Krasnosilka Green Preservation Society

On Tuesday, we traveled to Yuri's mother's home village, known as Krasnosilka. It is three hours outside of Kyiv, an hour outside of Zhytomir. Yuri's cousin, Ivan, graciously offered to drive us from Kyiv to visit the family. The weather was threatening rain, with dark clouds always on the horizon. It would have been okay but the roads beyond Zhytomir were in a very poor state.

The Krasnosilka bus stop - in our 7+ hours in the village, we never saw a bus

Once we arrived at Krasnosilka, we traversed many dirt roads until we reached the first village house. The first person to greet us at the first house we visited was Yuri's cousin who burst into tears upon seeing us. The daughter of one of Mama Daschko's sisters who had never met us before; she was thrilled to welcome us to her home. We shared information about the family in Canada and were quizzed about where we were traveling and why. Inevitably the question of why we couldn't stay longer in Krasnosilka was raised. We then sat down to a huge meal, which included copious amounts of vodka and various meats and fewer vegetables.

Lots of food. There was fish, pork, sausage, ham, and chicken.

After lunch, or, more realistically, enough food for 3 lunches, we went for a walk to see the village. On the walk, we visited various cousin's houses, walked their fields, and met their neighbours.

We also met Yuri's cousin's cow.

We also went to the nearby cemetery to visit Yuri's grandmother (my great grandmother), uncles, and aunts. While the rest of the family's graves were in the new cemetery, to reach my great grandmother's grave we had to make our way through a small path cut through the forest. Her grave was one of only a small few that remained of the old graveyard that was now reclaimed by the forest. They told us that since no one of the other families remained in the village, the graves had not been maintained as they were unable to continue to massive job of clearing out the new growth.

There were hundreds more graves like this lost in the forest beyond

On our way back it started to rain and gust, so we were forced to take cover back at the house.

The rain started literally a second after this picture was taken

After the skies cleared, we were taken to see where Yuri's mother's house had once stood. While a new house had been built on the ground, as is common with villages in Ukraine, the well that her family built and drew water out of still stands. We all had a sip of the water, which was still surprisingly clean and fresh tasting.

Thanks again to Yuri's cousin for getting us water the ol' fashioned way. Which is also the way they currently get water.

  We also stopped by cousin's summer house which was nearby. Inside, there was still standing a pich, a type of clay oven, famous in Jewish-Ukrainian and Ukrainian life and literature as a place upon which children would sleep during the cold nights of winter.

They would have slept where the pot is sitting near the wall

To close out the day we had a massive 2nd lunch, which was more like dinner by virtue of the time we ate it. Similar foods and similar quantities of vodka and wine were provided.

People seem to age faster on the village, as everyone commented on how young Marla and Yuri looked.

  We had a wonderful time, and with much  tears and hugs left for Zhytomyr and our hotel there.

The Hangover Blog

Lev here,

Meeting Ukrainian family and writing a blog the next day is difficult. We all had a lot of fun, definitely had too much food and drink and, at least for me, found morning arrived far too early. Just a short entry for today, since we have to have breakfast, pack and leave our hotel in Kyiv. We aren't sure if we'll have WiFi in the upcoming hotels over the next few days, so keep an eye out for our blogs but don't have great expectations!

If or when we have it next, expect a bunch of updates.

As it is such a short entry, and one written with some serious headaches, here are a few photos of the past few days to keep you up to date on some of the things we have seen.

Marla here: Time to go. Must check out of the hotel and leave our beloved free wifi.  See you soon!

This is where the famous Ukrainian bard, Taras Shevchenko, lay in state.

Street festivals

People having fun

Really old streetcars

The Maidan at sunset on the day we arrived in Kyiv. (taken from the car)

Sunday showers

We seem to have missed writing about Sunday but we've been busy being tourists! I'm thankful that Lev and I are sharing the load of writing about the trip; also Lev is much more technologically adept than I am, so I count on him for things like dealing with problems. He also writes the photo captions in a much more entertaining way than I do!

In any case, it is Monday already. Yesterday was spent wandering around Kyiv in some pretty horrible weather. The morning was beautiful and sunny, but then the rain came and it got cold and miserable. We spent more time in cafes than one probably should, but it was a way to escape the weather.

Though it may seem like it, this is not the actual line for entry to the museum.

We visited a fascinating two room museum called the "Museum of One Street". It is located at the foot of Andriyivsky uzviz (Andrew's descent), which is the steep street that we climbed Friday, that contains hundreds of market stalls. The museum documents the history of many individuals who lived on the street over hundreds of years. The collection showcases the lives of soldiers, politicians, nationalists, poets, musicians, actors, a rabbi, an orientalist, dressmakers, etc through an amazing variety of personal items.

Guess which exhibit this one is.

The museum was split up by era and then by street address. There were special exhibits dedicated to the "Turbin family" house of Mikhail Bulgakov's The White Guard fame, and the academic and artistic history of the street.

The First and Second World Wars

Some colourful paintings of 1918 soldiers from all sides of the conflict.

It was a toss up whether there were more World War II artifacts in the museum or being sold by vendors on the street outside.

