You say toMAYto I say toMAHto

Well, Alister and I don't pronounce toMAYto the same - but that's the least of our word woes. Weekly we have word wars over pronunciation (and grammar usesage and spelling- but that's another issue). Early on in our dating relationship we ran across some of the words I said erb - he said Herb. I said vinyard. He said vIne-yard. The tip of the comical ice burg was when he said ur-eye-nal instead of ur-in-al. (although on all of these pronunciations the dictionary says that both are correct) Most recently the debate has been over lasso - I say lass-oh, he says Lass-oo. So we make trade off. I am forever to forsake the word erb if he always says vinyard.
However, on the Lasso / Urinal debate we have met a standoff as both sound utterly ridiculous to me and I will not budge an inch - i'm from the "wild west" for goodness sake, where we not only use lassos, but know how to pronounce them. As for urinals, well as they aren't really a subject to come up in conversation, Alister can say it however he wants until he can no longer bear the laughter from the men "queueing" for the toilets.

How to make a politician work

Yes, politics does exist beyond the American primaries.

Here in Ukraine - the political situation is, once again, mired in inactivity.

Over simplified recap:
Summer 2007 - Parliment didn't work and new elections were called
September 2007 - New elections - Tymoshenko wins
December 2007 - Yushenko becomes prime minister (notice that it took THREE months for them to finally let her have the primeminister seat after all of the shuffling of seats that took place AFTER the election but that the election was supposed to solve???)
December 2007- A new Parliment is formed
December / January 08 - Parliment ceases to work - the politicians can't get along and so they block the podium, dissalowing a session to be called. Last year this tactic went to far as to even lead to blockages of breaker box and toilets, and a plan to attack the air ducts as well.

After almost (another 50) days of an innactive parliment the biggest questions in the minds of Ukrainians are:
Why do they receive salaries if they never work?
And is this what Democracy is, and if so why do we want it.

If I hadn't Mastered in Peace and Conflict Resolution, I would say that it's time for a good old fashioed peoples rebellion, complete with tar and feathers for the parlimentarians at large. At the very least the politicians should be placed in stocks and paraded through the streets of Ukraine, North, South, East and West to see that there actually ARE problems in the country, bigger than the importance of padding their pocketbook.

Problem:
Aids - As more of the Adult Population become infected with Aids (mostly through drug use) the quantity of worker input into the economy declines while money to care and provide for them declines. Not that their is any money to care and provide for those infected with aids (Did you see the post on the hospitals?)
HIV diagnoses in 2006: 13,256
Rate per million in 2006: 288.3
Total diagnosis recorded at end 2006: 91,057
Adult HIV prevalence 2005: 1.4%

TB - TB is also becoming more prevelant and in this area of Europe in Particular, the untreatable strain in bumping up. TB again effects the ability of the Adult adult population

GAS - Ukraine relies on Exports for 75% of its oil and gas needs. These come from russia. The disputes in congress not only take attention from the country - but inhibit foriegn relations as no one could ever possibly know who they should be dealing with today. Admittedly, the second gas crisis was looked into quickly - but that might be because the politicians haven't built their own personal oil store housees somewhere yet.

Poverty - 37% of Ukrainians (that's 17,130,949 people out of a country of 46,299,862!!!) live below the poverty line.

Inflation - While current inflation is recorded as 11%, it is reckoned that it could go as high as 27% by year end. This in turn will push more people into poverty.

These are just a few of the general problems facing the nation - but isn't enough for the politicians to see that even if they are just working for themselves - they aren't making a very profitable estate for themselves.

For a Comprehensive look at the achievements and battles facing Ukaine, Go to this paper by the Center of strategic and international studies: http://www.csis.org/media/csis/pubs/080213-bugajski-ukraine.pdf

Fascinating Russian Facts

In my quest to learn Russian quickly - I have harvested dozens of bookmarks to grammar, vocab, and other internet russian learning tools.

By far one of the most amazing resources I have found is http://russianmentor.net/tools2.htm Now, for those of you who don't have an inkling to learn russian - that's fine there is also an incredible English portion of the site on Russian Culture. http://russianmentor.net/dtcl/index.htm

As an American approaching Russia - we come at it thinking that everything there is wrong, or second rate. (Well, actually we come at most countries of the world that way - but Russia especially has nothing good to be said about it. Putin, chechnya, Stalin, and Communism - but how many positive words can you name?)

I must admit, I had never been interested in Russia. Though I loved russian fairytales, had heard Russian literature to be the great standard of writing (though I wasn't impressed with Anna Karenia - I thought her cousin deserved the title role - stupid people shouldn't have books written about them unless they are comedies - or such was my attitude as an 8th grader - I'm beginning to think I should re-read the book). However, living in Ukraine, my interest in Russia has necessarily changed - not least because like it or not the history and culture of Ukraine is wrapped up in Russia and Russian thought.

There is a joke a friend told me once several years ago - How long is a Russian Meter? It doesn't matter, its just longer than yours. We might say the same thing about a Texan - that stubborn pride that pervades everything. But that's why i was even more intrigues as i read through this history and culture page (http://russianmentor.net/dtcl/index.htm ) and saw in all the ways that Russian had the short end of the publicity stick.
The tallest mountian in Europe is not in the Alps, but Rather in Russia. The Longest River in Europe is not the Danube, but rather the Russian Volga.

I was most intrigued by the following "Russians have always existed on the edge of starvation. Indeed, in the course of their history they have lost more people to famines than to wars. As a result many important economic, social and political decisions have been based on the success or failure of harvests. Ironically, during the Soviet era successful harvests tended to lead to repression, failed harvests to relaxed policies. For example, poor harvests in the early 1920s led to NEP, the New Economic Policy (Новая экономическая политика - НЭП), a period of loosening of state control in agriculture designed to encourage peasants to be more productive, and poor harvests in the 1970s to a marked increase in trade including grain purchases from the West, particularly the U.S. "

Why the starvation? - Well it turns out that though the soil is fine - the growing period is awful. It explains why the theme of the land amoung Russian literature - to have to put so much work into something and yield almost nothing. Also amazing to see how governments react to differnt crisis and what the long term consequences are.

Weather, babies, and Drafts

The weather in Kiev has been unseasonably warm - which has been pleasant.

Today, however, a gale blew in from all directions. Hail and sleet came banging in from the left while rain flew in from the right. The wind blew through making visible currents in the rain.

Looking down on the sidewalk from our window, we watched the poor people caught in the rain - their umbrellas turning inside out in the wind, clutching their coats up to their chins, and breaking into a fast trot to wherever they were going - the store, home, a friends. Anywhere dry. 8 minutes later the rain and hail and wind stopped. the Sun came out and now, looking out our window, you see a fresh and brighter Harkovsky, the sun reflecting off of a distant Communist grey building. Nestled in the middle is the brick Baptist church of the Transformation. A lovely new building with, seemingly, multiple ministries - including a group for young mothers. There are hundreds of mothers who walk up and down our sidewalk. Apparently children must be taken out in the air twice a day without fail. In Ukraine - fresh air is very healthy - unless you are inside and open a window - at which point the air turns into a Draft (note the capital D as in deadly). While many younger people have conquered their fear of the Draft - others remain in its clutch and sit suffering and sweating in stuffy overheated rooms for fear of the horrors of opening a window. While there may be some wisdom in this - a teacher of mine in highschool once suffered from a full paralysis of the right side of his face from sitting front of a fan - the extent to which it is sometimes taken is very difficult for me - who feels that it is hot, stuffy, and unbearable. However, I am also currently suffering from a head cold - invariably brought on by sitting in front of an open window during our small group last night - after another group member had relinquished his seat due to the draft.

World Monopoly - Vote now!!

Monopoly is creating a world edition game - you can have your say and vote for your favorite city - country abroad by clicking here and registring - you can vote everyday or just once - Some cities aren't listed - so you can type in your own - wild card city at the bottom of the page - Vote now!! (Croatia and Ukraine are high on my list!) http://www.monopolyworldvote.com/en_US/world

Ballet and Spartacus

Spartacus - Roman revolt, eventual failure and crucifixion, Kirk Douglas.


This was basically all I would have associated with Spartacus before last night.


Last night Alister took me to see a ballet At the National Theater. It was my second ever ballet - the fist also being in Ukraine the November before last when Alister first Came to Ukraine. -
But still, the ballet came as a bit of a surprise.

First of all - I associate ballet with something old - from the time of Mozart and all that - very classical and sweet and innocent. Spartacus did not fall into any of these categories.

It was written in the 60's - had a very energetic score, and, well risqué costuming. Not that I know much about ballet costumes, it would seem that in general that they aren't wearing much anyway - but in this ballet, people were even more scantily clad, (Loincloths - they were wearing loincloths) and as the subject matter dealt with the excesses and abuses of the Roman empire, well despite the artistic vagueness of a wordless art form - the ballet is hardly G rated.

What stood out to me: 1 - that they were able to find so many men (I would say at least 40 men - not to mention at least another 20 women) who were able to dance ballet and were willing to wax everything to dance around on stage. Since this is the Kiev Ballet, I assume that these people are here and are professionally connected to the ballet in some way - but what do they do the rest of the time? Giselle - the ballet we saw last year - had only a handful of men - like 5 - so what do all of these male dancers do when there isn't a huge production of Spartacus going on? Are they part of the circus, or athletic instructors? What does a dancer do when they aren't dancing? What would motivate them to keep practicing to be in shape for the next production of an epic war somewhere down the line?

2: From the last ballet and judging from this one as well - the best dancing never takes place at the start of the ballet. In fact, both ballets were rather dull at the start. This may have something to do with the fact that we have arrived a bit late both times, and so it takes a bit to get into the story as well - but in general I think they save the best dances for later. I don't know why, but I would guess that they do this to help the dancers warm up thoroughly.

3: In this ballet especially - they were doing all sorts of different lifts and falls - there was after all a revolt going on! - The amazing thing was that even in the final act, they were able to jump and lift and spin, and spin, and spin, without missing a step (not that I would know if they missed a step - but they certainly didn't seem to falter, stumble or struggle - ) and without even a grimace of exertion! Their super humanity was, however, checked by the fact that they did break a sweat.

4: From our seats, we could see the orchestra section. It must be very boring to be in the orchestra of a production where you have very little to play. The trombone players were talking amongst themselves for most of the first act.

5: The magnitude of the number of people need for a production astounded me. Not only the army of dancers - but the full orchestra, and then all the people running the lights, and the props, the women taking your coats and the ushers showing you to your seats -And to think that originally this was all for the private entertainment of the king and his court!

6: How did the ballet practice before tape recorders and CDs? Did they have to gather the whole orchestra together and practice while they were practicing?

These are the random thoughts that run through my head in the third act of a 3 hour ballet.

Russian Scrabble

Well - Alister and I have branched out on our scrabble addiction - we are now trying Russian Scrabble - which considering you have 10 extra letters in the alphabet, but only 7 still in your hand, and the small number of tiles overall while needing more letters to make more words - is pretty challenging.

We introduced two Ukrainians to the sport as well - They were really getting into it. I ended up winning - but only because I basically claimed no knowledge of Russian - put all on my tiles on the board and kept asking is this a word? How about this? Or this - which resulted in finding, and learning - Amazing words with high point placements.

Despite my Skeptism - Tymoshenko reported be off to good start

From the Kyiv post

http://www.kyivpost.com/opinion/oped/28334/
Highlights: The new coalition government headed by Yulia Tymoshenko, however, has started ambitiously and auspiciously.
The Ukrainian economy is in good shape with a growth rate of 7.3 percent last year. The stock market surged by no less than 120 percent last year, and it has barely fallen during the January turmoil.
The new government’s biggest achievement is to make Ukraine ready to join the World Trade Organization (WTO) at a February 5 meeting of the WTO General Council. One month after the parliament ratifies the accession, Ukraine will become a full-fledged member of the WTO. This could boost the country’s growth by one percentage point a year.
Ukraine’s WTO accession is a joint accomplishment of the four last governments. The very last obstacle was a European Union complaint about the country’s export tariffs, primarily on steel scrap. It has been relegated to the negotiations about a free-trade agreement with the EU, which are likely to be concluded before the end of 2008.
As elsewhere in the region, the greatest economic concern is the high and rising inflation, as consumer prices rose by 16.6 percent last year. As a consequence, experienced Finance Minister Viktor Pynzenyk immediately tightened the budget by balancing it. Fortunately, no price controls or export controls are being discussed. Tymoshenko says that she has learned not to do so from her tenure in 2005.
Tymoshenko’s most worrisome campaign promise was to compensate Ukrainians who lost their bank savings in the early 1990s because of hyperinflation and to do so in the course of two years. Fortunately, the government has capped this compensation program at $1.2 billion, which is less than one percent of gross domestic product, and it has distributed the money swiftly and equally.

How to Live Well on Nothing a Year

William Thackeray titled the 36th chapter of Vanity Fair "How to Live Well on Nothing a Year". Throughout this and the next few chapters, Thackeray informs his readers how Rebecca manages to live in the most luxuriant fashion on "nothing a year". In short - she is up to no good, swindles and exploits everyone, making quite the profit and building up a secret stash of jewels for herself (unbeknownst to her husband). But doesn't she, after all, have the right to such behavior? Don't other people chase after their own "vanities" at the expense of others? Was not she herself a victim of the world? Why shouldn't she profit when she has a chance?

In Ukraine, one can find luxury around every corner. Fashion, particularly women's fashion is a chief concern. An American nurse in her late 30s was making hospital visits and left her coat in the coatroom. The worker there, dressed in grubs herself, spurned to take the coat, said it was the ugliest thing she had ever seen and that the nurse was much too young to wear such a coat. The Coat was warm. It was practical. It was in fact, like most winter coats you would see in America - especially in the Pacific Northwest, for everyday wear. It wasn't fur lined; it wasn't a smart Pea Coat - just your standard microfiber hooded winter jacket.

Walking the downtown streets of Kiev and riding the metro, you see people dressed to the nines. Smart suits, tailored jackets, the latest mobile phone or Armani Bag. There are no amazing bargains in Kiev (or if there are - no one that I’ve met knows of them). As one man said, Kiev has abandoned the communist dictator for a moneyed tyrant - it is now money - or the appearance of money that accomplishes anything and everything.

And so people try to live as well as they can on nothing a year
$400p/month Avgas Salary in Kiev
$350 - Average price of 1 ram apartment a 40min metro ride from center
$1 - 10 large eggs
$2.50 - 1 lb of ground beef
25 cents - Loaf of white Bread
$1.75 - - 1 Gallon of boxed long-life milk


For the majority of people - they don't succeed in living very well at all.

However, others manage to live very well indeed.
A recent acquaintance of ours makes a living installing heated-flooring. He was apparently - one of the first in Ukraine to begin doing this and has been allover the former soviet Union installing his heating system. Additionally, he does other building and remodeling work. Obviously, his skill and the uniqueness of his work attract some very rich people. It also attracts people who want to appear rich and live very well on nothing a year. Having agreed on a recent job, building a pool house/sauna for a named price, the Down payment of which was a quarter of the agreed upon sum- the Homeowner - upon completion of the work- refused to pay the remaining sum and less than half of the agreed upon price - Wanting to at least receive something for his weeks (and his employees) weeks of work - he decided to accept this sum - but on going to fetch it - was chased off by a man w/ a gun, and he went home without money.

Obviously - we heard only one side of the story. However, Ukraine ranks as the country of highest corruption in Europe - which is understandable considering that 52% of Ukrainians believe that bribes and other forms of corruption are justifiable. Why is it justifiable? Easily, little public trust exists - which means that everyone, in the public sphere, is out to get you - so whatever you can do to get ahead, to get by, is justified. It is important to note that this mentality relates to the PUBLIC Sphere - the walking down the street passing nameless faces sphere - Once you have crossed into the sphere of acquaintance - and then fallen farther into the sphere of friendship - you will find that suddenly you have lots of people looking out for you - making sure you aren’t paying too much to your door keeper, have found the right medicines in the drugstore, don't walk in such-and such a place alone at night - etc. The void of trust - and even amiability in the public sphere is made up for 100 fold in personal friendships. Unfortunately - this doesn't stop the overall rat race nor the exploitation of others.

60 kilos of potatoes later

Some of you may have heard that of the Potatoe drama that ensued earlier this fall when I noticed that everyone was buying potatoes and onions. We proceded to investigate the reason why and were told that you HAD to buy them now or they would be ridicuously expensive later on.
Well, I bought 20 kilos of potatoes (40lbs) and I told Alister to pick up some more. He came back with 40 kilos (80lbs!!!!!) of potatoes. Our balcony was full of potatoes and i have been busy volunteering us for potatoe dishes eversince.

Additionally, we bought 18 kilos of Onions.
Well last week, we finished off the potatoes, or rather, we will have finished them off as soon as we finish eating the potatoe soup I made.

The onions too are down to the last five in the box.

I must admit, I was surprised we went through the potatoes. I was picturing them still sitting on the balcony until NEXT fall.

Not only that, but the price surprising hasn't gone up too much (surprisingly since Milk, eggs, hamburger, and chicken have gone up significantly - not to mention that bird flu is reportedly spreading in Ukriane now and so chicken will either be more expensive and harder to find, or a very much buy-at-your-own-risk sort of thing. We are warned to stay away from buying products on the street as we might be buying Chernoble mushrooms, chernobly fish, and other radioactive products)

I have to admit, not having to carry potatoes and onions from the super market was nice - and it was nice to have them around for last minute dinner ideas - but I'm also glad they're gone - to not feel the pressure - of must use them before they spoil.

Pysanky

My newest hobby here in Ukraine is Pysanky. There are lots of very well laid out and explanatory sites about the art already on the internet – and I suggest you look at them to learn more or go to this article for resources and a quick HOW TO.


Basically – I always knew about Pysanky – always wanted to do it – and once I actually arrived in the country of its inception – of course I had to learn. I’ve done scores by now – but have given most away. We used the rejects – the ones with mistakes on them to decorate our Christmas tree this year. These are some that I did the other week when I had some extra time on my hands. Normally, I listen to Russian Audiobooks on tape – over and over and over again as I do the egg to try to build comprehension. Eventually I read the story in English and a light bulb goes on like – OH, so THAT’S what they were doing and then I listen to it a few more times before I try listening to the text and reading along at the same time in Russian. By that point – I understand the text a bit better and can quote back emphatic parts – Like Gogol’s Nose, in the Church when he looks down his nose at the Major and says “Вы ошибаетесь, милостивый государь. Я сам по себе. Притом между нами не может быть никаких тесных отношений.”

Other Pysanky Links:

Method and History and everything else - http://web.mac.com/lubap/PYSANKY/Pysanka_Home.html

Traditional patterns - http://home.earthlink.net/~okaczmar/egstamps.html

Pictures!

So I realized that the Blog was alittle text heavy - so here are some Pictures of the Botanical Gardens a few weeks ago after the snow - It was a perfect day just cold enough for snow - but warm enough to not freeze - and so bright and sunny!

Rumour has it that April/ May is the best time to go the gardens as then there is a grove of lilac bushes that are in bloom and the scent envelops the whole garden.