Perks of Eastern Europe

In 2005, I bought a pair of black boots with heels. My feet are wide, and I've had foot surgery - so I am very picky about the shoes I wear. These looked great and they were super comfortable and so they were winners. Since that time, I've worn them well - so well that I've actually had the heel replaced on them 6 times - which brings me to perk #1 - shoe repair places. Whereas shoe repair in America is hard to come-by and almost the price you paid for your shoe, here your shoe can be good as new for just a few dollars. In the states, my boots would have ended up in a landfill by now and I would have had to buy another pair (true - I probably wouldn't have walked through 6 heels in the states - but that is another issue)

Perk # 2 - Watch repair. Also on virtually every street corner, are watch kiosks. New batteries, an oil job, links, fine tuning, they'll fix it for a few dollars and if he is really good - will even give a you a month or two guarantee on the work.

Perk#3 - Tailors. In every dry cleaner and at least in every neighborhood - you can have your cloths repaired - jeans shortened, zippers replaced, a new variation sewn into those pants to transform them into the latest trend - all for a few dollars. In fact, last year i made a ring sling for a girl in our church who had just had a baby - and I decided to put in different rings - I didn't want to go back and borrow my friends sewing machine again - so i just popped into a tailor - and she replaced the rings for me - in fact - it looked WAY nicer than when I had done it originally.

And then there are the electronic markets where you can take your Tvs, your mobile phones, your lights - anything - and have it fixed. Notice a trend? The perks are that you don't have to go, rush out and buy something new. Yes, sometimes you do - we couldn't find a coffee pot replacement to save our life - but for the most part, you can repair what you have for a reasonable amount. Half the problem in the states is that if you do want to repair something - it costs almost as much as buying it new - so why not buy it new?
But I like my old shoes, and my old watch, and my just the right length jeans perfectly well.

Enterprise

When I was little, I was a salesman. It started when my sister, 5 years older than me, took me around the neighborhood to help her sell her school chocolates - who can refuse a cute grade-schooler and a lisping toddler? As I got older, not only was I one of the top newspaper sellers for our little corner of the world, but I was also the kid out with a lemonade stand - only it wasn't lemon aid - it had to be something bigger, better, and more unique. So I would persuade my friends to sell marigold seeds, or rocks, or snow-cones.

If I spoke Russian - really spoke Russian - had $1000 free dollars and no job, I would be selling ledoxods - Ice Walkers.

Soon, after writing the post about our icy weather - my unobservant husband spotted an add for these miraculous inventions while reading about the Ukrainian elections. Like yak traks or a similar product they were cheaper than their American counterparts and for just 3 dollars extra, would deliver.

If I spoke Russian - really spoke Russian - I would be doing jumping jacks on the ice in front of the metro entrances and I would sell at least 50 ice walkers a day. You can run on the ice. I can stroll past young men in their prime as they shuffle along like grannies - In heels, in boots, there is no other word but amazing to describe them.

If I were running for Ukrainian president, I would had them out to all the babushka's - the target group that needs them most but would be hardest put to afford them - even though for a working Ukrainian they are quite reasonable - I would consider it a social help investment that's cheaper than buying plows and salt - and definitely less labor intensive than sending out the men with pick axes (really) to chop through the 6 in layer of ice that lies on top of the roads (really - little men out with pick axes chopping at the ice and slowly the market places and the sidewalks in front of the stores that employ them are cleared - the municipal property - bus stops, metros and the like - are still veritable ice rinks.)

Easy to slip on and off, I've found that while i can walk in them in the metro, It's better to slip them off - esp. if I have to transfer. Even if the snow melts tomorrow - This has definitely been the best $13 dollars I've spent in Ukraine.

Another year another election

Yesterday was the 1st round of the presidential election in Ukraine.
No surprises, the two candidates to emerge for the vote were Yanukovich (widely seen as pro-russian and less democratic) and Tymoshenko (populist and pro-west)

What was a surprise was the election itself - maybe it was the crisis - maybe the candidates had other tricks up their sleeves - but their wasn't the flurry of tents and gimmicks that normally abound. However, I did learn, that the majority of excess canidates who were running without a hope - were actually being sponsored by one of the main candidates - The idea being to steal votes from the other candidate and then collect them again in the 2nd round? Anyway - in order to get your name on the list of candidates you need millions of grivnen - so maybe there wasn't the overload of campaign posters and flags - but there was still a lot of money being wasted.
One guy - reportedly sponsored by Yanukovich - officially changed his name to "Protiv Vse" - Or our equivalent of none of the above - clever write in strategy if I do say so myself.

Frightful

Well - winter seems to be awful all over. This year I guess we have our first "real" Ukrainian winter - ie - the winter everyone thinks we have all the time.
2 weeks of -16C weather that felt colder with windchill, followed by a slight warming up and snow and snow and snow. The first days of snow was great - nice big fluffy things. Then it got nasty with storms taking down trees and driving hard pellets of icy snow.
Streets and sidewalks don't get clean here. The more people walk on a path, the icier and slushier it becomes. Metros and pedestrian underpasses are perilous because you have flights of outdoor cement steps covered in uncleared snow and ice. I've been lucky enough to only slip once (right in front of the apartment) but Alister has fallen several times and I've seen many another person take a tumble as well - one down the flight of metro steps at Beresteska. Just one of those things that reminds you that we are not in a handicapped accessible or old people friendly city.
After that - we had three days of +1C temperatures. This was great, in that it was incredibly warmer. You think that freezing is cold until you have something really cold to compare it to (Am listening now Shackleton's account of his voyage on the Endurance - South - and he says the same - but living in arctic water for so long - they actually thought melting was uncomfortably warm!!! - i'm not at that level of desensitization yet). Anyway - this turned much of the snow and ice into slush and lakes. The drainage in the parking lots don't work because 1) who's job is it actually to clean them, and 2) the grate covers keep getting stolen and so to save the cars from falling into holes - they get filled up with tires, tree branches - and everything else - this obviously doesn't help the drainage.

Now it has frozen again - and all that water - you guessed it - solid ice. And all that slush? Also solid ice - so between slipping along, you get to also stumble over deeply pitted and rutted icy ground.

The only reliable way to travel in this - and really any weather is by metro (if you can make it down the steps) Above ground - you are hard pressed to get a taxi (and they've raised their rates), the tramvays and trolleybuses are sporadic. And wherever the metro doesn't go you use your feet. Boots here are very important. A good winter boot with treads, inner lining, and fashion sense (we are in the capital city - do you think we can just walk around in moon boots?) A good pair is expensive - but worth it as you stay warm and are less likely to fall. A family I knew put it this way - a good pair of winter boots is an investment - we don't have cars and snow tires - we have winter boots - and boy do we use them!


The icewalk near our home.