All that can be kind of annoying for a non-smoker. I don't really care what people choose to do, and quite a few of my friends in Russia are smokers, but I hate coming back from a night out and smelling like I rolled around in an ashtray. In a lot of bars and clubs, the cigarette smoke is so thick that you can practically taste it.
My trip to Ukraine made me aware of just how smoky Russia is. Ukraine enacted an indoor smoking bar in late 2012, and it was great to be able to go to a bar, cafe, restaurant, or pool hall and not come out reeking of cigarettes. I was actually against the Ohio indoor smoking ban when it came up for a vote in 2006--I thought each business should have the right to make the decision of whether to go no-smoking or not--but now I'm thankful for it.
Russia's government has realized the enormous problems that having so many smokers poses, and a law was recently passed that will increase cigarette prices, ban advertising, and enact an indoor smoking ban by 2015. This is one time that I am really glad that Putin is president of Russia because he is an athlete and anti-smoker, and if anyone can stand up to the tobacco lobby, it is VVP. As one of my Russian friends (and a chain smoker) once pointed out, the cigarettes being smoked in Russia are made by American or British companies. He called it the West's punishment for the Cold War.
My teenage students tell me that it is cool to start smoking around age 12 and really cool if you can quit by age 17 (the success rate is probably pretty low). It makes me sad to see young teenagers walking down the street puffing away and enriching the coffers of some slimy American company. American tobacco companies have looked to Russia as their salvation as smoking rates throughout most of the world have dropped, and it is disgusting to think that these fat cats are making profits by robbing the health of the youth of this country. Maybe Putin can turn things around.
Here is an awesome Russian rock opera by the group Aria. I first heard this song in a pool hall in Lviv, Ukraine, and I've been listening to it ever since. It's called Я свободен, which means "I'm free." The chorus goes:
I'm free like a bird in the sky
I'm free--I forgot what fear means
I'm free--with the wild winds on the plain
I'm free in reality--not in a dream
I'm free like a bird in the sky
I'm free--I forgot what fear means
I'm free--with the wild winds on the plain
I'm free in reality--not in a dream
Monday, January 28, 2013
Friday, January 25, 2013
Winter continues here in Vladimir, although it's been warm lately. Of course, warm is relative: Temperatures have been hovering between 5 and 15 degrees Fahrenheit, but after the stretch of -5 to -15 degree temperatures, it feels nice. We also have been getting some snow pretty much every day, so the snow cover is starting to get pretty thick (probably about 18 inches on the ground). I love the snow, and it makes everything a lot more beautiful. All the birch trees are frosted with snow and ice, and I see people on the bus with their cross-country skis every day. Here are two pictures of my snow-covered neighborhood from my walks to class this week. My neighborhood isn't exactly the prettiest place on earth, but it could be worse.
Tuesday, January 22, 2013
There are a lot a lousy jobs in Russia, but it is hard to get lousier than public restroom attendant. Nearly all public restrooms cost money (somewhere between 10 and 30 rubles--from 30 cents to a dollar), and the attendant is the grumpy woman who makes sure you pay your money. Public restrooms are very important, especially when you are traveling, and they are are frequently located near bus and train stations, big parks, and other attractions.
But these restrooms are almost always really disgusting. America does bathrooms really well; American Standard is the name of a toilet brand, after all. I don't know what this implies, but Russian Standard is a vodka brand (and a damn good one, too). Anyway, it is common to encounter the hole-in-the-floor style toilets, and toilet paper is fairly rare in public bathrooms (sometimes the attendant has a roll or two sitting on her desk). The thing that is really rare, though, is paper towel or a working hand dryer, so most people don't wash their hands. And even if they did, the only soap is usually a really grimy bar of basic old white soap sitting in a filthy soap dish.
