The last item - Bob Marley earrings - is my favorite, of course, even though I don't think they were made in Ukraine. But I bought them at Andriyivsky Uzviz for 25 hryvnias ($5.50).
Monday, July 14, 2008
Sunday, July 13, 2008
Kyiv is marking 900 years of St. Michael's Golden-Domed Monastery now (and, at the same time, 1020 years since the adoption of Christianity in Kyivan Rus).
At St. Michael's today, it seemed as if they were preparing for a huge church-sponsored beer festival - or the other way around: a huge church festival sponsored by the major beer producers.
It looked very surreal - and embarrassing.
And it sounded pretty awful, too: the cursing of the sweaty construction workers, mixed with the beautiful God, have mercy on us streaming out of one of the windows of the refectory of St. John the Divine (which was used as a gym in the 1970s, by the way).
I have to admit that I did not see a single beer can/bottle there - but at least five brands were represented in various non-beverage forms: Rohan, Chernihivske, Obolon (tents, truck), Baltika (car), Staropramen (chairs).
(P.S. And Slavutych - the truck is that of Slavutych, not Obolon. Which makes it a total of six brands.)
***
And then I ran into this couple of church-goers - and just couldn't get my eyes off them:
***
All 20 pictures from my walk around St. Michael's are here.
Planet Besarabka:
Some jerk stood in the middle of our backyard, next to the playground entrance, taking a leak - in complete darkness. But our only street lamp is a naughty thing: it keeps going on and off, so when he was halfway through, the poor idiot found himself in the spotlight, with a cigarette stuck between his teeth, his dick in his hands, and his friend standing nearby, cracking up. He was laughing, too, later. At one point, as he was walking away, he turned around, looked up, shook his clenched fist at the lamp above (it was still on) and called it suka - a bitch.
Some jerk stood in the middle of our backyard, next to the playground entrance, taking a leak - in complete darkness. But our only street lamp is a naughty thing: it keeps going on and off, so when he was halfway through, the poor idiot found himself in the spotlight, with a cigarette stuck between his teeth, his dick in his hands, and his friend standing nearby, cracking up. He was laughing, too, later. At one point, as he was walking away, he turned around, looked up, shook his clenched fist at the lamp above (it was still on) and called it suka - a bitch.
Sunday, July 06, 2008
Saturday, July 05, 2008
Friday, July 04, 2008
In between everything else, I'm reading Olga Allenova's book about the Second Chechen War (in Russian). Actually, it's a collection of her stories published in Kommersant over the years of Putin's rule, interspersed with rather brief personal reflections. A heartbreaking reminder, if anyone needs any, of what this period has been about.
I've been following Allenova's work in Kommersant-Vlast for a while now, and am very happy she's got a book out. Her Chechnya stories remind me of those by Anna Politkovskaya, and she is as courageous and as human as Politkovskaya was. Only much younger: she was born in 1976.
I also wish I were reading Allenova's reportage right after I finished Yulia Latynina's thinly veiled fiction about the North Caucasus mess.
***
I was reading Allenova's book at the playground today, while Marta was busy in the sandbox. A pregnant woman sat down on the bench next to me, to watch her son play nearby, and soon we were talking about kids with her, eventually moving on to other subjects.
It turned out she grew up in Grozny, left the city in 1994, shortly before the nightmare began, but her parents have lived through the first war. She identified herself as an ethnic Russian, even though later she told me of her Ukrainian grandfather, who was born in Vinnytsya region, and of her relatives in Kyiv. She said she was trying hard to stay away from all things Muslim, because of what she and her family had been through in Grozny. She sounded determined in a weary kind of way when she talked about it. She didn't sound hateful, the way many Russian bloggers do. She blamed human rights folks for not being there for Chechnya's "Russians" - but didn't mention the Russian state's similar neglect. She asked me about Yanukovych and laughed when I told her about his favorite Russian poet, Anna Akhmetova.
I've been following Allenova's work in Kommersant-Vlast for a while now, and am very happy she's got a book out. Her Chechnya stories remind me of those by Anna Politkovskaya, and she is as courageous and as human as Politkovskaya was. Only much younger: she was born in 1976.
I also wish I were reading Allenova's reportage right after I finished Yulia Latynina's thinly veiled fiction about the North Caucasus mess.
***
I was reading Allenova's book at the playground today, while Marta was busy in the sandbox. A pregnant woman sat down on the bench next to me, to watch her son play nearby, and soon we were talking about kids with her, eventually moving on to other subjects.
It turned out she grew up in Grozny, left the city in 1994, shortly before the nightmare began, but her parents have lived through the first war. She identified herself as an ethnic Russian, even though later she told me of her Ukrainian grandfather, who was born in Vinnytsya region, and of her relatives in Kyiv. She said she was trying hard to stay away from all things Muslim, because of what she and her family had been through in Grozny. She sounded determined in a weary kind of way when she talked about it. She didn't sound hateful, the way many Russian bloggers do. She blamed human rights folks for not being there for Chechnya's "Russians" - but didn't mention the Russian state's similar neglect. She asked me about Yanukovych and laughed when I told her about his favorite Russian poet, Anna Akhmetova.
