May 25, 2014: "The Most Important Election"

In spite of the State Department's request that American citizens "defer all travel" to Odesa, our observer mission still sent us there. Things had been quiet since the Trade Unions fire, so we figured there was a good chance that everything would be OK. Still, rumors were flying about the possibilities of further violence brought in by Russians from Transnistria (the portion of Moldova under control by Russian separatists, whose border is nearby), and I was on edge enough that I felt it safer not to tell many people that I was going there until after I had already returned.

So after the orientation for observers, we took an overnight train from Kyiv. Arriving too early to check into our hotel, we were given a tour around the city.

Odesa has the feel of a port city, laid-back and breezy. Its wide boulevards are lined with tall trees, evoking the feel of Paris or New Orleans. The architecture is diverse; art nouveau, gothic, and rococo facades are sprinkled throughout the city.

Following the annexation of Crimea, Odesa is now Ukraine's main port city.

Odesa's famous opera house

Signs of patriotism, while harder to find in Odesa than in L'viv or Kyiv, were there all the same.

A statue of Catherine the Great, the city's founder. This statue is just down the street from the famous Potemkin steps-- which I did not photograph on this visit, as I had taken a photo on my last visit.

This sculpture was gifted to the city of Odesa by Kyivstar, one of Ukraine's largest mobile phone carriers.

 Among the sites we visited was the place where the first protester was killed at the end of April. 

The shooting actually occurred further down the street. They had dragged him back to this corner to wait for an ambulance when he died.

Until that point, Odesa had remained immune to the violence that had occurred elsewhere in Ukraine, in spite of the substantial pro-Russian sentiment in the city. On that day 40 people died, but it is still unclear exactly how it happened. I've heard conflicting reports. The Kyiv Post said that a Pro-Ukrainian march to the soccer stadium ahead of a game was attacked by the separatists, who were then driven back to the trade unions building. A friend who claims to have known one of the participants, though, said that the fans at the soccer game were riled into becoming a mob and going to attack the separatists. Whatever the truth may be, there was a clash, and molotov cocktails thrown between the two forces ignited the building and killed those inside. The tragedy shook the city to its very core.

There was certainly a tension in the air leading up to the elections. Fortunately, our pre-election visits to local polling locations revealed no major issues, except one precinct where the head of the election committee would not let us in.

We were told upon arriving in Odesa that there was actually little concern about the Presidential election-- it was the mayoral race which was hotly contested. That said, it was technically not within our purview to comment on the mayoral elections-- our job was only to observe the presidential contest.

Aside from the polling location where we started and ended the day (the same place where the head would not let us in the day before), we by and large witnessed few major irregularities. The overriding sentiment in the precincts seemed to be one of joy and optimism. It was so touching to receive genuine words of gratitude from voters, commission members, and local observers alike. One old man who had come to vote and saw me standing behind the table said, "I'm happy to see you." Others expressed that it was important that we were here, especially this time. Everyone seemed to understand that this was a decisive moment for the country. An election not considered to be free and fair would give Putin a pretext for invasion, an outcome which nobody wanted.

It was a long day, which began at 7:45 (the polls were to open at 8:00 am) (although ours did not actually open until 8:35) and did not end until we returned to the hotel at 6:30 the next morning. By Ukrainian law, once the polling station has been closed to voters, the building is to be locked and no one is to leave or enter until all the ballots have been counted. We actually ended up leaving early because there were so many problems at our polling station we weren't sure they were going to finish anytime soon. We did, at least, stay until the presidential votes were tallied. In our precinct Poroshenko won by a wide margin, and Dmitry Yarosh, the leader of "Right Sector", the far-right group that Putin has been maligning, received only six votes. These results seemed to pretty accurately reflect the results nationwide.

Because of the sensitive nature of the things that I witnessed, I will speak in general terms about Ukrainian election law, the things we looked for, and what types of problems we encountered. I will be including a mixture of pictures from various precincts. If you want to know more about my experience, please ask me in person.

Each precinct was to have one of these signs outside of the polling location, clearly marking it as a voting location. Many were in schools, often two or three in the same school.

Each precinct was also required to have a Ukrainian flag by the entrance.

As our precinct opened late, there was a line of disgruntled voters waiting in the hallway.

The pink ballots were for the mayoral election, the purple ones for the presidential. Both were cast simultaneously.