This whole grubby kingdom is the domain of the restroom attendant. Every time I use one of these bathrooms, I realize how awful jobs can be. Imagine that you are the attendant at Kurski Train Station in Moscow. There is a constant stream of people who all need to satisfy nature's callings before boarding trains, and many of them have been traveling for a long time and haven't bathed in a while. And these public bathrooms almost always smell incredibly awful, like a combination of festering urine and a whole menagerie of other nasty people smells. The bathroom at that train station was so smelly that I actually had to fight my gag reflex while I was in there. So you sit in your little cubicle near the door--but still definitely inside the bathroom--and collect money from people. And you do that for eight hours. Five days a week.
The smell must impregnate your clothes and get caught in your hair, and you deal with all sorts of rude people, clueless foreigners, drunks, and all manner of society's dregs. Also, it's a completely thankless job; you're an annoying barrier that stands in the way of man and nature, not letting man unload his two Baltikas and a cup of coffee before boarding the 7:18 train to Zheleznodrozhnii. As far as I know, there is no day of the restroom attendant in Russia, and this is a country where nearly every profession has its own little holiday (day of the customs inspector, for example, is coming up later this week).
So, the next time you think your jobs sucks, and you're contemplating your place in post-industrial society, think of the Russian restroom attendant. To really drive the point home, here's a picture of a nasty bathroom. I've seen worse, although this one is pretty bad.
But these restrooms are almost always really disgusting. America does bathrooms really well; American Standard is the name of a toilet brand, after all. I don't know what this implies, but Russian Standard is a vodka brand (and a damn good one, too). Anyway, it is common to encounter the hole-in-the-floor style toilets, and toilet paper is fairly rare in public bathrooms (sometimes the attendant has a roll or two sitting on her desk). The thing that is really rare, though, is paper towel or a working hand dryer, so most people don't wash their hands. And even if they did, the only soap is usually a really grimy bar of basic old white soap sitting in a filthy soap dish.
This whole grubby kingdom is the domain of the restroom attendant. Every time I use one of these bathrooms, I realize how awful jobs can be. Imagine that you are the attendant at Kurski Train Station in Moscow. There is a constant stream of people who all need to satisfy nature's callings before boarding trains, and many of them have been traveling for a long time and haven't bathed in a while. And these public bathrooms almost always smell incredibly awful, like a combination of festering urine and a whole menagerie of other nasty people smells. The bathroom at that train station was so smelly that I actually had to fight my gag reflex while I was in there. So you sit in your little cubicle near the door--but still definitely inside the bathroom--and collect money from people. And you do that for eight hours. Five days a week.
The smell must impregnate your clothes and get caught in your hair, and you deal with all sorts of rude people, clueless foreigners, drunks, and all manner of society's dregs. Also, it's a completely thankless job; you're an annoying barrier that stands in the way of man and nature, not letting man unload his two Baltikas and a cup of coffee before boarding the 7:18 train to Zheleznodrozhnii. As far as I know, there is no day of the restroom attendant in Russia, and this is a country where nearly every profession has its own little holiday (day of the customs inspector, for example, is coming up later this week).
So, the next time you think your jobs sucks, and you're contemplating your place in post-industrial society, think of the Russian restroom attendant. To really drive the point home, here's a picture of a nasty bathroom. I've seen worse, although this one is pretty bad.
Sunday, January 20, 2013
Yesterday was the Orthodox holiday Kreshcheniye. On this day, people recall baptism by jumping into lakes and rivers that have been blessed by a priest. I wasn't planning on plunging into an icy body of water--it was all of about 5 degrees Fahrenheit and snowing steadily--but one of the other teachers convinced me. Just before midnight on Friday night, we went with some friends of my host family to a little village outside of Vladimir. There was a hole cut into the ice on a little lake, and there were maybe 50 people clustered around a big bonfire. A bearded Orthodox priest soon went out and blessed the water, and then he plunged in.
