Arrival in Vinnytsia

Internet access at last! It's been such a crazy day today, but the past week or so has been rather ho-hum. Since I don't have my teaching assignment yet, and the only people I know here are other professors who have very busy schedules, I've been mostly left to my own devices. I don't really have any objection to that, though; after the craziness of my last month or so in America, and the intensity of Kyiv, I find the peace and quiet to be more than welcome. I've been knitting, writing, doing crossword puzzles, watching Russian TV, occasionally going out to get groceries and various other necessities... it's been lovely. On a brief tangent: I also finished an excellent e-book I purchased before I left Kyiv entitled "The Meaning of Night"-- a story about revenge, written in the style of a Victorian piece. Superbly written. I kind of wanted to frame some of the passages.

It took very little time at all to unpack my things, and I feel pretty settled in, though I'm always on the lookout for a few little extra things to make my apartment feel more homey. I am really pleased with the apartment, though. It is very close to the university, right at the city center, and the building is clean and pleasant. Downstairs there is an adorable little cafe which sells the most delicious coffee and pastries. It's funny because I'd been joking to Scott and Manda that at my apartment here I'd be able to go right downstairs and have a nice cup of coffee in a little European cafe, but I had no idea that would be the truth! My favorite thing about it, though, is the view from my window.

Only in Ukraine, do people have flower gardens in their backyards in the middle of the city. So beautiful. And the stars I can see at night! This is certainly not Cincinnati!

On Tuesday (the day after I arrived), I met Tanya, who is one of the other English professors at the university. She's about my age, and very nice. On Tuesday she showed me around the city, and we had some delicious sushi for lunch (yes, sushi is very big here). Fun fact: Roshen chocolate is from Vinnytsia, and their main factory/headquarters is located here.

I had no idea! Tanya told me that the company's founder is a big political figure around here, and is very progressive and has done good things for the city. They also have a new mayor here, who I've heard from multiple sources is very young and has also done a lot to improve the city.

On Saturday, we went to the festival that was being held all along the main street of the city. It was all decked out for the День Міста-- literally, "day of the city," roughly equivalent to our "Founders' Day" celebrations. It was quite a party, and the town was all decked out.

On the bridge, with pretty lights overhead

We visited two separate concerts, one classical (which, when we attended it, was all songs from West Side Story :))and one rock (with a local band opening for a more popular Ukrainian band and Russian band), and then went down to the waterfront to see the fountain show.

I was totally blown away by the fountain show. This is only my favorite clip, but the fountains played for a full hour, set to music with lights and lasers and even projections on the water. The Bellagio's got nothing on them!

There have, of course, been other shenanigans over the past week, but I'll talk about those later. I'm actually really exhausted tonight. Things are done differently here-- in order to purchase services like phone, internet, and cable TV, you have to actually visit the office of the providing company. Then, you can use automated kiosks (like ATMS) (located just about everywhere) to pay your fees. These things are also wonderfully cheap for an American-- cable TV costs 60 UAH a month (about $7.50) and internet costs 75 UAH (about $9.50). In order to figure all these things out, Svitlana (my contact at the university, an English professor) has been working with me and my apartment rental agency. Today, though, she had to go before we could finish with everything... so I spent the better part of the afternoon going all over the city with my landlady, taking care of all these services. The best part? The landlady didn't speak a word of English, so we had to make do with my very terrible Russian. It was definitely challenging and a little stressful, but I was actually really glad. Opportunities like this are the reason I came here, and the fact that it ultimately worked out definitely gave me a lot of confidence to keep trying. Maybe I'll actually be able to speak Russian not-so-terribly by next June! :o)

And now, my friends and family, I am going to bed-- but you may look forward to another post tomorrow, now that I am reconnected with the world!

Train Ride to Vinnytsia

There was rather a circus trying to get my train ticket, which resulted in my actually, in the end, buying three tickets before all was said and done, but I’d rather not go into detail about it. Long story short, I had to change my first train ticket because it left Kyiv too early for me to turn in my apartment key successfully, then I had to leave the apartment about two hours before the train came because I needed to check out by a certain time, then the train I had a ticket for never came… so I had to call the Fulbright office, but the Fulbright staff were on vacation for Labor Day… and it was a big mess. I’ve never been so frustrated by my lack of Russian fluency. I knew enough to ask people where the train was, but no one seemed to know. It was like the train just didn’t exist. Then Inna had me flag down a policeman in the train station and give him my phone so that she could explain to him who I was and what I needed, and he had to take me to buy a new ticket. Then I had to wait two more hours for the next train, and all the while lugging around my huge-ass suitcases… the muscles in my hands and arms were spasming by the time I finally got on the train. And then I couldn’t figure out how to store the darn thing—it got stuck in the box underneath the seat, and the only alternative was to lift it over my head, which took considerable doing.

