Friday, June 30, 2006



Time flies: it'll soon be three weeks since Marta and I are here. I may briefly go to the city this weekend - I'll probably experience culture shock there.

I'm so used to living here by now that I really envy the people on the upper floors: I wish I could hang my stuff out to dry like they do. I do have a rope outside - the landlady showed it to me - but I can't risk having someone spit on Marta's stuff or something, plus someone was using this rope for their socks and other shit the other day. Inside the apartment, there's so little sun and so much humidity, it takes days for everything to dry.

Yesterday was a day off - the Constitution Day - and it was impossibly crowded here, crowded both with people and cars. And very hot: +30 Celcius in the shade. Today, garbage is everywhere, the five or so containers they put up across the lake from the sanatorium are totally not enough. Ukrainians are not used to taking their garbage with them and disposing of it someplace where it won't harm the environment. However, it's still nowhere near as dirty here as it was outside St. Pete two years ago. The really bad thing about it all, though, is that some shit is burning outside and it affects the air - smells like Moscow's smog, makes me panic.

1 comment:

  1. Glad you bring it up. Just got back from six weeks in Ukr and I was astonished at how dirty it was in Kiev and Dnepr. Garbage most everywhere; people finish a beer and simply leave bottles by the park bench; people finish a bag of chips and toss the empty on the sidewalk! What's up with that?

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