I wasn't exactly looking forward to jumping into the water, but I figured that it was too late to turn back. I had heard of this holiday before, and I always thought it would be a cool experience. So, I stripped down to my bathing suit, stood in line for a few minutes, and then it was my turn to go. I kicked off my sandals and lowered myself into the water. I sometimes take cold showers (sometimes it's my choice; sometimes the hot water is turned off in the gym), so I am somewhat accustomed to the feeling of frigid water, but this was more intense. I quickly dunked my whole body under the water three times--that's what you're supposed to do--and scrambled back out. Talk about invigorating. My body was in some kind of shock, but I felt very warm. I hurried back up to the bonfire and dried off and put my clothes on. I didn't feel cold, although my teeth were chattering and I couldn't feel my feet. We drank some tea and warmed up by the fire and then headed back to the car.
I felt great the next morning, and I would totally do it again. Here are some pictures of the whole thing. My host family's friends took more pictures and have some of me in the water, so I'll post those when I get them.
I wasn't exactly looking forward to jumping into the water, but I figured that it was too late to turn back. I had heard of this holiday before, and I always thought it would be a cool experience. So, I stripped down to my bathing suit, stood in line for a few minutes, and then it was my turn to go. I kicked off my sandals and lowered myself into the water. I sometimes take cold showers (sometimes it's my choice; sometimes the hot water is turned off in the gym), so I am somewhat accustomed to the feeling of frigid water, but this was more intense. I quickly dunked my whole body under the water three times--that's what you're supposed to do--and scrambled back out. Talk about invigorating. My body was in some kind of shock, but I felt very warm. I hurried back up to the bonfire and dried off and put my clothes on. I didn't feel cold, although my teeth were chattering and I couldn't feel my feet. We drank some tea and warmed up by the fire and then headed back to the car.
I felt great the next morning, and I would totally do it again. Here are some pictures of the whole thing. My host family's friends took more pictures and have some of me in the water, so I'll post those when I get them.
Wednesday, January 16, 2013
You gotta be tough to live in Russia. Even if you're a cat. Here's a picture I took on my way to work this morning of some stray cats that live near my building. They are always outside, even when it was -25F (I don't know how their paws didn't freeze from being in contact with the frigid ground), although it looks like they can go through a little window that is always open to get inside the basement of the apartment building. People frequently leave food out for stray animals, and you can see the food that someone put out for these felines. We actually feed a big group of stray cats that lives around the American Home, and our director even takes these stray cats to the vet and has found homes for many of the kittens. Still, it's a rough life out on the mean (and cold) streets of Vladimir, especially if you're only 10 inches tall.
Sunday, January 13, 2013
I had an extremely Russian day today. I woke up around 11am (OK I'm lazy on weekends), had breakfast, and went to a big park in Vladimir and rented cross-country skis. I skied for two hours, and it was great. It was quiet; snow was falling; and the temperature was around 0F, which is perfect for skiing--you don't overheat. I'm getting better at skiing, and I had a few moments where I felt like I was really cruising along the trail. It was just me, my skis, and a vast pine forest. Of course, I also managed to fall several times, and all those times happened to be right in front of other people, so I still have some work to do.
I arrived home, had some borshch for lunch, and helped my host brother with his English homework. I was planning to go to the gym after that, but as we were going over his homework, a ton of guests arrived. The table was set, and there was already beer poured for me. It was time to celebrate Old New Year! Until 1917, Russia used to use the Julian calendar, which is 13 days behind the Georgian calender used by the rest of the world. The old calender is still used in the Russian Orthodox Church, and some holidays are still celebrated "in the old style."
So I decided to forego my workout today and relax po russki. We had homemade pelmeni (meat-filled dumplings), solyodka pod shuboi (a layered salad made with herring, potatoes, beets, and mayonnaise), homemade pirozhki (baked pastries filled with meat, potatoes, eggs, or jam), and other salads and appetizers. All this was, of course, accompanied by plenty of beer and vodka. In great Russian tradition, one of the guys brought out a guitar, and we sang songs for hours. I didn't know all the songs, but my repertoire of popular Russian songs is growing.
