May Day Weekend in Chernivtsi

Friday was a crazy day, so in contrast, Saturday was super relaxing. Sunday was the beginning of yet another train journey.

On Friday AM, I went to workout. My feet are bothering me a bit. Feet are essential here, as they are my only means of transportation. I have no car here. So, Saturday became a no-workout, ice the heel day.

After returning from the gym I went to the Post Office (now that I know what to do) and then to the train station. I don’t like going to the post office in Gville, and I didn’t really enjoy it in Chernivtsi. Plus, that experience was just enough to make the train station experience worse than it normally would have been.

Here I am in front of City Hall:

Here is Chernivtsi's Taras Schevchecnko moument. I think every town in Ukraine has one. They LOVE him here although I hear his poems are dark and gloomy.

Here is a post office car. I'm not sure if this is what they use to deliver mail or not. I have never actually seen mail being delivered in Ukraine.

Essentially, I walked to the train station, and for the first time, it was actually warm here. I had a long underwear top on. I wasn’t expecting this. I waited in a long line at the train station. While waiting I realized that there were 2 bags propped against the wall very close to where we were standing in line. Every once in a while, something would move inside the bag. In the US, someone would have called security. This was an unattended bag without something moving inside it in the middle of a crowded train station. Here no one blinked, and I know they noticed bc I know the people behind me said something about the bag. I figured there must be a cat, or a chicken (yes, sometimes people bring them on public transport here) or most likely, a fish thrashing about, soon to die.

When we got to the front of the line, I tried to order tickets for Lviv and Krakow. I didn’t want either until I knew that both had availability. I had put together our own itinerary. Krakow, bc it is an international destination, requires another line. Can I also buy tickets for Lviv in that line? Where is the line? Someone who spoke some English offered to show us where the line was. Turned out he had lived in Mississippi. Then I waited in another long line.

FINALLY, after 25 minutes or so, I get to the front of the line. The lady was not pleased to learn I wanted tickets to Lviv and then to Krakow. Evidently this is complicated. It becomes even more complicated when the 2 people communicating do not speak the same language. So I inquired as to the number of sleepers in each compartment, etc., all the usual. If we couldn’t buy the whole compartment (kupee) we weren’t interested in going on that particular day. I called my student Anna, who was at home in her village after a ridiculous journey the night before…poor thing. I asked her to translate. She was so helpful.

Then the lady kept banging on her calculator. I guess she broke it, which didn’t surprise me, bc she then brought out some metal device with numbers that looked like it may have been used for torture several hundred years ago.  I counted my cash and realized I probably didn’t have enough. Problem. I suggested a visit to a nearby ATM since the chances of me still working this out when my travel companion returned were good.

Then the lady abruptly closed her window, saying nothing to me. If it is time to take a break, these people just close their window and take their break. You just have to wait for the 20 minutes or 1 hour or whatever it is…short break or long break.

The closing of the window prompted a collective graon from the very disgruntled and lengthy line of people waiting behind me. I said, “Pereproshooyuu” at least 5 times. This one woman who had been crowding in (again, personal space is different here) went absolutely mad and started screaming at the woman behind the glass. Her young son looked scared. The woman behind the glass ignored her, and the angry woman ran off in her very high heels.

All this made my travel companion crazy. He put his forehead against the concrete wall and stared at the floor, wishing it would all disappear. I was reminded of the part of the book All Quiet on the Western Front, when one soldier, crazy from too many months of trench warfare during WWI, begins to bang his head against the side of the trench. Remarque, the author, describes this action as being akin to that of a donkey losing his mind.

Then the woman opened the window again. I reiterated my wish that my travel companion go to an ATM and get some fresh air. This time, he went. It was a good thing, too, bc we were about 40 hyrvnias (5 dollars) short and I’m quite sure this lady and the people in this line would have engaged in full scale rioting if I did not produce the needed money after all this.

Finally, I purchased the tickets. Now, as always, we wait to see if things will work out the way we would like. One never knows around here. I would just really, really like to avoid the stinky feet in a small train compartment for 6 hours again.

This weekend is a holiday weekend here, as is next weekend. Perhaps that is why the station was so crowded.

Yesterday Lilliana mentioned that both International Womens Day and May Day started in the US but most Ukrainians don’t know that. I mentioned that I had told my class this and explained the history of both.

For May Day, I mentioned that in the 1880s in the US, labor activism was really heating up and workers were demanding their rights more so than ever before. In 1886, workers were demonstrating at Haymarket Square in Chicago in support of an 8 hour work day, when chaos ensued and several people were killed. This event became known as the Haymarket Square riots. All around the world, workers commemorated the lives of the workers lost in the riots (they didn’t commemorate the lives of the lost policemen, but hopefully others did). May 1st, or May Day as it became known, evolved into a day to honor workers. Workers around the globe in subsequent years were encouraged to stop working to honor the lives of those lost at Haymarket, who were considered martyrs for the cause of worker protections.

