From my walk in Horenka, a village right next to Pushcha Vodytsya, sometime last week:

Pushcha-Ozerna...

One of the deserted summer camps in Pushcha Vodytsya; used to belong to a leather factory - Chinbar - which is still there (somewhere in Kurenivka):

Outside "Akademmistechko" metro station:

A few pictures from Pushcha Vodytsya:













And one from Kyiv - the very edge of Kyiv, I guess, or not too far from it:

Two days ago, Marta and I visited our local children's clinic, to get an official confirmation of Marta's lice-free status. We obtained a piece of paper there that should allow us to spend a month or so at the state-run sanatoriy in Pushcha Vodytsya (fresh air and all that), the one we were at a year ago.

The place has had some repairs since I was there last (don't remember when); the biggest improvement is that they no longer have that horrible thing on the ceiling in the room where they see everyone from newborns to elementary school kids. Otherwise, the place looks more or less the same.

Also a couple days ago, I learned (RUS) that the head of Kyiv's municipal health department, Lyudmyla Kachurova, had been arrested for allegedly mismanaging some 1.5 million hryvnias (around $190,000) of budget funds meant for doctors' salaries - and she's at a psychiatric clinic now (RUS), watched over by the police. All I can say is I hope it's a state-run clinic, not a private one. That would teach her.

Here're some pictures from our children's clinic (a few more are here):











And yes, Marta doesn't have any lice.

Khreshchatyk:





P.S. A quick note on what made me stop, get my camera out and take the first picture: a middle-aged Muslim couple stood there, staring at the passionate kissing that was taking place by the fountain, incredulous but smiling - smiling the way you'd smile at naughty kids and also when watching a movie. By the time I took my camera out, the Muslim couple was gone, but the kissing couple was still at it :)

Just a random photo from July 2008 - I'm cleaning up my archives...



This is where I spent much of my childhood - but it looked so much nicer then, and papa was with us, too.

The forest where the bleachers would normally be was actually full of rather unwelcome spectators - male patients of the army hospital nearby, in their blue pajamas, and, every now and then, masturbators.

The Russian Patriarch's fans:

Salt:

Kyiv:

A man who earns his living by collecting bottles for recycling:

Women selling sunflower seeds:

Dynamo Kyiv graffiti:

FC Dynamo Kyiv fans: