Sleds as transport

Our first years here in Ukraine, I watched with amusement as every winter people pulled out their wooden sleds with metal runners and started trotting about the icy streets with their kids in tow.  Didn't they know that the plastic sleds are faster?  That with the disks or even the toboggan rolls you could really get some speed?  Why were they bundling up their children and pulling them along the unevenly icy/ slushy / and bare walks that make up a neighbourhood.  Tsk tsk.  You would think that in the northlands, they would know how to use a sled.

Now, with a toddler and a baby - I understand much better.  The sled is transport before it is рецреатионал (which I guess explains why thе аverage cost is about $50 for a sled on runners.)  I guess when Saphira was wee, we had a more mild winter, and with a baby, if you choose not to go out, you don't go out.  No Problem.  With a baby AND a toddler, if you don't go out - there will be no nap time, and on a very unfortunate day bed time may also be delayed to a point where it is no longer productive for you to do anything after the child is in bed and you merely wave the white flag of defeat and crawl into bed after them.

And let me be very clear.  You cannot push a stroller one handed through snow and slush two feet deep at a curb while holding onto your toddler's hand. Pushing it with two hands is also a stretch.  Picking it up, hefting it through the mush while scrambling for your footing and hoping your toddler made it up the curb by herself in one piece and isn't currently howling, complaining of cold and wet, or deciding that the slush in the middle of the road is the perfect material for making a snowman- yep, that's about right.  And if there are any purchases - you know, the ACTUAL reason you decided to go through the half hour ordeal putting on everyone's snow suits, hats, gloves, and scarves (with more tears playing loudly during the exercises as we take turns being overheated and while I shout  - DO NOT TAKE THAT HAT OFF AGAIN, We are leaving, really we are leaving now.  We are leaving . . ..)  And passing past the door keeper once again in tears (What must they think?) to arrive, hot, and exhausted with the tears freezing on cheeks in front of our building -hoping that we can buy bread, eggs, milk and anything else we need before the whine of discontent begins again.  Thank goodness we can get most things through grocery delivery.

So today we bought a sled.  I have not tried it, but Alister says that it flies.  I have not worked out the full logistics of baby and toddler on the sled, or toddler pushing said baby on sled, or mother still slipping and sliding with said baby in ERGO.  We will let the drama and complications work themselves out as they come - for now, we have a sled as transport

Our winter

The snow is slowly starting to melt and this is bringing new hazards - falling icicles:
Excerpt from the Kyiv Post :

It’s the season of falling ice, a perilous time in Kyiv - Yuliya Popova

. . . The snowfalls have been more than brief flurries this winter. And the layers of packed snow and ice have brought their own hardship: One person has been killed and thousands have been injured on Kyiv’s slippery streets.

Until the spring thaw, Kyivans are warned to walk as far from buildings as they can and to look up so as to get out of the way of falling icicles and ice blocks.

Kyiv Mayor Leonid Chernovetsky, long thought to be on vacation somewhere warm, even snapped into action. He asked citizens to alert him about dangerous ice-block formations on the city’s roofs and promised to remove them – pronto. . . ." I appeal to all Kyivans not to be indifferent and to call me personally 1551 and report icicles,” he said on Feb 19. . . . ..

For some people, however, this wake-up call came too late. Pensioner Galyna Zinyuk, 78, was one of them. She went out for a walk with her husband on Feb 21 to the Park of Glory in the Pechersk district and was hit by a brick of ice. It dropped from the roof of the National State Transport University and landed right on Zinyuk’s head. According to witness reports, she died on the spot. . . . .City authorities called a few emergency meetings to respond to the icy crisis. “All the dangerous places near buildings should be sealed off with warning tapes, and I particularly request that Kyiv residents walk around such zones,” Chernovetsky said.

Municipal workers followed the orders, cordoning off many pavements with red-and-white tape. Cars parked along curbs took a good share of the remaining walking space, leaving people the choice of venturing under roofs or dodging speeding traffic.

“We receive 30 to 35 people daily,” said Yevhen Kasyan, a doctor in the Shevchenko accident clinic. It’s twice more than last year, he said, and "there are more fractures than before.”

There are still many icicles in the city and, with the weather getting warmer, they would be showering down in the blink of an eye. “If a five-kilo ice block falls from the fourth floor, it hits the ground with the power of more than 75 kilos,” said Nikolayev.

Anxious citizens say it is time for business owners and city officials to do their math and remove the dangerous ice clusters before it is too late.

Wishing

I'm wishing very very hard on the first star to make it through the foggy night that i'll wake up tomorrow and there will be no snow.

I'm wishing vainly, but I'm wishing all the same.

Sunday was beautiful. It was the first day I hadn't worn 2 layers of long-johns. In fact, i was a real rebel and didn't wear any long-johns though i still had two cardigans on over my sweater. We walked out to the metro to church and the sun was shining, the birds were singing and despite the muck and lakes of melting snow - I felt that spring was definitely in the air.
By 6 o'clock the sky was gray and great big snow flakes were falling. The big fluffy kind that don't fall individually, but fall in colonies. Fluffy colonies of snowflakes falling gently to the ground. It could have been pretty - if it had come in December or November and if it hadn't turned into a full fledged exodus of snowflake colonies storming from the sky in uncountable numbers. But just that morning it had smelled like spring - and so the snow, no matter how fluffy just didn't seem pretty.

Our cat enjoyed it tremendously. Big snowflake colonies must look like small birds or bugs to him because he meowed his hunting meow and swished his tail. We even opened the window for him and he managed to catch a few of them - probably wondered how the disappeared so fast and thinking they tasted extra delicious and water flavored.

Today again the sky was bright and sunny - but the temperature had dropped and air didn't quite have the essence of spring - but all the same I am wishing.

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.

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.