Thursday, July 03, 2008
Marshrutka driver in Moscow:
(One of his Kyiv colleagues is here.)
***
Post-Euro 2008 Moscow, a local way of saying, "Ми разом, нас багато, і нас не подолати":
"As long as we're united, we're invincible."
(One of his Kyiv colleagues is here.)
***
Post-Euro 2008 Moscow, a local way of saying, "Ми разом, нас багато, і нас не подолати":
"As long as we're united, we're invincible."
Thought I'd never finish this translation:
http://globalvoicesonline.org/2008/07/02/ukraine-grassroots-activism/
It's about grassroots activism, cyclists, illegal construction, drunk driving, impunity, and the deaths of two beautiful people - Anatoly Perepadya, a literary translator, and Alesha Bashkirtsev, a musician.
http://globalvoicesonline.org/2008/07/02/ukraine-grassroots-activism/
It's about grassroots activism, cyclists, illegal construction, drunk driving, impunity, and the deaths of two beautiful people - Anatoly Perepadya, a literary translator, and Alesha Bashkirtsev, a musician.
Sunday, June 29, 2008
The daily pain of thinking about my father and his death is now exacerbated by the approaching Jahrzeit, July 16-19.
Today, I bought a translation of Oliver Sacks' book - The Man Who Mistook His Wife For A Hat: And Other Clinical Tales. I remember looking at it a number of times in the past few years, during my father's illness and following his death, but I didn't have the guts to buy it then. I leafed through it once again today, then went ahead and bought it. Read a chapter and a half, feeling that perhaps now there was a safe distance between myself and my emotions, and that I might finally be able to attempt understanding at least a little bit of what had happened to papa, even though the cases described in these chapters weren't even close to his.
But then, for some reason, I decided to search for Sacks' articles in English, and found a story about a condition similar to papa's - a post-stroke aphasia patient's story - published in the New Yorker around the time I came to Kyiv to give birth to Marta, in the Oct. 31, 2005, issue. Papa had the first of his three strokes half a month after Marta was born. On Dec. 17, 2005, or sometime around that date.
I haven't finished reading the text yet. It's a torture. Not just because it's like getting a glimpse of what may have been going on in papa's mind while he was not able to speak. As overwhelming is to compare the kind of treatment he was getting in Kyiv to that described in the article. The treatment that doubled the horror and the humiliation of his condition. I was spared from observing much of it, thanks to Marta, while my mother had to go through that hell all on her own.
Other thoughts keep popping up: how papa managed to return to work two months after that first stroke - and how he was crushed again in August 2006; how we tried to teach him to write again, using some silly elementary school textbooks - and how he resisted these attempts; how unbearably kind he was in his last weeks.
Not sure why I'm writing this. It's not that I don't have things to say. I just don't feel like saying much on this subject. But the New Yorker piece has caused a little spillover, that's what it is.
Today, I bought a translation of Oliver Sacks' book - The Man Who Mistook His Wife For A Hat: And Other Clinical Tales. I remember looking at it a number of times in the past few years, during my father's illness and following his death, but I didn't have the guts to buy it then. I leafed through it once again today, then went ahead and bought it. Read a chapter and a half, feeling that perhaps now there was a safe distance between myself and my emotions, and that I might finally be able to attempt understanding at least a little bit of what had happened to papa, even though the cases described in these chapters weren't even close to his.
But then, for some reason, I decided to search for Sacks' articles in English, and found a story about a condition similar to papa's - a post-stroke aphasia patient's story - published in the New Yorker around the time I came to Kyiv to give birth to Marta, in the Oct. 31, 2005, issue. Papa had the first of his three strokes half a month after Marta was born. On Dec. 17, 2005, or sometime around that date.
I haven't finished reading the text yet. It's a torture. Not just because it's like getting a glimpse of what may have been going on in papa's mind while he was not able to speak. As overwhelming is to compare the kind of treatment he was getting in Kyiv to that described in the article. The treatment that doubled the horror and the humiliation of his condition. I was spared from observing much of it, thanks to Marta, while my mother had to go through that hell all on her own.
Other thoughts keep popping up: how papa managed to return to work two months after that first stroke - and how he was crushed again in August 2006; how we tried to teach him to write again, using some silly elementary school textbooks - and how he resisted these attempts; how unbearably kind he was in his last weeks.
Not sure why I'm writing this. It's not that I don't have things to say. I just don't feel like saying much on this subject. But the New Yorker piece has caused a little spillover, that's what it is.
Friday, June 20, 2008
Two random notes on Moscow.
I'm talking cars with Marta, the way we always do on our way to the park - "What's the name of this car? And this one? And that?" I'm supposed to look at each car we pass and respond to her. She's got my driver's gene.