Old New Year roughly marks the end of the New Year's holidays, which have stretched on since December 31st. Of course, there are a few more minor holidays left in January, but I think most people are getting back to a regular schedule on Monday. That's a good thing, because I need a break from all this eating and drinking. My host mom was talking about how everyone in Russian goes on a diet in January and February and noted that I've put on some weight since I've come to Russia. She's right--I'm the heaviest I've ever been, and, while I think a good part of that weight gain is muscle, I definitely notice a little something around my waist that didn't use to be there. Time to get back to my flavorless diet of grechka and chicken breasts.
Anyway, here is a clip of one of the songs we sang today. It is by the legendary group Machina Vremeni (time machine), and everyone in Russia knows this song. Heck, even I know this song. I picked this video because it has good shots of a really Russian rock festival.
I arrived home, had some borshch for lunch, and helped my host brother with his English homework. I was planning to go to the gym after that, but as we were going over his homework, a ton of guests arrived. The table was set, and there was already beer poured for me. It was time to celebrate Old New Year! Until 1917, Russia used to use the Julian calendar, which is 13 days behind the Georgian calender used by the rest of the world. The old calender is still used in the Russian Orthodox Church, and some holidays are still celebrated "in the old style."
So I decided to forego my workout today and relax po russki. We had homemade pelmeni (meat-filled dumplings), solyodka pod shuboi (a layered salad made with herring, potatoes, beets, and mayonnaise), homemade pirozhki (baked pastries filled with meat, potatoes, eggs, or jam), and other salads and appetizers. All this was, of course, accompanied by plenty of beer and vodka. In great Russian tradition, one of the guys brought out a guitar, and we sang songs for hours. I didn't know all the songs, but my repertoire of popular Russian songs is growing.
Old New Year roughly marks the end of the New Year's holidays, which have stretched on since December 31st. Of course, there are a few more minor holidays left in January, but I think most people are getting back to a regular schedule on Monday. That's a good thing, because I need a break from all this eating and drinking. My host mom was talking about how everyone in Russian goes on a diet in January and February and noted that I've put on some weight since I've come to Russia. She's right--I'm the heaviest I've ever been, and, while I think a good part of that weight gain is muscle, I definitely notice a little something around my waist that didn't use to be there. Time to get back to my flavorless diet of grechka and chicken breasts.
Anyway, here is a clip of one of the songs we sang today. It is by the legendary group Machina Vremeni (time machine), and everyone in Russia knows this song. Heck, even I know this song. I picked this video because it has good shots of a really Russian rock festival.
Saturday, January 12, 2013
OK here is the final installment in my Ukraine travel notes. After spending the day of Dec. 27 in Kiev, we boarded another night train to Odessa. Tickets on Ukrainian trains are very cheap, and so we decided to upgrade and travel kupe instead of our normal platskart. The ticket for the 9-hour trip only cost about $40. Kupe is basically second class (although I've never heard of anyone traveling first class), and it is a sleeper compartment with four beds--two lower beds and two upper beds. The beds are longer than in platskart, and you get a door that shuts, so you have some semblance of privacy--and your feet don't get bumped by every person walking by all throughout the night (#tallpersonstroubles).
Our compartment mates were two classy Ukrainian ladies, and one was a very conversational professor of pedagogy at a Kiev university. She told us all about her work, her kids (one of whom lived in Detroit for a while), and Ukraine. She didn't immediately ask us where we were from, and she later told me that it was only because we didn't get a political anecdote she told that she decided that we must not be Russian. She said that at first she assumed we were Russian, then figured that we were Russians who studied abroad for a while and picked up a little accent, and then finally decided to ask who were really were. It was rewarding to know that I could, at least for a little bit, fool an educated native speaker of Russian. That Russian degree wasn't gotten in vain!
Anyway, we arrived in Odessa at around 7am, and the whole city was totally fogged in. We found our hostel, which was close to the train station, and dropped our stuff off. We stayed at a really nice hostel (a shameless plug: It's called the Babushka Grand) that was in a gorgeous old apartment that used to belong to some very rich person. Summer is the big tourist season in Odessa, so we were the only guests there, and the staff--a chill young guy from California and a cool Ukrainian girl--was happy to accommodate us early.
