August Spas

Last week, Alister and I visited Pecherska Lavra. It was Saturday the 15th, and we were going there to meet up with an old friend of Alister's from his time in Russia. His friend is Orthodox, and he was only in Kiev for the day in order to visit the monastery.

I was glad to go to the Lavra - it is a lovely place and I had seen signs that on the 14th the Medovi Spas would start. I had heard the year before, that this was great thing to go to, you could buy honey, pollen, wax, propolis, and any number or bee-products from all over Ukraine. Literally, Medovi Spas means "Honey Salvation". But I didn't really understand why or what and so I translated it the Honey festival to anyone I mentioned it to.

Thursday was Jablok Spas. Which literally means "Apple Salvation". A Kyiv Post article detailed the holiday and said people brought their apples to the church to be blessed. The apples (not from our village) have begun to be harvested. The beautiful white-fleshed Slava apples with a deliciously tart flavor. Hmm I thought, If ever there was a pagan tradition that the church was trying to "reclaim" this is it. Stamp out the pagan revelry with a staunch fast but a blessing of the harvest as token.

It turns out, that Honey Spas (August 14th) marks the beginning of one of the strictest Orthodox Fasts, Apple Spas falls in the middle on the Feast Day of the Transfiguration Of Jesus Christ - the fast continues BUT on this day you can eat fish. The fast finally ends on Nut Spas - the Feast of The Dormition of our Most Holy Lady Theotokos and Ever-Virgin Mary (In other words - on the day she supposedly died). In fact, the whole fast was in honor/preparation for her death. At least, it is considerably shorter than Lent which of course is a fast that is in Preparation/Honor of Christ's death and resurrection.

At the Lavra, we sat on the benches on the stone plaza outside of the upper caves. To the left, a long line of people formed, confessing their sins over a Bible to a Priest. Honey vendors lined the road leading to the smaller caves. People crowded about, eating honeycomb, asking for samples, and buying their Honey from what is considered the most holy of places. And there were bees. Swarms of bees around every vender, trying to reclaim the honey that they had worked so hard to make. Bees are such miraculous creatures. To think that God could have made them make not very much honey, so that there would have been only enough for their own needs, but instead a hive can produce so many times more than what they can eat so that we can not only eat the honey, but use the wax, and nibble their pollen and use the propillis to clean our teeth or whatever else it does. But I digress.
But I'm not quite sure what I digress from - My surprise at discovering the meaning of the Spas? The confusion that "Spas" - Salvation would be linked to harvest items - is there confusion - that salvation is from the honey the apples, and the nuts? Or is it a clear reference to Christ - Saviour and gifter of Honey, Apples, and Nuts?

Maybe these are discoveries for another time.

Not so bad to be Ukrainian

Talking with a young guy we know, he told us of his plans to go to France to study for three years and hopefully longer. What does your mom say? I asked. - Oh - she is thrilled she is pushing me there. In Ukraine, there is no future.

While there are very definitely exceptions, the people who would not leave Ukraine for anything and see the country as a beautiful and productive country, the former opinion is shared by all too many. In fact, the population of Ukraine is shrinking dramaticly because of a desperate imbalance between births, deaths and emigrants.

When we talk to people, often the first two questions people ask us is - Is it better where you are from, and then, with a grimace - have you managed to adjust to all of this in Ukraine. We always answer them that we have adjusted fine, that Ukraine is our home.

Apparently we are not the only ones who have managed to find a bright side even amidst the the grimy backdrop of Ukrainian problems. A recent article in the Moscow Times said that their are 8 reasons why Russians might actually prefer Ukrainian Citizenship. Among the reason listed are low crime, freedom of religion, and more humane military system. While certainly not definitive, or even representative of most Russians (and you'll also find a goodly number of articles about why Ukrainians want to be Russian) the article is interesting for the fact that it does show a definite leaning towards democratic ideals and principles. In fact, one of the reasons that we are selves are here in Ukraine is exactly for the many freedoms that we can enjoy without having a political guard dog growl at our every move. Truly, the main problems Ukraine faces are centered around a lack of transparency and functioning rule of law. But I believe, that as Ukraine grows in maturity, as western projects continue to bear fruit, that slowly but surely Ukraine can transform into a fully functioning society with a future. It isn't, after all so bad to be Ukrainian.

Not much

Not much going on at the moment - have been doing another intensive Russian class and became a bit deflated when I learned that the military ranking of Russian language is a 7 and Croatian is a three. certainly robs me of a big honking piece of hope that I might ever sound intelligible or intelligent. Blah. On the bright side, I DO understand more than ever, though this is debatable as well because sometimes Alister understands something totally different and it can be several days before we learn who is actually right over the course of events. The problem is he studied more, but sometimes I catch more things, but how to judiciate between two stubborn people who both heard two entirely different things? Of course, there are also the times when I completely misunderstand as well- so that doesn't help much.

The weather has been cooler recently - which is nice on the one had since the apartment does get incredibly hot in warm weather - but on the other hand we have no hot water (standard practice to turn it off for two weeks during the summer to clean out the hot water pipes) and so you just can't warm up. So I've caught a bit of a cold.

Haggai has successfully mastered sitting and shaking on command - but he'll only do it when he knows you have a treat for him. He is also getting craftier and it is getting harder and harder to evict him from the bedroom before we go to sleep. We just hope that our ingenuity continues to increase at the same rate as his.