A young man and two older women walk by, engaged in a lively discussion of something very trivial. They look totally inconspicuous - except that they are chatting in Ukrainian. But I'm still fresh out of Kyiv, so I don't pay attention at first, and by the time I recall that I'm actually in Moscow, they are already far ahead of us.
***
At the playground, I talk with a young Russian woman whose son is Marta's age. We discuss our kids' eating and sleeping habits, and then I mention Turkey, and she says she kind of hated it there - because of the way Turks treat Russians, and because of poverty. But poverty there is so different from our poverty, I tell her: it's a drunken kind of poverty here, while there... But she interrupts me, somewhat angrily: "Yes, and over there it's a hungry kind of poverty."
To my comment about the way they park on Khreshchatyk now, she says: "Well, with a president like this, it's not surprising."
As we say good-bye to each other, it turns out her name is Veronica. But everyone calls her Vika - which I, honestly, consider extremely unkosher.
I'm talking cars with Marta, the way we always do on our way to the park - "What's the name of this car? And this one? And that?" I'm supposed to look at each car we pass and respond to her. She's got my driver's gene.
A young man and two older women walk by, engaged in a lively discussion of something very trivial. They look totally inconspicuous - except that they are chatting in Ukrainian. But I'm still fresh out of Kyiv, so I don't pay attention at first, and by the time I recall that I'm actually in Moscow, they are already far ahead of us.
***
At the playground, I talk with a young Russian woman whose son is Marta's age. We discuss our kids' eating and sleeping habits, and then I mention Turkey, and she says she kind of hated it there - because of the way Turks treat Russians, and because of poverty. But poverty there is so different from our poverty, I tell her: it's a drunken kind of poverty here, while there... But she interrupts me, somewhat angrily: "Yes, and over there it's a hungry kind of poverty."
To my comment about the way they park on Khreshchatyk now, she says: "Well, with a president like this, it's not surprising."
As we say good-bye to each other, it turns out her name is Veronica. But everyone calls her Vika - which I, honestly, consider extremely unkosher.
Thursday, June 19, 2008
Yet another Kyiv cab driver story.
A hideous old Zhiguli car. A very skinny, mustachioed, greasy-haired middle-aged driver, with a suntan of someone who spends long hours working in the garden. The odor of sweat permeates the car, even though all four windows are rolled down.
We talk about the weather. He speaks Ukrainian - a villager's Ukrainian, very distant from the literary language, as beautiful, and impossible to imitate, unless you've been exposed to it since childhood. As impossible to imitate as the fluent surzhik (which I consider a language in its own right).
After a few near-accidents caused by people who don't know how to drive, we begin talking about the general mess that's now a norm in Kyiv.
The driver says things were great in the Soviet times: from the 1970s to the 1990s, there was order and life was easy.
I diplomatically respond that although I tend not to have any illusions about the Soviet period, I do agree with him 100 percent on certain points.
One or two intersections later, we somehow start talking international politics.
"Ukraine needs to join NATO as soon as possible, or else Russia will swallow us," the driver says.
I find this switch quite hilarious, but tell him we still shouldn't rely on others too much, citing Sarajevo and Srebrenica as examples.
By the end of our ride, I tell him I'm on my way to the dentist, and he complains that he's got almost no teeth left, but isn't doing anything about it because he's scared: they use the same needle on all their patients, and he fears he might get AIDS this way.
"I'm telling her [the dentist], 'You, silly idiot, get me a clean needle!' and she replies, 'No way, we haven't got enough needles for all of you!'"
A hideous old Zhiguli car. A very skinny, mustachioed, greasy-haired middle-aged driver, with a suntan of someone who spends long hours working in the garden. The odor of sweat permeates the car, even though all four windows are rolled down.
We talk about the weather. He speaks Ukrainian - a villager's Ukrainian, very distant from the literary language, as beautiful, and impossible to imitate, unless you've been exposed to it since childhood. As impossible to imitate as the fluent surzhik (which I consider a language in its own right).
After a few near-accidents caused by people who don't know how to drive, we begin talking about the general mess that's now a norm in Kyiv.
The driver says things were great in the Soviet times: from the 1970s to the 1990s, there was order and life was easy.
I diplomatically respond that although I tend not to have any illusions about the Soviet period, I do agree with him 100 percent on certain points.
One or two intersections later, we somehow start talking international politics.
"Ukraine needs to join NATO as soon as possible, or else Russia will swallow us," the driver says.
I find this switch quite hilarious, but tell him we still shouldn't rely on others too much, citing Sarajevo and Srebrenica as examples.
By the end of our ride, I tell him I'm on my way to the dentist, and he complains that he's got almost no teeth left, but isn't doing anything about it because he's scared: they use the same needle on all their patients, and he fears he might get AIDS this way.
"I'm telling her [the dentist], 'You, silly idiot, get me a clean needle!' and she replies, 'No way, we haven't got enough needles for all of you!'"
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