Eight Fights

 This American Life is a radio show/podcast that tells stories based on a theme. Usually it's about Americans. Episode 807: Eight fights is a story about Russian and a Ukrainian who have a son together. When war breaks out, what do you do with the son?

Masha Gessen writes for the New Yorker. She wrote and narrated this story about two of her longtime friends. It is the story of Nadia - a lesbian - who had a son with a gay male friend named Karen. 

If this seems confusing, that's OK. The hardest part for me was coming to grips with a guy named Karen. 

Nadia and Karen were living in Moscow when Luka was conceived. Shortly after he was born Mom and son moved to Kyiv. She raised him to be Ukrainian. Dad spent a month with Luka every summer and told him that Ukraine was a backwater agricultural state whereas Russia had the arts. class etc. This part of the story rang very true to me. As the True Blue Iowan, I see how my coastal friends look down on those of the Midwest, but I digress.

I won't give away anymore of the story. It's today's must listen podcast if you have the time.

Reading Cyrillic

Read the name on the coaster. It looks something like "Abibcke," right? The Cyrillic alphabet has many extra letters and the pronunciation is not the same.

The name above in English is "Lvivski" - the beer that's been brewed for almost 300 years.

Because everything was written in Cyrillic even simple things like a bus chart had to be deciphered.

Fall

The picture above was taken in Lviv.

From what I've heard it hasn't been much of a fall in Iowa... that cold rains and wind took out many leaves before they even had a chance to change color. And the pictures of snow across the midwest made the hundred degree heat in the UAE seem a little more bearable.

Ukraine from the 8th floor

While it was a bit chilly we sat on the 8th floor balcony of a hotel bar overlooking the city.

Once again, the church with singing monks is in the background.

From this vantage point we could also look down towards the city's main square. The pillar in the center of this picture is in the picture below.

Ukraine at night

The statue - pillar in this picture is the same as the one seen from the distance in the post above.

All of the pictures in this post are from the main central square in Kiev. I'm sure it has a name that I can't remember. Anyhow, this is the sight of the Orange Revolution in 2004. The pro-western forces rejected an election where the pro-Russian had fraudulently won. I'll bet you vaguely remember this election. Remember a world leader being poisoned with dioxin and suddenly looking very old? That was the pro-western guy. In the end, the pro-western guy won the new vote but had a lot of problems and the country is still split between the pro-Russia and pro-western forces.

Now the square is a very social place with people hanging out all day and night. There's plenty of beer stands and places to sit, skateboard, etc.

And, of course, in the heart of it all is a McDonald's.

Ukraine: Miscellaneous

The tiramisu and black forest cake were OK, but the real news of this picture are the chocolate covered cherries in the center. They were marinated in cognac. I like foods that change flavor as it dissolves in my mouth... and this went from sweet cherry/chocolate to the *pow* of cognac.

Kiev is one large church/monastery after another. We happened upon this church/nunnery at a time when they were playing large bells.

If a shopkeep placed this in front of his store in the Emirates he'd be arrested.

Huh? Maybe Andrew can translate the title.

Ukraine: Anything frozen

A visit to a large supermarket in Kiev was fascinating. I've never seen an entire aisle dedicated to vodka. Also, I liked this aisle: Lots of food frozen solid. The customer is able to buy exactly the amount they want.

The array of options were impressive.

I think this is tiny squid (of something like that). Like I said, it's an impressive selection.

Ukraine: As long as there is an open sidewalk...

... then there's a place to park. All over Kiev cars were parked on the sidewalks.

If a place really wanted to keep cars off the sidewalks they had to use barriers like these.

Ukraine: Sandwich with a beef

There's a Ukrainian fast food place that serves things buffet style.

The breakfast picture includes hash browns, cheesy broccoli, quiche, and chicken Kiev. By the way, Ukrainians pronounce Kiev as "keev" not "keyev". Anyhow, the food above looks good and tasted pretty good but my complaint was that everything was served at room temperature. We ate there many times and once for breakfast we there at opening and I thought, "Oh, it will have to be hot this time!" Nope.

Also, at their 8AM opening there was quite a line outside the door. I commented to our new Ukrainian friend Andrew that in the US a place that served breakfast would certainly open earlier than 8AM and if they didn't they see this daily line and realize they should. He basically replied that the profit motive is not built in there.
On another day we stopped at Irish Pub. I had to order the "Sandwich with a beef." It was pretty good and didn't seem to hold a grudge at all.

Ukraine: Home of the nested dolls

If you're into nested dolls Ukraine is the place for you!

The Obama ones in this picture looked more like OJ Simpson than Obama.

Chernobyl museum

Kiev is located very near the world's worst nuclear disaster - the Chernobyl nuclear power plant. I had hopes of taking a tour. For large groups it can supposedly be done for as little as $65. The best price we could find was over $250. I may someday regret not throwing out the dough for that but on this trip I had to take a pass.

Instead we took a visit to the Chernobyl museum in Kiev.

The 1986 disaster was recreated in various videos and models. Firefighters were brought in to put out the radioactive fire and were not told it was a nuclear fire. They needed to get to a place under core so they brought in unsuspecting coal miners. Workers with little protection spent 30 minute shifts shoveling radioactive material with a tiny shovel. If they spent more than 30 minutes they'd be overcome with radiation sickness.

What you see above is the main newspaper from Kiev a couple of days after the explosion. Rumors had started to spread and the newspaper had to do a story so it did. The tiny red box on the lower left of the paper. It simply said that there had been an accident and that the Soviet government had set up a committee to take care of it.

How reassuring!

This is a list of all the cities evacuated. The people were told they had one hour to board a bus and were promised the evacuation would be temporary. The Soviets knew that if they told them the evacuation would be permanent people would try to bring too much stuff. Thousands of houses in these cities sit abandoned with dirty dishes in the sink.