A Ukrainian passport was the only valid form of identification to receive a ballot. Part of our job was to watch and make sure people weren't being given ballots without first presenting a Ukrainian passport.

Once the passport had been checked, the name of the voter was found on the voter list and the voter signed beside it to indicate that they had received a ballot.

The other international observers on my team :)

Typically there were several other observers already at the location, from the local press and from other international organizations.

At each precinct, we asked to see the safe in which the ballots were held. There were not supposed to be any ballots in the safe after the polls had opened.

This precinct had followed the rules. There were some precincts we encountered, however, where some ballots still remained in the safe, which is a violation of election law.

The ballot boxes were to be placed in a central location, visible to everyone in the room, to prevent tampering. They were to be sealed on both sides, either with the plastic purple ties shown here, or with a piece of paper signed and stamped by the commission and glued across the seam.

Posters with the information for all twenty-one candidates were to be hung in clear view for the examination of all voters. We encountered a few precincts, though, where a couple of the posters were mysteriously missing (or had been vandalized)

The mobile ballot boxes are for people who are physically unable to come to the polls. They are brought around to the voters' homes. Technically, once they have been brought back to the precinct they are supposed to be turned upside down and stored in plain view so that no one can put extra ballots inside.

As I stated earlier, by and large we did not witness many big violations. Still, at least two out of the sixteen precincts we visited that day did have some issues. These, however, were mostly relating to the mayoral election and not the presidential. By the time we returned to the hotel at 6:30 the next morning, Petro Poroshenko had already been declared the winner of the presidential race through exit polling.

I slept for five or six hours after our return. Our train back to Kyiv was not until the late evening. Unfortunately, I was feeling seriously unwell after my multiple short nights. Fortunately, I was able to request a late checkout from the hotel and remain in my room lying down for the rest of the day. Unfortunately, this meant I didn't get any more time to explore Odesa. No worries, though-- I am sure I will be back someday.

In Between Times

Since I'm embarking on my next great travel adventure tomorrow, I thought it might be good to fill in with what I've been generally up to since my Bukovyna trip at the end of January.

Basically, I had a bunch of misunderstandings with my university that made life really complicated. We had disagreements over my schedule. They wanted me to teach three three-hour night classes each week, and nothing else. I said this was unacceptable to me for many reasons, not least of which that it is hard enough to have any sort of life in a foreign country, let alone try to do it while working nights and twiddling your thumbs all day while everyone else is working. It was also a problem because the class they wanted me to teach on Thursday nights was at the exact same time as Mila's English Club in the center which I try to go and help with. Apparently they had never expected that I might object to this schedule, so it became a huge fiasco complete with crying on my part and some really un-called-for insults to my character on their part.

So I had to get the Fulbright Ukraine office in Kyiv involved. The new Fulbright director was really helpful though, and (I hope) everything is straightened out now. I think the biggest problem was that norms for scheduling work and norms for the relationship between employees and employers are very different between the U.S. and Ukraine.

This was compounded by the fact that I was sick for about a week after coming back from Chernivtsi-- I think all those nights of poor sleep, sleeping on trains, sleeping in a dorm room at the hostel, and spending lots of time in enclosed spaces with lots of people just did me in. Whatever, for my first week back in Vinnytsia I was basically useless.

Was really glad I bought that Carpathian Herb tea in Kosiv! Kinda just looks like someone went outside and grabbed a handful of leaves though, doesn't it? :)

Does your herb tea have grass, sticks, berries, and flowers? Because mine does.

 In the midst of the scheduling mess, I took a weekend trip to Kyiv for the Fulbright mid-year orientation. This is for those who are only doing half-year Fulbrights, or for those who for whatever reason didn't come to Ukraine until January-- and then for those of us who are already here and would like to meet the new people. It was no big problem for me to go, since Vinnytsia is not far from Kyiv by train (about 2 1/2 hours if you take the fast train). As it turned out, most of the current Fulbrighters had decided not to come-- just about the only out-of-towners who came into Kyiv for this were me and Joel, who traveled all the way from L'viv. This worked out marvelously for our though, because it meant Fulbright could afford to pay our full accommodations which it would not have been able to do if more people had come.