We then set off to explore the city. The guy at the hostel gave us some recommendations and a map, so we were actually a lot more prepared for our time in Odessa than we were for any of the other cities. We got breakfast and walked to the Potemkin steps. Odessa is a major port and has long been a hub of commerce--and crime. The city has a beat-up grandeur that the guy in the hostel compared to San Francisco. My traveling companion said that it felt like we were walking around in a Grand Theft Auto game. You definitely get the feeling that there is a lot of shady business going on.
One of the coolest things in Odessa was the giant market, called Privoz. I'm not stranger to the Russian-style market, filled with old women and Central Asian and Caucasian men selling fruits, meat, fish, and all sorts of cheap Chinese-made clothes and shoes, but this market took the cake. It went on for more than a city block and even had a four-story building dedicated to all those Chinese clothes. At these markets, it's perfectly acceptable to haggle to get things cheaper, and the sellers can be very aggressive; I had a guy in a Moscow market try to sell me a belt with a giant, rhinestone encrusted dollar-sign buckle that a 90s rapper would think was gaudy, and I nearly had to push him to get away--he wouldn't take no for an answer. This time, I bought some eggs, oranges, and sausage for the train trip.
We explored a lot of the city and saw many of the highlights, but unfortunately the fog stayed around all day, so it was hard to even see across the street sometimes. I went to the shore of the Black Sea and dipped my hand in the water, but I could only see a few hundred yards out. Also, the city was pretty quiet; summer is the tourist season when all the clubs along the Black Sea coast are bumping and the city is full of people from all over Europe. We couldn't even find a decent bar that was open. And, as luck would have it, the fog lifted on Saturday, which was our last day, but our train left at 2:00pm, so we didn't have time to do much.
We then had a big train trip home--23 hours from Odessa to Moscow. The train was packed and was very hot and stuffy, and I was separated from my traveling companion. I had a top bed in platskart, which means that you can sit on the lower bunk until the person who has the bed wants to unroll their bedding and go to sleep. The old ladies in the bottom beds went to sleep at about 6:00pm and didn't get up until about 2:00pm the next day, so I was stuck in my bed all that time; there is a rack about two feet above the top bunk, so you can't sit up. It got to be oppressivly hot and humid on that train car, and everybody was sweaty and grumpy, and there was a baby who cried for about the first 14 hours of the trip. Despite all those things, it was actually kind of nice to just have completely free time and nowhere to go. I laid in my bed and read Master and Margarita (I'm slowly making my way though the book in Russian).
We got back to Moscow in the afternoon the next day and took a bus back to Vladimir. It was a great trip, and I would definitely go back to Ukraine. Here are some pictures of Odessa:
Our compartment mates were two classy Ukrainian ladies, and one was a very conversational professor of pedagogy at a Kiev university. She told us all about her work, her kids (one of whom lived in Detroit for a while), and Ukraine. She didn't immediately ask us where we were from, and she later told me that it was only because we didn't get a political anecdote she told that she decided that we must not be Russian. She said that at first she assumed we were Russian, then figured that we were Russians who studied abroad for a while and picked up a little accent, and then finally decided to ask who were really were. It was rewarding to know that I could, at least for a little bit, fool an educated native speaker of Russian. That Russian degree wasn't gotten in vain!
Anyway, we arrived in Odessa at around 7am, and the whole city was totally fogged in. We found our hostel, which was close to the train station, and dropped our stuff off. We stayed at a really nice hostel (a shameless plug: It's called the Babushka Grand) that was in a gorgeous old apartment that used to belong to some very rich person. Summer is the big tourist season in Odessa, so we were the only guests there, and the staff--a chill young guy from California and a cool Ukrainian girl--was happy to accommodate us early.
We then set off to explore the city. The guy at the hostel gave us some recommendations and a map, so we were actually a lot more prepared for our time in Odessa than we were for any of the other cities. We got breakfast and walked to the Potemkin steps. Odessa is a major port and has long been a hub of commerce--and crime. The city has a beat-up grandeur that the guy in the hostel compared to San Francisco. My traveling companion said that it felt like we were walking around in a Grand Theft Auto game. You definitely get the feeling that there is a lot of shady business going on.
