Monday in Kamyanets-Podilsky and Kharkov

Today I stayed up very late (4AM) before heading to bed and waking up at 7:30. I don’t know why I do such things. I just get into the best groove on whatever I am working on and I don’t get tired. I really don’t. Even at 4AM I have to force myself to stop and go to bed. I take after my father, who is the same way.

Oksana picked me up at 10AM and we drove directly to the national university. I was teaching her first class, which started at 10:35. It was an American Journalism class, so I tried to incorporate the role of the media throughout the history of American social movements. 

Afterwards we had lunch in the cafeteria at the university…more bread, fried something, borscht, and cabbage salad. The borsch and bread were good. Afterwards, Oksana took us to the ethnography museum in the building, where 2 women showed up to photograph me walking through. Evidently it was a big thing for them to have us there, and they were very gracious hosts. Then they took us to the university’s museum, and then down to the International Relations Dept, where we met the Dean of the Faculty. I think Oksana was trying to get the Rector of the university on her cell but that didn’t work out.

They showed me a notebook of folk songs. Evidently students get academic credit to go into local villages in the summer and record village music and write down the lyrics. I thought this was great. I told them about Furman's engaged learning programs and they seemed very interested.

Here is one of the university buildings.

Then we decided that since we have such a busy scheduled coming up and since we’ve been on the road for so long that we wanted to see the Old Town of KP and Khotyn Fortress in one afternoon and the head back to Chernivtsi. The Old Town was great. It dates from the 11th century, and stands entirely on a tall rock island surrounded by a deep gorge and river. We crossed a bridge to get to the Old Town.

First we went to the Saints Peter and Paul Church (the photos of which you can see above). I’ve written about my new fascination with churches and mosques that have served both purposes. Well, this church was a church, then the Turks invaded and built a minaret on it. Then the Turks were pushed out, and they surendered with the caveat that the minaret had to stay. So, the people decided to put a statue of the Virgin Mary on top of it. Hilarious.

We saw the Polish Market Square (the Lituanians and Poles ruled here from the 15-17th centuries) and the 14th century ratusha (town hall).

The Madgeburg Laws dictated that the different ethnicities live in different areas of the city and this was the Polish part. We also saw the Armenian part, witha very old church (12th c, I think) that was closed. We walked the 11th century Turkish Bridge (the Turks fortified the medieval construction in the 17th century when they conquered it and ruled for 27 years before the Poles got it back, only to have the Russians conquer in 1793) to the fortress, which was impressive. The Russians used the fortress to house Ukrainian nationalists.

Pretty cool, huh?

We enjoyed walking around it, and I shot a bow and arrow and nailed the target! I must take after my Mom, who was an excellent archer back in her college days.

Afterwards, we returned to the car to head towards Khotyn (pronounced Hotyn). We crossed the tallest bridge in Western Europe. I found it so interesting that she used the phrase Western Europe, since I don’t usually categorize Ukraine as western Europe. Eastern Europe, central at best, but not western. We crossed the Dniester River, which is evidently the area where Podillya ( the region where K-P is) becomes Bucovina (the region where Chernivtsi is).

After about 35 minutes of driving, we arrived at Khotyn Fortress. Khotyn Fortress is situated along the Dniester River. It is difficult to find and I was glad we had a guide who knew what she was doing. When you arrive, there is a monument to a famous Cossack hetman. Cossack warriors were active in this area (the Cossacks were militarized communities active in the 15-18th centuries).

Beautiful...

It ended up being a very beautiful day but I was tired and eager to return to Chernivtsi. It felt great to be back, until I had to jump the breaker about 40times bc we could not keep electricity on in the flat. Finally I called Lilliana who came over here with a repairman. By that time it was working, of course. The man left a wire and tried to explain how to do something with it.

It felt great to get a shower and begin to get reorganized before we leave again on Wednesday afternoon. The family arrives in 3 days…can’t wait!!!

Sunday on the train to Kamyanets-Podilsky

I managed to head to sleep a little after 1AM and slept until 9:30, although I was cold so I didn’t really sleep that well. Finally at some point in the middle of the night I grabbed my black fleece and was able to sleep much better.

On the train ride, I made lists of everything in need to get done in the next few days before my family arrives and made some travel plans for when they are here. I also worked on my speeches for tomorrow, for a conference in Kyiv at the end of April and for the American Studies Conference in the Crimea in June.

At one point this woman kept coming over and repeating the word keechee. Finally, my companion recognized the word for cat. This woman thought her cat was in the compartment. He saw a small hole between the train compartments where the cat might have crawled. WHAT? I am not a cat person, and the thought of a cat in this tiny compartment, freaking out, with an elaborate lock on the door, freaked me out. I started having visions of my BFF Courtney in a van one summer night in Illinois, when she suddenly realized that there were cats that had crawled into the van she was driving. We thoroughly inspected the compartment. No cat, thank goodness.

Then, the train car woman kept coming over and, upon realizing that we couldn’t understand her at all, became increasingly exasperated. Evidently Ukraine has a daylight savings time, and we gained an hour, so the train ride was actually closer to 15.5 hours and not the expected 16.5. When we got off the train a bit bewildered, I still had no idea what was going on, so I asked the people, “Khmelniski?” They responded with tak, tak, taks, so I knew we were in the right place.

We promptly took a taxi for 300 UAH to Kamyanets-Podilsky, the town where I am speaking tomorrow. It took about an hour and a half. It was raining. When I arrived, I just wanted to take a shower. We ended up walking a few blocks around 7PM to go to Pizza Celentano, the closest restaurant. I had an individual pizza with chicken, corn, mushrooms, and red peppers. It was good and a nice change from Ukrainian food.

Oksana is picking me up at 10AM tomorrow. I will lecture at 10:35. No lecture on Tuesday, evidently, which will be nice. She is supposed to show us around the Old Town and the fortress here and the fortress in Khotyn. Ellie, one of the Americans who was with us in Kharkiv, sent us an advance copy a friend of her’s had just submitted to the Wall Street Journal that will run in the upcoming weekend edition of WSJ (April ¾). There is a section in the WSJ that features interesting places to visit around the world, and her friend had just coincidentally submitted an article about Kaymanets-Podilsky. Hopefully it will stop raining!

Moscow Bombings

I am totally fine...nowhere near Moscow right now (relatively speaking) and I'm OK. Scary stuff over there, though. Thanks to those of you who inquired.

Finally...Lenin!

Saturday


Woke up on Saturday morning and went to the dining room for breakfast. More fried food. I just couldn’t do it. I felt badly for Tonya, but I just could not force myself to eat and of this. Whatever happened to fruit, cereal, or toast?

We walked to the metro, walking hurriedly past a pack of wild dogs that started going crazy about something right after we passd them. Not fun.

 We went into this church that we passed. Many of the churches are full, and many of the women are running around cleaning the insides of the churches, ostensibly for Easter. Outside, a group of people were selling pussy willos, popular at Easter bc evidently it is the first thing that blooms here.

We got confused on the metro but eventually figured it out and arrived at Universytet. We came out of the station and I found myself finally staring at Lenin.

I hope I get to see you in your casket in Moscow before I leave in June.

I have wanted to find a Lenin statue the entire time I’ve been here. Given that I am living in the pro-Europe, nationalistic western part of Ukraine, this has not been easy. In the west they were all torn down. In Chernivtsi, Andriy’s father evidently helped lead the students in a protest against the USSR and was instrumental in bringing down the Lenin statue. I walked around in search of a cup of coffee. I had wanted to go visit Parizh Café, a funky French café that I realized was Paris Café when the man who was adding money on my Life cell phones said it out loud.

Paris café was cute and bohemian. I liked being there but my stomach was bothering me. Too much fried crap in my body.

We walked around and I noticed that many of the stores had a decent sense of style.

We came upon a McDonalds. McDonalds is always such a lively place in Ukraine. They love it here. It is considered a fairly hip place and fits much higher on the scale of places to eat than it does in America. It is also always very, very crowded. 

The McDrive!

We walked through this park, pass the theater, which is evidently something to see inside and on the walk I noticed the unusual number of buildings with the Soviet hammer and sicle. Khrkov was the first capital of Soviet Ukraine.

I popped into a few stores along the way (including a Sisley) to visit some churches. I walked first to the Pokrovska Monastery, with a church built in 1689.

Then I walked across the river to the Blahoveshchensky Cathedral…the dome is similar to Hagia Sophia. I liked the stripes, as it was something different. The Uspensky Cathedral is the last church pictured. It was behind me as we descended the steps and crossed the river towards Blahoveshchensky. I liked it.

On the way back to town we stopped at the rynok/market. I bought a purple pysanky because I wanted to have one from eastern Ukraine. It was 6 UAH/about 80 US cents. Nice souvenir from Kharkiv.

Earlier in the day, I passed Puzata Haza, one of the most popular national chain restaurants in Ukraine. I couldn’t believe I recognized it when I passed it, given that it was written in Cyrillic, of course. It is a stolovy/cafeteria style traditional food. I decided to have dinner there. It was great…borscht, varynky with potatoes, a pompushki, and sauerkraut. Then we bought some food for the train ride: more oranges and bananas for me, and a bunch of random things … a bag of caramel filled mini-croissants and a poppy seed bread thing. Have I mentioned the ntional obsession with poppy seeds? Ukrainians love them, and when they utilize them in their cooking, they really utilize them. None of this sprinkling of a few poppy seeds in a lemon flavored muffin. They will make bread rolls and pancakes so full of poppy seeds you could fill 3-4 tablespoons. I like poppy seeds, but I have realized that I only like them in small doses, like in a lemon poppy seed muffin.

We returned to the dorm and packed. The train was scheduled to leave at 11:38PM and it was nice to have a bit of downtime before we had to leave for the vogzol. We did the usual second class, buy all 4 couchettes in the compartment and lock the compartment door. Except this time the lock had been removed from the door. Not cool. We were going to be on this train from 11:38PM until 4:03PM the next day. I was planning to pass much of the time sleeping, which is not a comfortable thing to do if you can’t lock the door, although people do it here all the time. Luckily, my companion rigged the door with the Pacsafe. I highly recommend this thing if you travel a lot with your laptop, camera, passport, other valuables, etc. Google pacsafe and read about this compact, light, portable safe that you can attach to something sturdy in your room and, if you ever find yourself on a train with a door that doesn’t lock, you can use it to lock the door as well. Sweet dreams!

Kharkiv...the other side of the moon

Thursday evening and Friday, March 26th

Kharkiv is in eastern Ukraine, about 24 miles from the Russian border. It is maddening that I can't get into Russia. There is a real east-west divide in this country. When I mentioned to a friend in Chernivtsi that I wa coming here, he said, "You will see the other side of the moon! It is very different there."

So, Thursday afternoon at 4:30 we left the Embassy in a taxi to go to the vogzol/train station. This was the first time we had taken a day train in Ukraine. There were 6 people sitting in a compartment in the first class wagons. There were 3 big guys sitting across from us who came prepared, big time, for the 6 hour journey. Clearly this was not their first voyage on the Kiev- Kharkiv train. Kharkiv, btw, is pronounced Harkeev, or if one is to pronounce it the Russian way, which is the language everyone speaks in Kharkiv, it is Harkov.

So I enjoyed watching the guys across from me devour several bottles of horilka/vodka, some of it mixed with pomodor/tomato juice, some not. They also had 2 kinds of hlib/bread, boiled eggs, several different kinds of meat, some cucumber, and beer/pyvo.

This train trip was 6 hours long..leaving Kyiv at 17:30 and arriving at 11:23. I read, and read, and had some crackers, and then curled up in the seat and slept until my left foot fell asleep. When I woke up my left foot was dead. It reminded me of when I was in the musical Babes in Toyland with SC Childrens’ Theatre. I had to sit on the stage with my foot tucked under me for what seemed like forever, then at a certain point I was supposed to stand up and march. During one show, my foot fell asleep badly. I tried to stand on it but it had no feeling in it. Then it started to get some feeling in it and it was very uncomfortable. I got up and started to march but felt like I was limping on it bc it was doing such strange things. Well, with no feeling in my foot this time I inadvertently lightly hit the guy sitting across from me. Whoops. Perepro sh-yu/I’m sorry, excuse me.

When we arrived it was cold (there is still a lot of snow on the ground in Kharkiv) and I was ready to get off this train. Iryna, one of the conference organizers, was standing right outside the wagon to pick us up with one of the conference drivers. I love it when Fulbright and others make my life so comfortable. I really, really appreciate it. So the driver immediately took us to the dorm/hostel/residence that the university owns where visiting lecturers stay. We arrived a little after midnight and they had saved 2 dinners for us that the cook here, Tonya, promptly reheated for us. So kind. We totally were not planning on having dinner, and I can’t say I was really all that hungry, bc we’d had good meal at the Embassy cafeteria, but it was very nice of them.

This AM the van left at 9AM to drive to the conference at the National Academy of Public Administration.On the way, we passed a McDonalds, with an elaborate outdoor space in front of it and a McDrive in the back. That it what was painted in large letters on the drive through.

Sometimes when I give talk, it turns out to be a fairly informal affair. Other times, it is highly formal. This turned out to be one of those times. We arrived and the foreign guests (consisting of people from France, Lithuania, Moldova, Poland, and the US) had a special room to register with chai/tea, kava/coffee, cookies, etc. We were given these small hard plastic briefcases filled with materials, postcards of the city, notepads, etc. In a country where even paper is scarce and many universities can’t give you paper to print your lectures out on, this was extravagant. In fact, it was the nicest welcome package at a conference I have ever received.

Check out my name written in Cryllic! The backwards pi with a slopp is an L. P is an R, and H is an N. K's sound like hard C's, and C's sound like S's.