The (correct) train ticket (Apologies, I cannot seem to rotate it by any method!)

Riding the train was an interesting experience, and definitely quintessentially Ukrainian. Since the train I was on would be going on to Uzhhorod, some people were sleeping on it. Each cabin had four berths, and blessedly the one beside me was uninhabited. I shared my cabin with another lady about my age, and an older man. The young lady was a teacher herself, it seemed, because she was grading papers on the train. They were both nice and helpful, even though I couldn’t speak to them. The middle-aged gentleman helped me get my bag out of the lower bin when it got stuck, and they both helped me to deal with the conductor. The young lady also helped me to be sure I didn’t miss my train stop—although I needn’t have worried because even as I was getting off the train, Oleg, the department chair, was barreling onto it to be sure I got off and to take my bags for me. After carrying them around all day, words can’t say how happy I was to have the help.

Train shenanigans aside, my actual arrival in Vinnytsia went very smoothly. Both Sveta and Oleg kept repeatedly asking me how I was doing and if everything was okay and reassuring me that it would all be all right, and how I would make friends quickly and they were already my friends. I love Ukrainians. Since I had come in so late, Sveta had even gone and gotten me some food, water, tea, and sheets for my bed. Words can’t express how glad I was that she’d done that.

My new apartment is as cute as can be, and in some ways even nicer than home.

For one thing, I have satellite TV, what? I don’t even know what to do with that. No internet yet, though. I am typing this offline to post tomorrow when I am able to walk over to the library and use the internet there. There is more storage space—more shelves and closets and drawers—than I could ever use in a million years, even if I weren’t living in the knowledge that anything I buy must be able to fit into my suitcase. And to be honest, after today I really want my suitcase to be smaller on the way back.

There was one other crucial thing I forgot. As I took my blessed shower after the long and sweaty day of lugging my worldly belongings around the Kyiv train station, I realized that I had not thought to bring a towel. So I got resourceful and went into my luggage, looking for the most absorbent clean piece of clothing I could find. While the best interstellar hitchhikers always know where their towel is, turns out that for the rest of us, sweatpants will work in a pinch. :P

As they left me to relax and wind down after the stressful day, Sveta told me to follow Ukrainian tradition—you are supposed to dream of your future husband on your first night in a new home. So, I suppose I’ll go do that now. :)

Exploring Kyiv

Two firsts today: riding the Kyiv Metro, and eating in a restaurant all by myself! Both were rewarding experiences.

My student, Mykola, was taking his son Danimir to the zoo and invited me to come along. In order to get to the zoo, I had to take the Metro. According to my Lonely Planet travel guide, it was very easy to use-- and so I tried it. It definitely helps if you can read Cyrillic, since all the maps and announcements are in Russian, but you could probably figure it out even if you didn't know. It only costs 2 hryvnia (about 25 cents) for a token (below). 1 token = 1 ride.

The cool thing about the Kyiv metro is that it is all on one level... so depending on where you get on, you might have to take a really really long escalator ride. From Maydan Nezalezhnosti, where I got on, the escalator takes easily over a minute to ride down. It reminded me of the absurdly long and creepy escalator out of the subway in Silent Hill 4.

(Left: Kyiv, Teatralna Station; Right: Silent Hill 4. ...or have I got them backwards?)

But I digress.

Anyway, I successfully negotiated the metro and found my way to the Київський Зоопарк, or for those of you who don't read Cyrillic, the Kyiv Zoo.

The zoo was surprisingly (or unsurprisingly) similar to an American zoo, although perhaps more of its exhibits were outdoors, and it definitely seemed more like a park with a zoo in it rather than the other way around. Mykola brought some stale bread for Danimir to feed the ducks, which he rather seemed to enjoy (and so did the ducks).

Seriously, how cute is this kid!?

After the zoo visit, I returned to my apartment using the Metro (which resulted in much less walking!) and stopped by the cafe on my street for dinner. Boris and I had been amused by the name of this American-style cafe chain... the "Кофе Хауз," which may be transliterated as "Coffee House"-- no translation needed. There I ate "panini" which was actually chicken, tomatoes, lettuce, and cucumber in a wrap that had been put in a panini press... and Холодний чай (iced tea) with lemonade. It was tasty, but a little on the small side.

Tomorrow is my last day in Kyiv for now. I'll be going to church with Mykola and his family, and now that I can navigate the Metro, I might try to make it to a few last sights in the afternoon.

More Adventures in Kyiv

Still suffering from jet lag and still sore from yesterday's walking, I slept late and stayed in most of the day today. Around 3:30 I went out, thinking I would head over to Lypky, a district which is supposed to contain numerous old mansions including the House of Chimeras. As has happened to me so repeatedly on this trip, though, I got a little lost. I found myself near Kyiv University. That was where this building caught my eye-- turns out it is the building of the National Bank-- gorgeous!