One of the coolest things in Odessa was the giant market, called Privoz. I'm not stranger to the Russian-style market, filled with old women and Central Asian and Caucasian men selling fruits, meat, fish, and all sorts of cheap Chinese-made clothes and shoes, but this market took the cake. It went on for more than a city block and even had a four-story building dedicated to all those Chinese clothes. At these markets, it's perfectly acceptable to haggle to get things cheaper, and the sellers can be very aggressive; I had a guy in a Moscow market try to sell me a belt with a giant, rhinestone encrusted dollar-sign buckle that a 90s rapper would think was gaudy, and I nearly had to push him to get away--he wouldn't take no for an answer. This time, I bought some eggs, oranges, and sausage for the train trip.
We explored a lot of the city and saw many of the highlights, but unfortunately the fog stayed around all day, so it was hard to even see across the street sometimes. I went to the shore of the Black Sea and dipped my hand in the water, but I could only see a few hundred yards out. Also, the city was pretty quiet; summer is the tourist season when all the clubs along the Black Sea coast are bumping and the city is full of people from all over Europe. We couldn't even find a decent bar that was open. And, as luck would have it, the fog lifted on Saturday, which was our last day, but our train left at 2:00pm, so we didn't have time to do much.
We then had a big train trip home--23 hours from Odessa to Moscow. The train was packed and was very hot and stuffy, and I was separated from my traveling companion. I had a top bed in platskart, which means that you can sit on the lower bunk until the person who has the bed wants to unroll their bedding and go to sleep. The old ladies in the bottom beds went to sleep at about 6:00pm and didn't get up until about 2:00pm the next day, so I was stuck in my bed all that time; there is a rack about two feet above the top bunk, so you can't sit up. It got to be oppressivly hot and humid on that train car, and everybody was sweaty and grumpy, and there was a baby who cried for about the first 14 hours of the trip. Despite all those things, it was actually kind of nice to just have completely free time and nowhere to go. I laid in my bed and read Master and Margarita (I'm slowly making my way though the book in Russian).
We got back to Moscow in the afternoon the next day and took a bus back to Vladimir. It was a great trip, and I would definitely go back to Ukraine. Here are some pictures of Odessa:
Wednesday, January 9, 2013
Tomorrow is the first day of the new semester (aka the second first day), so I'm looking back over what I did last semester and thinking about what worked and what didn't. My schedule for the new semester is three classes on Mondays and Thursdays (4:00-9:00pm) and two classes on Tuesdays and Fridays; on those days I have the middle period from 5:30 to 7:30 off. I'm teaching the same level as last semester, so I have a good idea of what I'll do every day, and I know what I need to spend more time going over and what techniques work and what techniques completely bomb. After all, there's nothing like presenting the activity you prepared and just getting back blank stares and the imploring "Мы ничего не поняли" (we didn't understand anything).
While I still have some free time, here is the penultimate installment in the travel notes from my trip to Ukraine. After we left Lviv, we spent another day in Kiev. Our train arrived early in the morning, and we had a night train to Odessa at 10pm, so we had all day to explore the city again. We first headed for the Bulgakov museum, which is located on Andreevski Spusk, one of Kiev's most famous streets. This street winds up a steep hillside, and it is lined with theaters, museums, and art galleries. The Bulgakov museum was interesting, although I have never read The White Guard, the book the museum was based around.
We then headed back to the center of town, and on the main square, we were met by a Ded Moroz--a man dressed up as the Russian version of Santa Claus. It was a total tourist trap, and we should have just walked away, but he was aggressive and friendly, and he eagerly told us about attractions in Kiev and took pictures with us. He started talking to us in English, but we acted like we didn't understand and told him we were from Russia, so he promptly switched to Russian, although he eventually figured out that we weren't Russian. After he was done, he asked us for some money (of course), and he got angry with us when we gave only 40 hryvina--about $5. He demanded more money--to the tune of $30--and we walked away to him yelling at us. I'm mad that I gave him any money.