Joel and I met up on Friday, stowed our bags at the hotel, and had time for a little sightseeing before we joined everyone else for the reception in the evening. Since neither of us had been to Kyiv's legendary Lavra, we decided to head there. The conditions for this trip weren't really ideal, though-- it was pouring down rain, and so foggy you could barely see across the street. So while my photos aren't actually informative, they are pretty haunting.

I couldn't believe how ridiculously foggy it was. This is the entrance to the park with a Holodomor memorial.

Fortunately we were able to follow the signs and maps, because the Lavra is a "main tourist object"

Because we were so late in the day, we only got to see one set of caves. But it was neat to wander around and take pictures of the churches, too.

 

Down the hill to the caves

I love the flying buttresses

Like the liberty bell, but newer. Hahaha

Really impressive artwork on this one. I don't know how it survives the elements.

We were soaked through after that excursion!

On Saturday night, after our orientation was over, we went back out with a few other Fulbrighters to meet one of my Ukrainian friends, Mykola, from the ESS (the one with the cute baby!).

During our seminar, I watched the rain change over to snow through the window. By the time we got to Maydan Nezalezhnosti, people had already built snowmen. Or as they're known in Ukraine, snow grandmas.

The bar was busy that evening and had to break out some old glasses...

The next morning, I got up to meet my friend Halya (another of my former students from ESS) for church.

After Mass, there was a Christmas concert! "And you'll be starting Lent this week!" Halya laughed.

(I wanted to put in a video of the concert here, but it seems that every time I try to insert a video, blogger crashes! They really should do something about that.)

If you look closely, you can see that these pillows are actually made out of tile! Pretty cool. I wanted to take more pictures of the artwork, but my camera battery died :(

Back in Vinnytsia, I tried helping Anna with her English club on Tuesday afternoons. It's not for me-- she works with much younger kids who know almost no English, and anyway I'm starting up an English club of my own that night at my university.

Other things that happened in the last month... hmmm...

I got my first lucky tram ticket...

The sum of the first three digits= the sum of the last three digits! It's good luck :)

I made some homemade borshch...

Домашний борщик з сметаной та хлів (homemade borshch with sour cream and bread)

Then, last week, I had a houseguest. Deborah, one of the other Fulbrighters who normally lives in Odessa but wants to do research in both that region and in this one, came to stay with me for a few days to start networking in Vinnytsia. Her visit was great-- I got to show her around the city, we ate at many of Vinnytsia's great (and comparatively cheap) restaurants, and she even took me to the central market and showed me how and where to buy the good stuff-- homemade cheese, smoked meat, fresh vegetables, and honey from the villages, and the cheapest and most delicious dried fruit you have ever eaten. I got honey, fresh cheese, some sausage, and a box of fresh dates. It was all phenomenal, and I am totally going back there all the time when the weather gets warmer.

Last Friday, March 8, was also International Womens' Day. This holiday is a big deal in Ukraine, with most businesses having a shortened day or a day off, and all men being expected to buy flowers and candy for every woman they know.

My Russian teacher, Inna, is a teacher of English and Russian at a school in one of the villages outside of Vinnytsia. Last Thursday, the day before Womens' Day, she invited Deborah and I to her school to see her children perform in their school show. These shows are kind of like a cross between a talent show and a recital-- students play music, dance, recite poetry, and so on. They were really impressive, and the school itself was beautiful-- relatively new, huge, and brightly painted and decorated.

The children sat in the auditorium waiting for the show to start

This little girl had an incredible voice. Also, I love her dress. So shiny!

Some of these costumes might look a little familiar...

There was a combination of folk dance and modern dance in their performances.

Inna herself sang a duet with one of her students. It was great, but again I can't post because Google apparently can't handle videos. After the concert, Deborah left for Odessa and I went out for dinner with the village school teachers. All in all, it was quite an experience.

On Womens' Day itself, Mila and Anna, two of the Peace Corps volunteers, came over and watched movies. Then on Saturday, I hosted an "American Movie Night" at my apartment and invited all my friends, both Ukrainian and American. Unfortunately there were only 3 guests this time, but I definitely will do it again because it seemed that everyone had a good time. Anna stayed with me both nights. So basically, I had a houseguest every night last week except Thursday! It was quite a long week. And now this week, it's back to lesson planning and preparing for my upcoming trip this weekend... Kharkiv! Stay tuned for updates about that adventure. :)