The conference had thought ahead and already had a translator assigned to me. We were seated at the front row of the plenary session with our translator. This conference was all about public administration, specifically local government’s relationship to other levels of government. The foreign speaks and dignitaries from Ukraine were introduced individualyl and we were each asked to stand as we were introduced. Truly made me feel welcome. After the plenary, we headed to lunch. There was a small room specifically reserved for Fulbrighters. We sat down to eat and the vodka starting pouring. When vodka starts pouring, toasts begin. Not just one toast, mind you, but multiple toasts. So this is over lunch, about 2 hours before my presentation. I tried to walk the fine line between being a total prude and being sociable. Then, the conference people decided that one translator was too difficult for the 2 of us, so instead of us sharing a translator as we had done in the plenary sessions, 2 translators appeared to guide us to the second session. We had multiple sessions to pick one. We ended up sitting on the back row in this very cold room.

I quickly realized this was going to be a long and cold 2 hours. Fifteen minutes in, I started asking my translator some questions about life in Ukraine. She seemed receptive. Then she tells me she is going to apply for a Fulbright to come to the US. Great, what are you going to propose? (People from other countries can apply through the Fulbright program to come to the US to study/research). They have to have a specific topic in mind. Most people who want to come study languages in university here in Ukraine and speak English very well. Many are linguists or philologists. They need to have a research topic that can be aided by time spent in the US, however. So I asked her about her proposed topic. She said she was planning to study Gender Studies. Excellent. I told her I had a graduate degree in women’s studies in addition to history and the conversation flowed easily from there. By the end of the 2 hours, I had my Lonely Planet guidebook out and she was showing me her favorite places to go in Kharkiv and Kyiv. I have no idea what that econ session was about.

Then it was my turn to present. I had never given a presentation before with a translator and was a bit concerned that it would throw me off but it didn’t. In fact I had a few people come up to me afterwards to tell me it was clear that I had worked with a translator in such a way before. Ha!

Here we are getting ready with our translator:

It was actually much easier than I thought. I would say one sentence and stop, and she would repeat. Gave me plenty of time to formulate my sentences. One thing I did not anticipate, however, was the impact this would have on the time we were allotted, which was 20 minutes. So, on the fly I had to significantly abbreviate my portion of the presentation.

The presentation focused on downtown Greenville’ revitalization efforts, the cultural offerings in Greenville, and the hospitality tax which supports many of them, including the Upcountry History Museum. We talked about the importance of transparency and accountability at all levels of government. The Ukrainians were all abuzz about this city of Greenville in American afterwards, and even some of the other Fulbrighters now want to visit. I really enjoyed having this forum of people from all around the world present to hear about Greenville.

After the conference, there was a reception, with a table full, and I do mean full, of food, wine, and of course, horilka/vodka. Then the toasts started. There were at least ten toasts given. The fourth toast, per Ukrainian tradition, is always for women. There are lots of traditions when it comes to drinking…always put your glass on the table to have it refilled, never leave a glass on the table with drink in it, the person who finishes off a bottle has to buy the next round, and many, many others. It now seems that people refer to tradition as the rational for whenever something should or should not be done. I find myself asking, “Oh, is that a tradition, too?” quite often.

We all went back to the dorm in our van, and we were relieved that the long day was over. Dinner would be served at 8 in the dining room. At dinner, more toasts started, with vodka and with the Moldovan wine that the woman who heads one of Moldova’s human rights organizations brought with her. More toasts, and lots of them. I learned a few. One goes something like this (obviously told by a woman), “ A man can be a Tsar, a man can be a King, but a man is always at our feet.” This is how it was translated for me.

Above is me with my friend Myroslva, who is here on a student Fulbright. She is researching the presence of international banks in Ukraine. She reminds me of one of my former students, Erika Barefoot Mosteller...of whom I also think a great deal.
I enjoyed talking with the French man from Lille, a quiet man who seemed somewhat overwhelmed by the boisterousness of the activity at dinner. He ended up leaving a little early. By the end of dinner, everyone at the table had our arms around each others, swaying and singing songs ( or at least many of the others were). Those Ukrainians know how to have a good time!

At one point in time, my companion stood up to give a toast. I was shocked and very curious about what was going to come out of his mouth. He said, “Where the sun always shines and the skies are forever blue, where the women are beautiful and the men of good cheer. Here’s to our second home, Ukraine.” I was about to vomit from the sappiness of his very sweet toast (and was also confused…sun shining and blue skies? Not in the Ukrainian winter I just lived through.), so I couldn’t believe it when everyone at the table immediately stood up in response to his toast. I probably saw 20 toasts today and never did I see everyone stand except for this time. Evidently this is reserved only for the most special of toasts. Needless to say, it was very well received.

One more thing: I’ve written a good deal about the changing national boundaries of the region around Chernivtsi, so I had to laugh when I was asked if I had heard the joke about the 96 year old man from Chernivtsi who had 12 passports during his lifetime? Ha! I did a quick tour through the past 100 years of Ukrainian history. I could only come up with 8, but am still working on it.