*****

During the audio presentation it said the exclusion zone around Chernobyl is "half the size of Luxemburg" which sounds impressive until you realize Luxemberg is only slightly larger than Benton or Linn county.

Ukraine - Day whatever: Giant market

Somewhere I became mixed up on my days. It doesn't help that camera had the wrong date on the time stamp... I hope the Ukraine posts are slightly better than the "what I did for summer vacation" stories from second grade.

We stumbled on this giant market on the first night. I wanted to come back during the day to get some pictures.

The array of choices was impressive as was the display. The place was relatively empty which meant every vendor called out trying to get me to stop by. We have a similar (much less impressive) market in Al Ain. I rarely go to it because I don't like being harassed by shopkeepers.

I'm lucky I snapped these three pictures as quick as I did. A large non-jovial guard came along to let me know pictures weren't allowed.

Ukraine - Heels

There's an interesting contrast of footwear for women in Ukraine: It's the "I'll be comfortable in tennis shoes" vs. trendy/provocative clothes and high heels.

One of the most amazing things to see in Ukraine is the women in heels.

They are everywhere.

There are women that wear shear tops and lingerie bras with heels like this. In the US the only question would be, "What is the price for an hour?" In Ukraine it was the common style of dress. It made me wonder, "So what do the hookers wear?" Oh that's right - leopard skin.

What makes the heels so incredibly amazing is the cobblestone everywhere. If the women only had to walk on pavement or traditional concrete sidewalks the high heels would be interesting. But knowing that this above is what they are walking on makes it amazing.

Andrew (from the post below) was surprised to learn that American women don't dress like this on a regular basis.

Ukraine - Day 7: Andrew

On the train trip from Lviv to Kiev we met Andrew. He's a lawyer who had a case the next day in Kiev. Ann and I joined him for breakfast. It was great to talk to a native Ukrainian with excellent English.

In reading up before the trip I learned that Ukraine is a somewhat divided nation with the east looking to Moscow and speaking Russian, while the western part of Ukraine speaks Ukrainian and looks to Europe. Andrew epitomizes the western Ukrainian perspective: Learning English from American TV shows and getting excited with his friends a decade ago when they learned McDonald's was coming to town.

There were many interesting things we learned but one has stuck with me: Children live at home until married... and sometimes even after marriage. Housing is so expensive that it is simply not reasonable to live together before marriage. He recounted a story of a couple that moved in together. They were together six months before their parents admitted to neighbors and relatives that they were not still living at home.

While I laughed that off and said, "That's not the way it is in the US..." I paused and thought, "But that's the way it used to be in the US."

Which leads me to the question of the day: When did it become a no-big-deal for a couple to move in together unmarried?

Ukraine - Day 6: Lviv farmer's market

Our farmer's markets in Iowa seem very formal and stuffy compared to these street vendors. I was fortunate to buy a bunch of radishes that tasted great.

This is perhaps my favorite picture of the trip.

Travel the world - cheap

Since I was wearing a t-shirt with "Cedar Rapids, Iowa" in large print this woman asked, "Are you really from Cedar Rapids? I'm from Lincoln, Nebraska."

She retired 18 months ago and outside of a few weeks back in the US she's been traveling ever since. She'd covered all of South America and Europe and was looking to wind her way down through Africa. She was grateful to be able to talk to someone in English. (I would go crazy in Ukraine if I tried to travel by myself.)

It's amazing that she has been successful in finding $5/night hostels and traveling on the not so nice trains that cost less than $10 per trip. I wish I'd have taken down her e-mail address. She's got a story to tell.

Ukraine - Day 6: Lviv from above

I needed few reminders of how out of shape I am while climbing to this peak that overlooks Lviv.

I am actually surprised these pictures turned out as well as they did; the haze over the city was pretty thick.

I wondered how a city so geographically small could hold over 700,000 people. Seeing these massive apartment buildings makes it more believable.

And finally, while walking around the peak I saw this blast from the 80's:
There were many "80's are alive" scenes during the trip but I think this is the only one I captured.

Ukraine - Day 6: Lviv cemetery

There's a giant (not so creepy during the daytime) cemetery in Lviv. Many of the tombstones have the person's face etched in stone... and almost all had a serious/sad look. Then again if you were told, "We're doing this portrait for your tombstone" it would be hard to smile.

When I saw this one I said, "Well, I can guess what he died from..." and then I saw he was only 35. Yeesh. There were an extraordinary number of under 40 deaths.

This cemetery had plots right next to each other and several rows deep. I have no idea how relatives are supposed to get to those farther back.

Ukraine - Day 5 Scenes of Lviv

Lviv is the western part of Ukraine, near the Polish and Hungarian borders. It bills itself as the least "soviet" of Ukrainian cities... which is true. We saw little of the ugly cinder block housing and the city was much more tourist friendly than the capitol Kiev.

It's a city of 735,000 but we were able to walk across most of it.

Like Kiev, churches and monasteries are everywhere.

Ukraine - Day 5 Lviv

On the first day in Lviv we toured the Lvivski brewery. Getting into the place was difficult as nobody spoke English. So they couldn't give us a guided tour but we were able to walk around on our and serve ourselves at the end. Sweet. Lvivski beer was first brewed in 1715 by monks. Eventually they started sharing it with the parishioners and eventually sold it to the public.

I, of course, felt the need to buy some mugs and t-shirts. I really liked their beer and it's too bad, because I doubt I'll ever have a chance to buy it again.

Next door to the brewery are the caves where the monks used to store the beer. It was very cool and the food was great. I'm disappointed I didn't make it back here at least once.