We had a nice, quiet Christmas here – and a very white one, too! Pierre arrived on Thursday, as did Alessandra’s mother and her mother’s boyfriend. Hubert’s girlfriend is visiting from Prague, too. On Christmas Eve, Alessandra hosted us all for dinner, including Hana (the newest UNV, working for UNAIDS) and Hanifa, a native of Afghanistan who has been living in Ukraine for about 11 years with her family as refugees and who now works as National UNV for UN High Commission on Refugees (UNHCR). Earlier in the day, we had hoped to see the English-language version of “The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe” playing at a local movie theatre, but our “best guess” at the movie time was off by about 2 hours. 🙂 Sunday we had a lovely Christmas lunch at Igor and Olga’s, with her brother Sergei and his girlfriend Ira. In the evening, Pierre and I treated ourselves to cappuccino and ice cream in a fancy cafe and later met up with “the gang” for a beer in one of our favorite pubs. Not exactly a traditional Christmas, but then again, it’s not quite Christmas by Ukrainian standards!
Christmas here is celebrated by the Orthodox calendar (January 7), which means the holiday season was only just getting started at the time that feels like the apex of it for us westerners. The New Year’s Tree was officially lit on Sunday evening (December 25), following a parade down Khreschatyk Street.
Monday was an official UN holiday, and it was nice to have some free time on a regular working day. My big accomplishment for the day was mailing home my Christmas presents (finally!). I’ve been so busy lately that I didn’t have time earlier to send the package, but my dread of Eastern European post offices and postal employees didn’t help me get there any sooner, either. My initial fears were realized when we entered a huge hall, lined on both sides with clerks at windows with long lines, not a one of which was labeled anything remotely like “mail stuff here.” I walked out, tried to find a sign or directory (no such luck) and then back into the pit. Finally I found an “Information Desk” with a woman talking on the telephone, calmly ignoring the growing line of customers. Although I realize that often the only way to get something accomplished under such circumstances here is to interrupt the clerk, I just can’t bring myself to do it. I still want to believe that polite patience will eventually pay off (although time and time again I’ve been proven wrong…). When the lengthy phone conversation ended, I finally learned that in fact the part of the post office where you actually mail things is in a completely different part of the building, up the block, and entered by a different door. Up the street we went, my anxiety growing as I recalled all the hassles I had last year in the Moldovan post office. When I tried to mail calendars home for Christmas last year, the clerk would only repeatedly tell me “it’s very, very expensive.” While on the one hand, it was sweet that she was so concerned for my financial well-being, it was, on the other hand, frustrating to have so much hassle to just be able to mail something. Much to my surprise and delight, the clerk in the Kiev Central Post Office wasn’t quite as horrified by my desire to mail a box to the U.S. She wasn’t exactly thrilled, don’t get me wrong, but compared to what I had expected, filling out 4 copies of a form, discussing in detail the contents of my package, and assuring the clerk that I had, indeed, carefully padded everything inside to prevent breaking, mailing my Christmas presents home was a piece of cake this year!
Tuesday we had incredible snow all day long. I thought it was beautiful, Pierre thought it was absurdly cold. Despite the weather, though, we made a day of sight-seeing and went to the famous Kiev-Perchersk Monastery. We visited one of the many museums in the complex, which contained an exquisite collection of gold jewelry and artifacts from the ancient Scythian civilization that once lived in the area of present-day Ukraine. We also went on a tour of some of the catacombs, or caves, where the original founders of the monastery lived, and in which for many centuries preceding generations of monks lived and prayed. Today, the caves contain the tombs of about a thousand monks and saints. The oldest remains there are over 700 years old and are said to be miraculously preserved. Many saints bodies are kept in glass caskets, wrapped in embroidered silk vestments, lining the narrow hallways of the caves. The system of caves is vast and complex, and our tour provided just a brief glimpse into the special monastic world.
From the monastery, we walked to the hillside park that contains the 108 meter tall statue of Rodina-Mat’, or Motherland, a monument to the Soviet Union’s victory in World War II, or the Great Patriotic War as it is known here. Under the huge statue is the WWII Museum, and surrounding her are examples of tanks, fighter jets and other military vehicles.
Normally you can see the Rodina-Mat’ statue from very far away as she stands on the top of a hill overlooking the Dnieper River. Tuesday, though, the snowstorm was so intense that we were within a few hundred feet before we could actually see her!
Today, Wednesday, we will visit the Chornobyl Museum and try again to see “The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe.”
Joanna and Krystal, two PCV’s from Moldova, will join us this weekend to celebrate New Year’s Eve. We have a table booked at our regular bar, 44, which is conveniently located just a couple blocks from Independence Square. We’ll rush out close to midnight for the fireworks and then rush back to the food, drink and warmth of the club!
Anka in Kyiv 