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.

Summer Snapshots

First, what I'm sure you've been waiting for, haha... Кит: summer edition.

Crimean road trip, part 2

The final pictures from my student's road trip this spring...
(Part I is here.)

Crimean road trip, part I

Imagine:
Early spring near the sea.
You.
A motorcycle.
An open road before you.

A former student lives in Simferopol and owns a motorcycle, which means awesome road trips all around the Crimean peninsula. I asked him if I could share some of his pictures here, since Crimea is beautiful and he's covered a lot of ground on his bike this year. (Thanks for agreeing, Sergey!)

He took these pictures in April-May 2017. You'll notice trees still dull from winter and the deserted beaches of early spring. I left the pictures in the order he took them on his travels. He sent so many pictures that I'll share the other half with you in a later post.

Храм-маяк Николая Чудотворца. The temple-lighthouse of St. Nikolai, worker of miracles. Malorechenskoe, Crimea.

Oregon fun runs

I just realized that D and I haven't done any fun runs this year. Ack! And half the summer is already gone! We've done a run each year since moving to Oregon, and the plan was to do another one this year. The first run was an easy one (lots of little kids running alongside us, haha). Last year's run was tougher and dirtier. But this year? Nothing. I better sign us up for something before the weather changes.

Here's a look at the 2 runs we did. Can you recommend another run to try?

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!

Three good things

At the beginning of July, a friend took off to spend another summer doing research in Nizhny Novgorod. I was a bit bummed to not be there this time, so instead I set up a skype date with her (vicarious adventuring) and then made a whole bunch of plans for the month (like joining a gym + a coworking space and hiring a marketing specialist for my language blog). Halfway through July, this plan of "staying busy" is working. Here are three really nice things that have happened recently...

#1. Odin!

Odin came to town! Best summer present EVER. Now he's a sociology grad student in Alaska, but he still speaks Russian really well... and he even showed up in this Chukotka t-shirt. We had a long double date- Odin, his girlfriend, D, me- with lots of pizza + wine. Even though we only meet up every couple of years, he's still one of my favorite people on the planet. Who else would be comfortable teaching English in a remote Siberian village in 2007 and getting paid in reindeer meat when the school ran low on actual cash? There's no one like Odin. ;)

(One of Odin's stories: Life among the reindeer herders in summer 2013. Here are a few of his photos...)

Odin in the Tuva Republic, 2013.

Odin with a family of reindeer herders, 2013.