In the US, several major labor unions in the late 1800s also planned events to honor workers. The Knights of Labor, one of the biggies, planned events in early September. When the US Congress and President Cleveland were going to create a Labor Day, they didn’t want to appear to support the lawlessness of Haymarket, so Cleveland and the Congress supported what the Knights of Labor had been doing to honor workers in September. That is why the US celebrates our Labor Day 4 months later than 80 other countries around the world, including Ukraine. In the US, it is still celebrated with big events in Chicago and NYC. A few years ago, I remember watching massive protests in Los Angeles on May Day on the television at my grandmother’s house. Illegal immigrants in LA picked May Day, which is also known as International Worker’s Day, to protest immigration reform.

I asked about what happens here for May Day. The university is closed from the 1-4. I was told that the working people spend time at home, doing things that may not otherwise have time to do, like cleaning and farming, and that the more professional people go to their dachas and relax. I don’t have a dacha, nor do I have a farm here. I spent May Day lying low and then going to an organ concert. I got the impression this a long weekend to relax (sort of like Memorial Day or Labor Day), so that is what I did.

The May 9th holiday is also coming up. It is a major national holiday here, as is evidenced by the many cards I have seen for sale celebrating the holiday and the fact that there are these signs posted throughout the town. I will write more about the May 9th holiday soon. I plan to attend all the festivities here in Chernivtsi; I just have to figure out how to find out when they are going to take place. When I ask about it, everyone enthusiastically tells me that yes, there will be many activities, but no one can give me a schedule or even much of a location. I’ve gotten used to this by now. I’m sure I’ll figure it out.

Here is the first Russian tank that came into Chernivtsi during the war to liberate the town from Romanian-German control. Chernivtsi was part of Romania then, and Romania sided with Germany during WWII. There are also signs around town.

You can see the dates 1941-1945 below...interesting, I thought, since the Soviets basically did to Poland and Finland starting in 1939 what the Germans did to them after Operation Barbarossa in 1941. These are the dates of when the US was in the war; the Soviets were in from 1939 onwards. From 1939, they were on the offensive, but then Germany reneged on the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact that allied them together and Germany invaded Russia, prompting Stalin to have a breakdown and call on the USSR to rise up in the Great Patriotic War to defend the motherland. So, as you can see, as a historian interested in issues relating to memory and commemoration, I find this intriguing that Victory Day commemorates 1941-1945 only.

Friday, I decided to go see a movie at the Movie Palace on Olga. I chose Clash of the Titans for a few reasons. I might be able to follow the story more easily than we would something that was totally original. Also, it is an action film. Since the film was entirely in Ukrainian, I thought I could follow action better than we could follow a film based on dialogue. I understood a few words here and there. I understood the female lead when she repeatedly cried, “Perseo… ni!” (“Perseus, …no!”) Say it out loud, and be sure to fill your voice with dramatic desperation. That is what it sounded like. Ha!

Here is the movie:

I decided to just lay low on Saturday and take a break from working out. Lilliana came over around 3 for a little while. I only left the flat for about 2 hours today. I did a lot of blogging bc I am way behind.

I went to a concert this evening at what was formerly the Armenian Catholic Cathedral. I had no idea what kind of concert it was; I just saw the date and time outside the church and decided to show up.

It is beautiful inside.

The Armenian Catholic Cathedral is now a concert hall, given that most Armenians were forced to leave after WWII. I enjoyed the organ concert, but couldn’t help but think of those families who once worshipped here. I wondered if some of them were in church when they heard tanks going through the streets when the Russians came into Chernivtsi. I thought about where those people may have gone. I thought about how grateful I am to live in a place where and time when I do not have to worry about bombs going off around me, or tanks going through the streets, or enemy soldiers coming into my home.

I was excited to wear my new dress. This is the only article of clothing I bought for myself during this horrific winter. With all those layers of clothes on, I just coudn't stand the thought of going through the process of taking all that off, trying something on, and putting it all back on., It would have taken 20 minutes. This was the only thing I saw that was even remotely worth it, so I tried it on and bought it.

Tonight I cooked cannelloni. I had no idea how laborious it is to cook cannelloni. Diane Vecchio, check this out!

Two things to remember:

When I came back from Italy, I had a balance of .51 hyrvnia on my phone. I converted that, and it equals 6 US cents!

One other thing: I went to the market on Olga the other day to buy some things. I picked up a package of regular spaghetti noodles. They cost 3.25 UAH, which equals 46 US cents. Coming back to the US to pay 1.50 or 2.00 or whatever a package of spaghetti costs is going to be a bit of an adjustment. Clothes, shoes, etc. aren’t that inexpensive here compared to the US, just food. Restaurant food, too, is very inexpensive. The movie the other night cost a little less than 4.oo USD per person (expensive entertainment around here). The organ concert was 25UAH per person, or about 3.25 per person USD. The days of communism are gone, but tickets are still clearly priced for the people.