They just don't build them like that in the U.S. Although I did not find the House of Chimeras (today), I did achieve another (possibly more important) goal-- I found a grocery store, and was able to procure the necessary items for surviving the next two days until I go to Vinnytsia. I didn't want to buy a lot of food because I will have to take everything on the train on Monday. Instead, I figured I could eat out for lunch and dinner, and just got some chocolate, tea, and yogurt for the next two days.

Best of all, I was reunited with my long-lost love-- Svitoch chocolate. Words cannot express the joy I felt upon seeing it in the store. This chocolate is made in L'viv, and it is so, so good. My favorite is the white chocolate coconut, but as you can see I also purchased some of the tiramisu and raisin nut varieties. With the groceries now in my bag, I realized that I needed to head back to my apartment to refrigerate them, since I doubted that the yogurt would last otherwise. On the way back, I stopped to take some more pictures of St. Oleksandr's (below) and St. Sofia's.

These two churches are on either end of St. Sofia's square, a huge plaza lined with beautiful buildings on one side and a park on the other.

I need to go back to St. Sofia's tomorrow-- none of my pictures of that end of the square came out because of the sun setting behind it. I had similar difficulty taking pictures of the Opera House (below), which is right behind my apartment building.

I topped off the evening with dinner with my friend Mykola, one of my students from the English Summer School two years ago. He took me to a restaurant on the Khreschatyk, a traditional Ukrainian cafeteria-style restaurant with good prices. It was a delicious dinner. I helped him practice his English and he showed me pictures of his little baby, Danimir. I was waiting on the Maydan Nezalezhnosti-- the main square-- for Mykola, near the "Three Heroes" fountain (pictured below), when some woman came up to me and asked for directions in Russian. I only understood about a third of what she said, so I had to laugh sheepishly and answer "Ya ne znayoo" (I don't know.) An amusing turn of events, to be sure. I considered it a great accomplishment to be mistaken for a Ukrainian woman, since they all look like models-- admittedly, an even greater accomplishment would have been to be able to understand her and answer her in Russian! Someday.

Now it's time to put my feet up and drink some tea while watching Raiders of the Lost Ark in Russian. More adventures tomorrow.

Kyiv: The Magical Medieval City

Kyiv is a sprawling, magical palace of a city. After only my first day navigating and exploring (and getting lost in) its winding and hilly streets, I can safely rank it among the most beautiful cities I've ever visited. Imagine, if you can, a city on the scale of New York or Chicago... built more than a thousand years before those cities (and rebuilt a few times since then). Its streets, its buildings, its statues and churches, are nothing short of awe-inspiring. My apartment, provided by Teren Plus for a mere 500 hryvnia (about $62) per night, is located quite close to the city center.

Kiev's main street, called the Khreschatyk, is entirely lined with majestic buildings. According to my trusty Lonely Planet Guide, most of these buildings were booby-trapped during WWII to prevent German soldiers from entering, and as a result most of it had to be rebuilt. The mind-boggling thing about the Khreschatyk is its sheer scale. Enormous beautifully designed and intricately carved buildings line both sides of the street. On weekends, this street is closed to automobile traffic-- something I will definitely return for!

After finding my way (using a very circuitous route) to the Ukrainian Fulbright office, I met up with Boris, who is a fellow Ukrainian Fulbrighter. We stopped for "business lunch" at a small cafe-- an all-inclusive lunch consisting of soup, "salat" (Ukrainian version of salad-- this one was made of cucumbers, green onions, and cucumber with sour cream on top), mashed potatoes, and chicken liver. I blame Boris for that one-- I should have probably realized that his translation wasn't quite accurate instead of taking his word for it :) After lunch we wandered up the Khreschatyk, to the park at its end, Park Askoldova Mohyla. There we found the Friendship Monument which celebrates the "uniting" of Russia and Ukraine...

...and beyond that, a spectacular view overlooking the Dniper River.

We discovered that this park also houses the Devil's Bridge. Traditionally, newly married couples will affix a lock to this bridge as a symbol of love.

On the way back to the office, we passed the famous Freedom Monument at the Khreschatyk's center.

To turn around and look the other way from the statue, however, also yielded a beautiful view of the city's beautiful yet imposing Soviet-style architecture:

Later, on my way back to my apartment, I chanced upon some beautiful churches.

By the time I returned home, my feet hurt so much I was unable to follow my original plan of going to the grocery store for some food-- so instead I ordered a pizza from Celentano. Ukrainian pizza is delicious-- they use Gouda cheese in with the Mozzarella-- Yum, yum! After all the miles I walked, I was so hungry I ate over half the pizza! Now it's time to kick up for a while so that I have the energy to go back out and do it all again tomorrow!