We also walked around the Maidan (where the Orange Revolution took place) and Khreshatyk street before the skies opened up on us. The rest of the day was stormy, so there aren't that many pictures for us to show. :(

After meeting family on Monday, it will be time for us to leave Kyiv for Zhytomyr and Krasnosilka. Along with leaving this fascinating city and our friends, we will also miss our very comfortable and clean accommodations at the Fairmont Grand Hotel. 

It may be Sunday but I'm still thinking about Saturday

As Lev wrote, our first full day in Kyiv was busy and covered a lot of historical, emotional, and cultural territory. I promised to write a bit about our visit to the killing ground known historically to Jews as Babi Yar (from the Russian) but now known officially as Babyn Yar in Ukrainian.

A map of the grounds. Sorry, it's all in Ukrainian

I first read about Babyn Yar when I was about 20 years old through the moving and evocative poem by the Soviet-Russian writer Yevgeny Yevtushenko. It memorialized the 33,711 Jews who were forcibly brought to the ravine in Kyiv, and then were brutally shot and killed on Yom Kippur between 29 and 30 September 1941. It was the largest mass slaughter of Jews in Ukraine at that point of the war but sadly would not be the last.
 
But Jews weren't the only ones who died at Babyn Yar. The Nazi's were equal opportunity murderers; there wasn't a minority (or majority) that they didn't hate. So approximately 100,000 and 150,000 Ukrainian nationalists, Roma, gays, and Soviet POW's also died there in the months after the murder of the Jewish population.

Babyn Yar is quite a large area covered by lawn, wild grasses, and many poplar and birch trees. The sound of the wind in the trees is beautiful and calming.

Not visible: The millions of little poplar seeds floating through the air. Apparently, female poplars douse the whole city with them.

There are a variety of monuments to the dead spread out over the grounds. We didn't see the giant menorah as it was in a different place but we did see a giant sculpture, put up by the Soviet government, to honour the small number of communists who died there.

And boy is it ugly. It might be hard to discern what it's supposed to be from this distance but, believe me, even up close it's a mess.

 There was also a permanent monument in the form of a large cross in memory of the Ukrainian nationalist dead.

While it is big, the perspective isn't doing the Jewish monument any favours.

 For the Jewish community, there was a small temporary trilingual (English, Hebrew, Ukrainian) monument put up by the Ukrainian government in 2001. I was disappointed that it was so small, but apparently I can blame the Jewish community for the lack of a permanent monument. Apparently, one European Jewish group wanted to build a community centre (which in reality would have been a business centre) on the spot! So there is no monument because they haven't been able to agree on something suitable. Get two Jews together and you'll have three opinions!
 

 Also distressing were the factories and administrative buildings built on top of Ukrainian and Jewish graves by the Soviets. In 1973, a giant TV tower was erected which still overshadows the memorial site. Now abandoned, it still serves as a reminder of how memory must be protected.

Build giant useless tower over the mass-graves of the victims of war crimes? Stay classy, Soviet Union, stay classy.

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We left Babyn Yar for a much more enjoyable entertainment in the evening, which took place in St. Sophia square. (Lev's note: With the sun setting behind the stage, it was beautiful to see the light play on the bell tower)

Big thanks to Myron and family for letting us know about this. We had a great time!

It was a classical music concert (that started almost 30 minutes late), but the square was packed with chairs and was standing room only for the unfortunate late-comers. There were a lot of opera performances including a group known as "The Three Basses", who did some comedic takes on opera. It was very Ukrainian humour.

Also there was a fire on a nearby street but the concert continued nonetheless.

The night ended with a laser light show using the stage and bell-tower as a screen. It told of the founding of Kyiv using a neat stylized cartoon style. Very cool.

Jewish Kyiv. No seriously, Jewish Kyiv projected on the side of a monastery belltower.

With that, we ended our Saturday and looked forward to Sunday.

Arrival in Kyiv

Dobroho ranku /Доброго ранку! Good morning from lovely Kyiv.  We're here at last! Just a short note before we head out for our first full day in Ukraine.

It was cloudy right up until we started descending to the outskirts of Kyiv

The travel to Kyiv, via Munich, had it challenges, as every international trip does these days. Seats made for midgits (at 5'2", even I found the leg room wanting), crying babies and antsy kids in the row behind us, an hour delay in the rain on the runway getting out of Toronto, etc. You get the picture. But we're here, the sun is shining, and we all getting back into traveling mode. 

The new airport terminal

We arrived at the new very modern terminal at Borispil Airport, which was built for the 2012 EuroCup Soccer tournament. 


Lev and I have our first introduction to Ukrainian signs everywhere; happily Lev can read the language and I have learned the alphabet so I can at least transliterate.

Flight arrivals - all in Ukrainian

We were thrilled to be picked up at the airport by our long-time friend Myron Spolsky (and his driver  in a separate vehicle for all our luggage ... too much, as always) who drove us though extraordinarily heavy traffic to our hotel. The hour long trip was spent with an invigorating discussion of the history of  Kyiv and Ukraine, its architecture, and recent local and national politics.

The aforementioned traffic jam, the local Metro stop, and an impromptu market!

It was a great introduction to the city, the country, and our travels ahead.

To be continued