After that adventure, we went to Kiev's Victory Park. There is a huge Rodina Mat (a monolithic statue depicting the motherly figure symbolic of Russia/the Soviet Union). We walked around the huge park and visited the war museum. We went to a powerful exhibit about the Soviet war in Afghanistan and another exhibit about wars and military actions that the USSR was involved in (these included the missile installations in Cuba--complete with a diagram of what American cities were within striking distance--the Vietnam War, the Korean War, and many other little puppet wars that were part of the whole global struggle of the Cold War).
Seeing an American fighter pilot's uniform in the Korea section aroused anger inside me; that uniform, after all, was worn by one of my countrymen who was shot down by a Chinese or Soviet-made missile. The Vietnam section was pretty small, but I couldn't help thinking that the decorated Soviet military advisers commemorated in the exhibit were there to instruct the Vietnamese on how to better kill Americans. But then a letter that was written by a little Ukrainian kid to his dad, who was soon after killed on a foreign battlefield, really put the whole exhibit in perspective. I reflected on the stupidity of the whole Cold War: These Soviets, just like their American "adversaries," were people with hopes, dreams, loves, hates, and fears, and they were serving their country in a battle that they didn't question against an enemy they didn't understand. And for what?
We spent some more time exploring the city center, got dinner, and caught our train to Odessa later that night. Here are some pictures from our second day in Kiev:
While I still have some free time, here is the penultimate installment in the travel notes from my trip to Ukraine. After we left Lviv, we spent another day in Kiev. Our train arrived early in the morning, and we had a night train to Odessa at 10pm, so we had all day to explore the city again. We first headed for the Bulgakov museum, which is located on Andreevski Spusk, one of Kiev's most famous streets. This street winds up a steep hillside, and it is lined with theaters, museums, and art galleries. The Bulgakov museum was interesting, although I have never read The White Guard, the book the museum was based around.
We then headed back to the center of town, and on the main square, we were met by a Ded Moroz--a man dressed up as the Russian version of Santa Claus. It was a total tourist trap, and we should have just walked away, but he was aggressive and friendly, and he eagerly told us about attractions in Kiev and took pictures with us. He started talking to us in English, but we acted like we didn't understand and told him we were from Russia, so he promptly switched to Russian, although he eventually figured out that we weren't Russian. After he was done, he asked us for some money (of course), and he got angry with us when we gave only 40 hryvina--about $5. He demanded more money--to the tune of $30--and we walked away to him yelling at us. I'm mad that I gave him any money.
After that adventure, we went to Kiev's Victory Park. There is a huge Rodina Mat (a monolithic statue depicting the motherly figure symbolic of Russia/the Soviet Union). We walked around the huge park and visited the war museum. We went to a powerful exhibit about the Soviet war in Afghanistan and another exhibit about wars and military actions that the USSR was involved in (these included the missile installations in Cuba--complete with a diagram of what American cities were within striking distance--the Vietnam War, the Korean War, and many other little puppet wars that were part of the whole global struggle of the Cold War).
Seeing an American fighter pilot's uniform in the Korea section aroused anger inside me; that uniform, after all, was worn by one of my countrymen who was shot down by a Chinese or Soviet-made missile. The Vietnam section was pretty small, but I couldn't help thinking that the decorated Soviet military advisers commemorated in the exhibit were there to instruct the Vietnamese on how to better kill Americans. But then a letter that was written by a little Ukrainian kid to his dad, who was soon after killed on a foreign battlefield, really put the whole exhibit in perspective. I reflected on the stupidity of the whole Cold War: These Soviets, just like their American "adversaries," were people with hopes, dreams, loves, hates, and fears, and they were serving their country in a battle that they didn't question against an enemy they didn't understand. And for what?
We spent some more time exploring the city center, got dinner, and caught our train to Odessa later that night. Here are some pictures from our second day in Kiev:
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