A Kyiv summer

Summertime in Kyiv in a single photo! :) Isn't it perfect?

PS: Not my photo. It was taken by a friend of a friend- thank you for letting me share it here!

PPS: If you haven't already seen this on Facebook, here's an interesting summer read: How 250 tons of Ukrainian watermelons took over the internet this summer.

Ukraine, now.

I'm sure you've seen Ukraine in the news recently. Again.

This post is not about that.

It's not about political maneuvers.

It's not about doom and gloom.

It's even not about all the cool reasons you should visit the country. (And what's up with Ukraine bloggers nowadays? Why are there suddenly so many amazing ones, and where on Earth were they hiding before?)

Instead, this post is a odd roundup of things that have shown up in my inbox lately. I'd be surprised if you've heard of them... but let me know if you have!

Blogs about Ukraine (once upon a time)

Looking for blogs about Ukraine? I'm updating the blog list and retiring the golden oldies below!

Ukraine once had a large number of talented foreigners blogging away about the funny, the fantastic, and the frustrating. Now that number has plummeted. While politics and hard news are everywhere, it's harder to find a plain old daily-life "what's it really like?" update in English. 

I'm keeping this listing of blogs here because although most authors have moved on to other endeavors, they left behind a great online record of their days in Ukraine. I hope you too will find interesting stories when exploring their sites.

As for the blogs still producing content, check out the updated More Ukraine Blogs tab. If you know of a good English-language blog about daily life in Ukraine, please leave a comment below and I'll happily add it. I LOVE reading stories of everyday Ukrainian life no matter how big the city or how tiny the village.


Happy reading! : )

Interview with an American farmer in Kyiv

I'd like to take you to Kyiv today to meet my friend Al, a former dairy farmer with a real love for Ukraine! We've been penpals for the past few years and somehow traded countries in the process :p

Al, once upon a time you were living in Wisconsin and dreaming of Ukraine. Now you're sending out weekly adventurous emails from Kyiv! Tell us a little about your background and your life before the big move.

I had been a dairy farmer for most of my life. It was a smaller farm where you were committed to a 7-day-a-week job but at least you were your own boss. No longer farming, I worked a few other jobs, the last one being in retail. Not bad jobs but I was not the one in control and like many in this day and age, making a living but not getting ahead.

My 3 children are adults and living their own lives. I was divorced so I didn’t feel I had anything or anyone tying me down.

Back in 1976 and still a teenager, I had the opportunity to travel to Europe for 3 weeks on an agricultural tour. One of the countries we visited was the former Soviet Union. From Moscow we flew out to visit a huge farm (approximately 20,000 acres). The farm was in the direction of Ukraine but at that time we simply called it part of the Soviet Union. I fell in love with the few people we met and never forgot about it. I also vowed to never drink vodka shots again. Of course I enjoyed it, but assumed I’d probably never return to the area.

Summer 2014

This summer saw us through a long list of cities. Most of the stories were shared earlier on the blog (June, July, August), but here are a few photos that slipped through the cracks. Can you guess where they were taken?  

Hint: there are 8 locations.

My last 3 days in Kyiv

Well, it feels like I'm living in a new world these days: not Ukraine, not America, but rather the land of pain. The assumed culprit, per a trip to urgent care? A kidney stone. Ugh. And OUCH. Any noble goal I'd had for the rest of my life has since turned into be gone, foul vermin! or, more often, let's wait just a little longer for the next dose of Vicodin. But being housebound means no more excuses, there's plenty of time to finally tell you guys about being in Kyiv several weeks ago.

Right away I knew it'd be different than our previous trip to the capital. To start with, the ads on the fast train were for war bonds this time, not hotels and spas. Last year no one was throwing around terms like Putlir, Luganda, and Donbabwe. And Ukraine is now a place where a taxi driver will first assume you are a journalist instead of an English teacher.

Speaking of the middle-aged taxi driver, he was extra careful to avoid squishing the fresh eggs he was transporting home as he put my bag in the trunk. Just after that, his phone rang- "No Mom, I can't talk now. Really, no. I have a client. I'll call you back. Yes, soon." It was kind of cute.

We got to talking during the 30-minute trip to the hotel and he revealed that he supported Yanukovich, saying things are much worse now than they'd ever been under the old President. I questioned him about this. "Don't you think things will now improve?" "Ha!!" he barked back. "It'll be one hundred years before we recover from this!" "Oh no, definitely not a hundred years", I replied. "Well, okay then. Ninety five." was his answer.

But this opinion most definitely seemed a minority one as I traveled around Kyiv for the next few days. References to current events were everywhere and overwhelmingly in favor of a new, European-ized Ukraine. Every block had the same billboard for a construction company with the words A new country, a new apartment! printed on a blue-and-yellow background. An AK47-armed Taras Shevchenko could be made out among scrawls of graffiti on a main road. And I know I told you before that blue and yellow were popular colors but as of last month, every single thing in Kyiv seemed to have turned blue and yellow. Here's a sampling-

The Golden Gates of Kyiv

The Golden Gates of Kyiv. Sunday, July 27th, 2014.

Definitely a cool little spot to check out, even if you show up during a технологический перерыв (technological break) and don't make it inside the museum.

Yaroslav the Wise

Bet their wedding photos turned out great! : )

In other news, we've spent the past few weeks in Seattle and Portland, sorting through the debris of past lives. Eating borsch topped with Canadian-style sour cream, plov with a side of seaweed salad. Adjusting to a landscape of evergreen trees and wall-to-wall carpeting. Having to dredge the corners of our brains for long-unused words like "barkdust". Trying to think of this as the lazy days of summer and not a dead end. Remembering things like fudge and peas that can be eaten with the pods (just try that in Ukraine, I dare you) and that trash is a thing that actually can be sorted and recycled.

Riding the bus in Portland- where is everyone??

Ukraine is already a bit of a distant dream. The occasional thing still feels odd: am I really wearing shoes inside the house? is that air conditioner (read: dangerous сквозняк) blowing directly on us? an entire jar of crunchy peanut butter for only $2.99? a marina is a place for boats, not a woman's name? brick is a quaint addition instead of the solution to everything?

It's weird. Going to take a lot of reprogramming, I think.

Two cities, two rivers

Exactly fourteen days ago I was here, walking along the banks of the Dnieper river in Kyiv.

Full-on summer at last, the city's residents appeared eager to catch some rays on a long Sunday afternoon.

A former student and I decided to walk as far along the embankment as we dared in the heat.

From many angles, the world looked like nothing more than simple summertime: kids napping in strollers, cotton candy vendors, old men sitting among the trees with their fishing poles.

If you looked close enough, though, you could see traces of another kind of -time: harsh graffiti scrawled next to the colorful flowers, girls in blue-and-yellow miniskirts and dresses, violent scenes from Euromaidan painted on the sides of arcade game tents. Ads from a local language school featured Yanukovich's face and the words "He never studied English" spray painted up and down the sun-drenched sidewalks. But these things were easy to miss, for the day was so bright and everyone's faces were turned towards the warm waters of the Dnieper.

Now fast forward two weeks and 5,600 miles to summer on the riverbanks of another continent.

A small change of plans

Well, in reference to the previous post, you could say something went a little wrong.

Only one of us got to see the sights of The Big Apple (or two if you count the cat, who didn't seem to enjoy himself that much):

The other person ended up running around a different city for a while, which wasn't so bad considering she got to see this on a sunny afternoon: