Ok, so I didn't miss my flight. And as predicted the beer helped me recollect my experiences. Now I'm Kiev. I arrived close to midnight on Sunday, and was met at the airport by the beautiful Tatiana Alexandrovna and her tall and handsome son, Rostyslav Yurievich. We caught a taxi home and proceeded to drink a bottle of wine, eat Yura potatoes (just the way he used to make them), salad and some wonderful fried and heavily mayonnaised vegies and to reminisce for hours about Yura, Tanya's husband, my mum's cousin and my favourite Ukrainian of all time who very sadly and suddenly passed away in June this year, only four years after his younger brother. Lezhat Spakoyna.
At about 2am Tanya's flatmate woke up and came into the kitchen to smoke a fag, and down some Dzhin Tonic...oh Ukraine, how perfectly acceptable alcoholism is...
The next day was Independence Day in Ukraine, so after drinking the remaining cognac along with our midday brekkie, we headed to the city for the evening's antics. We (and everyone else in Kiev) started with a walk through Marinsky Park to the lover's bridge, where lovers go and attach a personalised padlock inscribed with their names to the bridge to signify their undying love, or something. Although it seems some of them can't afford padlocks and just tie tissues to the bridge. Anyway, it's a nice idea, I like it. I saw a similar thing through the window of a train in Germany – I think it was in Cologne.
We made our way to the Motherland monument and sat down to drink a beer mix – a popular, new beer/soft drink combo available in cherry, lemon and god knows what else. We saw some oldies singing traditional Ukrainian songs, lots of young women wearing traditional clothing almost fashionably, with tight jeans or short skirts and some buskers playing Gunners – 'knockin on heaven's door'. Eventually we got to Kreshchatyk, the main street in Kiev, which is a 4 or 6 lane thoroughfare that is entirely fenced-off – so you usually can't cross it, but must use underpasses. However, the street was closed and lined with tanks and army trucks, on which there were thousands of people climbing and posing for photographs. Of course, we joined them. There was also a stage, and some cool music by the Ukrainian band ????? ???? ('Another River'), which continued until the fireworks went off at about 10pm. It was really a massive celebration – they were calling it Ukraine's 18th birthday, but my host commented that she thought things were better before independence, an opinion I'm sure is shared by many.
NIKOLAYEVKA
Later in the week, I took an overnight train to Nikolayevka, where my pseudo grandparents Ivan Zaharovich (he's actually my grandma's brother, so my mum's uncle) and his wife Maria Pavlovna live, and where Tanya, Yura and Rostik also used to live. It was difficult to get a ticket, so I had a place in the Plaskartny Wagon, which is sort of compartmentalised, but without doors so it's pretty open, and all along what would be the corridor are narrow bunks too. I reckon it fits more than 50 people and is a pretty novel experience the first time. People often talk to me on Ukrainian trains, I guess because I look so obviously different, and I was really pleased to find that I could hold a conversation, if a little haltingly. I was asked to change places with another woman, so that two friends could be nearer – and then a guy generously offered to swap with me again so I could have the nizxhny bed (bottom bunk), which unfortunately put me closer to the snoring babushka, which I suspect was his plan all along. He was very friendly, but not in an uncomfortable way, and when I said good bye in the morning, he said something like 'don't forget me' (nichevo ne zabyla), which I thought was pretty funny considering I didn't even know his name.
I was met at the station early the next morning by a teary, clutching Babushka Masha (that's Maria Pavlovna to you!), who nearly climbed onto the train in her rush to hug me, and the gold-toothed smiley Sergei – Tanya's cousin who has a car. It's getting more common now to have cars and even fancy, new cars or 4WDs, but nobody in my family has one. Lots of young guys have motorbikes now too, and of course they wanted to take me for a ride. It was near impossible to say no, and once there were even three of us on the bike...helmets? Ne nada! At Masha's house everything is new these days, including the hot water service, which she rushed to buy from a nearby city on the day I arrived – because in Nikolayevka, there's no hot water throughout summer...at least not this summer, I think it's because of the crisis. And although there is now a lot of new stuff to be seen in Ukraine, like laptops, DVD players, MP3 players etc, the standard of living is still pretty low, with really poor road conditions, public conveniences (don't even think you can call them 'conveniences', when they're not!) and public transport – for example it takes an hour by bus to travel the 15km from Slavyansk railway station to Nikolayevka.
Masha, Vanya and I started that first day with breakfast and vodka, of course, followed by a nap. And I am continually offered beer, wine and vodka at every meal, breakfast included. However, unlike previous visits, I'm not overindulging at the pure wonder of it. I'm actually attempting to not be overfed and grossly overwatered, but it's proving difficult, and exercise too is proving very difficult to achieve – mostly because I'm practically not allowed to go anywhere alone, oh yeah and hangovers abound. Generally, my friends don't even let me go up four flights of stairs from the front door to Masha and Vanya's flat. This is endearing, in a way, but I'm starting to feel a bit strained. And it's odd, yesterday I even asked about a particular woman's over-friendliness and was told that of course, everyone wants to meet me, to ask me questions, and even to touch me to see if I'm real.
But because of this, and because some people want to use their English, and improve it, I have found myself another dashing, 24yo translator & running buddy – Anton Constantinovich Chaichenko. I actually met Anton four years ago when I was last here. I didn't really remember him, to be honest, but I did remember meeting two cute, young English speaking boys on my last night in Nikolayevka. Turns out those boys were Anton & Vova – and they haven't forgotten me, but then again, neither had the lady who works in the chemist. Foreigners really aren't very common here – and particularly Australians.
Anyway, the first night Tanya's sister came over for dinner with her 5yo son Nazar, his 18yo sister Inna and her motorcycle riding boyfriend Sergei. We had a vodka feast and then went gulyaht, which means 'walking', but which really just means walking until you get to a bar or the 'centre' and then sitting down and drinking the night away. I talked with Tatiana Sultanovna (her dad's from Kazakhstan) and Anton and we made plans to go for a run in the morning – which, despite feeling like crap, we actually accomplished. We ran to the river, Anton took a quick dip, and then we walked back, talking all the way coz his English is actually excellent. He told me lots of funny things, like that he only drinks when he's at home, in Nikolayevka, because otherwise he might get crazy and blow something up, coz he likes blowing things up, like his school when he was 16...but he only blew up one wall, you see, so it wasn't so bad. And all the kids were pretty happy coz they didn't have to go to school for a week.
I think the population here is about 17,000 and that maybe 5,000 people work in the power station, which is probably the only reason this city exists, because the station powers the surrounding region. Anton told me that the British wanted to buy the plans for the station and build their own, because it's so great, but when they realised they would have to manually fix everything, they lost interest.
On day 2, we went to the cemetery. I wanted to, but I didn't realise how awful it would be to see Andrei and Yura's graves, side by side, and their poor mother in great distress, kneeling to hug their headstones, kissing their pictures, and just bawling over the terrible pain of losing both her children, before the age of forty. Vanya sat in stony silence, and Lida (Tanya's mother and a great support to Masha) busied herself cleaning and tidying, until Masha joined her. We took a short walk around to visit and tidy the graves of other family members, and then returned to Andrei and Yura for a picnic. There are lots of picnic tables in Ukrainian cemeteries, and it's normal to have a meal by the graves of your loved ones, and it's actually really a nice thing to do.
In the evening we went to old 'starry' Nikolayevka, where there are very old houses – no high rise flats like in the cities – and big vegetable gardens. Lida's husband Sasha lives there, so we had dinner with him, Lida's sister Shura, Shura's son Sergei and his overbearing wife Marina, Inna, her brother and her boyfriend and my dyedushka (grandpa) Vanya. Masha had had a health scare the previous night, which required an ambulance call –supposedly normal occurrence and nothing for me to worry about?! – so she didn't join us. Dinner, with much vodka, was followed by some drinks in a bar, and then going to another bar to watch Yura's beloved football team Shaktyor Donetsk unfortunately lose to Barcelona (1-0).
The days following continued in the same vein. There's not much to do in Nikolayevka, but stay at home watching TV or sleeping, roam the streets around or sit and drink. So we did all of the above. Everyone likes looking at photos, so we did plenty of that too. And I've tried to sit and talk with Vanya and Masha as much as possible, but it's really hard, and they're both really miserable. When Anton came for dinner last night it was pretty uncomfortable and he didn't stay long. One day Anton and I went shopping in Slavyansk, which was pretty fun even though we had killer hangovers and it was horribly hot at the market. But I just LOVE the fashion here, and I would buy so many clothes if only I had a Sherpa. I settled for just one top, which says in big, sequined letters 'I'm not going to teach you how to dance' – I love it! I also found some great badges, cool hats and tres sophisticated sunglasses. Vanya thinks everything is SO expensive, so I couldn't tell him what I paid. The sunglasses were 120 griven, which is about 12 euro, but when he asked how much they were, and estimated 15-30 griven, I just had to tell a little white lie and agree with him.
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