May Days in Kyiv

The first week of May is bookended by two holidays – Labor Day on the 1st and Victory Day on the 9th – and much of the country takes off for what are known as “May holidays.” We stayed in Kyiv, which is always a great place to be when most of the city’s residents are away! 

The weather was just marvelous all week. Even the rain was great – short bursts of thunderstorms that smelled delicious and helped the trees and flowers just burst with color. I don’t know if this spring is truly exceptionally beautiful, or if it just feels extra-ordinary because the winter was so dang awful, but either way, it is downright magnificent.

We started the holiday week with a BBQ, Ukrainian-style. Igor marinated the meat and veggies the day before

And on Monday we headed to one of our favorite little patches of the woods just outside Kyiv. Igor worked up a fire, and Bill did an excellent job keeping that big log from rolling into it.

The Master Chef approved of his own work.

Eilene’s got tons more fantastic pictures on Facebook but I don’t know how to post them here.

Saturday was the big annual festival at Pirohovo Museum, a huge outdoor museum of Ukrainian village life (the website has an ad for the abortion pill -how bizarre is that?). It’s outside Kyiv, and always a bit confusing for me to find. We set the GPS, affectionately known as Galina Petrovna, and headed off. Now, Galina Petrovna has moments of, well, insanity. I don’t know if it’s just bad programming in the Ukrainian map I bought here, or if there is something fundamentally not quite right about her. Maybe she has a sense of humor I don’t fully appreciate. Somedays she’s a lifesaver, other days you really have to wonder. Within the past week, she directed us more or less into a tree, across a pedestrian footbridge, and into oncoming traffic. Friday she was having a particularly bad day and we apologize for having waken her from her slumber. She clearly thought the holidays applied to her, and must have started early on the celebrations. So it was with trepidation that we suggested she show up to work on Saturday. I did a search for Pirohovo Museum and 2 entries popped up, a distance of about half a kilometer from each other. On a whim, I opted for the second entry.

It was definitely the scenic route. As we wound our way through little village alleys, onto dirt roads and around hairpin curves, I was pretty sure Galina Petrovna had strapped another one on the night before. Since we weren’t in any real hurry, and I always enjoy a strange roundabout trip to potentially nowhere, we stuck with her. Lo and behold, she brought us up to a back entrance to the museum where only 2 other cars were parked! Wow! We had expected, at the front entrance to Pirohovo, to have to park a half-mile or more away from the actual entrance. And the territory of the museum itself is enormous, 150 hectares (about 370 acres), and walking from the car to the entrance to the festival area is a trek and a half. But at our new-found back entrance, we parked just a hop, skip and a jump away! Galina Petrovna, when you show up for work, dang, girl, you rock.

Eilene, as usual, took way more and way better photos than me, as I was pretty quickly distracted by the arts and crafts. We had a great time, and even the rain storm was serendipitous as we ran for cover in a vendor’s tent where Eilene found a lovely summer dress!  We got a good chunk of our gifts purchased for this summer’s US trip, plus enjoyed the music, art, and people at the festival.

Sunday was both Victory Day and one of our anniversaries (we have several special days throughouta the year that we like to celebrate). This year markes the 65th anniversary of the Red Army’s defeat of the Nazis. (I almost had the chance to attend a conference in Berlin this week, which I thought would have been an especially interesting place to spend Victory Day!)  If not for the Holocaust, we would likely remember World War II as the attempt to wipe Slavs from the planet. 20 million Soviet citizens died, nearly 1/3 of all the lives lost in the war. Ukrainians, especially suffered – “Along with the Belarusians, they suffered the greatest losses of any country during the war, as both the German and Soviet armies passed through their land twice in advance and in retreat.” (Kudos to NPR for spelling Belarusians correctly, and double kudos for referring to Ukraine correctly and not “the Ukraine”, like Carl Kassell did recently!) This NPR report is excellent, “World War II Holiday Brings Ukrainian Nightmares“, and not just because it includes an interview with my colleague Myron Stachiw, director of the Fulbright Program in Ukraine.

Igor and I decided to enjoy the beautiful day at the Botanical Gardens, only we must have hit on the idea about 2 minutes after all of Kyiv decided to do the same thing. It was a madhouse, and we turned around before we even go to the ticket booth. Instead, we decided to stroll through our favorite spot in Kyiv, the Military Hospital complex. Yes, that sounds really bizarre, but the hospital grounds is one of the most serene, beautiful and peaceful places in all of Kyiv. Just look at this lane:

There are tree-lines paths and shady gazebos everywhere.

And this isn’t just a pretty place, it’s historical too. The hospital is one of the oldest medical facilities in Ukraine. A field hospital was first established here in June 1755 with 50 beds.

 
Basic history from the hospital’s website (oddly enough, the site is only in Russian, despite being hosted on the Ministry of Defense site).
– during the French invastion of Russia in 1812, the hospital treated as many as 2000 wounded at times
– a school for combat medics was established here in 1833, which became the basis for the medical school at Kyiv University in 1851
– during WWII, more than 60,000 soldiers were treated here; tens of thousands of operations were conducted; 81% of those treated returned to the front
– in the post-war period, the hospital’s doctors served during the cholera outbreak in Astrakhan oblast (Russia), as well as internationally in Vietnam, Cuba, Afghanistan, Ethiopia and other countries.
– the hospital was awarded the Order of the Red Star in 1968.
– today, the hospital is consists of 18 diagnostic clinics, a modern laboratory center, a radiation diagnostic and therapy center, pharmacy.
– there are 1125 beds and more than 25,000 patients treated annually.

It’s also a really, really beautiful place.

Back at home, we celebrated Igor’s 3 years living in Kyiv (and our 3 years living together) with a decadent fruit and cheese plate, enhanced by Igor’s creative hand.

All in all, lovely May Days in Kyiv!