Ukraine

About twenty or fifteen years ago my mother worked as a photographer in a very small, very remote and by your stranderds probally very unusual village. The name of the village was Kryivounia, which means something like crooked straight in Ukrainian I think. The village has a population of just under 2,000 if you count just the people, if you count the cows, geasse, sheep and goats it would be much, much higher.

My mother lived in this village on and off for about a year, so she has some good friends and memories from there. As we were in Europe and we relitively close to Ukraine my mother decided it would be a good idea to go back the the village (the one with the really long name that is really hard to spell) and check things out.

Being a good photographer my mother also got a grant to come to Ukraine and teach English at the "Ukrainian Cathlic University" which happens to be where I am writing this from. The grant is for the next three summers so we may very possibley be coming back here to Ukraine soon.

The road from Slovakia, specifically the capital Bratislava (where we live) to Ukraine is a long one. Altough Ukraine and Slovakia share a border is it very small an on the oppisite side of the country. We decided to take the highways through Hungary, they would lead us to Ukraine faster. We drove and drove and drove and drove and drove. We passed through the Hungarien capital of Budapest and countinued on to the border.

You may or may not know that Ukraine is not part of the EU (European Union) and therefore there is a border that is moniterd by police and soldiers. As we came closer and closer to the border, everyones nerves ran on edge, being in Hungary with a borrowed car from Slovakia with three American passports and one Slovak passport trying to cross the border into Ukraine is not very typical and we thought it very possible we could have some problems with the border police.

We came to the border and everybody shut up excpet my father who speaking Slovak, having learned some Russian in school, and understanding a little Ukrainien was able to using all his languistic skills, with the occasional use of "sign laungue" communicate with the guard enough to get through the checkpoint. We congradulated ourselves and rejocied. Moments later our good feeling evaperated as we realized that we had only gone through the Hungarien part of the border and now the Ukrainien part was coming up, we were only half way.  

After a few mintues that seemed like eternity we ended up at the checkpoint. All was not as we expected, instead of the typical jerks guarding the border, the guards we talked with were very good to to us, halfway through the checkpoint we realized we needed to call someone to arrange how we were going to find the place we were supossed to be staying at. Our phones don't work in Ukraine so we were unable to place the call, one the border guards borowed us his phone to make the call! A border guard lent us his phone! Isn't that crazy?

Soon we passed through the checkpoint, fourtunatley the police did not find the dead body we are hiding in our car trunk. No I'm just kidding, we dumped it out in a river before we crossed. There was supposed to be a man waiting for us father down the road, he would get in the car with us and direct us to the place where we were supossed to sleep.

Fortunatley the man was waiting. He got in our car and not long after we pulled into a school for people studying to become priests, complete with a church and a bunch of other buildings for I have no idea what. My brother and I were shown to one dorm by a future priest while my mother and father where shown to another dorm by another future priest. We woke up well rested. Since we had stayed with religion students we found it was not exactly possible to refuse an invitation to early morning mass on Saturday morning. My brother and I dressed and showered then went down to our parents dorm.

Not long after we all shuffled into church. The only people there were the students, it was slightly odd coming into church and seeing only priests. We were recogniozed by the preist, I mean the one who was doing the preaching, as speacial guests from France. I still have no idea why we thought we were French. Everything was in Ukrainian and almost everything was sung, it was very peculiar for me. After mass ended we went had breakfast with all the future, and present priests. The breakfast was simple but good, bread with cheese and ham.

Right after breakfast we got going, we still had a long day of driving ahead. The countryside slowly transformed before us. The flat land slowly changed into steep mountains, the clear sky into mist shrouded mountian peaks. We continued on our way.

Farms, fields, cows, and the occasional stand selling fresh fruit all flashed by my car window, although everything was a flash from the car, I was amazed at the beauty of the Ukrainian countryside. I began to see why my grandparents missed their country so much.

As we peacefully continued on our way we were suddenly attacked without warning by a huge swarm of cows. Well I guess it wasn't so much of attacked but more enveloped. All we could see through the windows was cows, cows, cows and cows. The cows had been out grazing all day and were being herded back to their rightful owners.

Traffic in both ways was slowed to almost a halt. Honking and mooing were constantly heard. Then the semi trucks came. Tuck driving can be a hard job, constantly wearing down on your nerves, always driving. Now I'm sure you've heard a truck honk before and are aware that more often then not they are equipped with an extremely loud and obnoxious horn.

Now there were two or three semi trucks freely blasting away on their horns many other cars, also blasting away on their horns, and all the cows mooing. All this commotion didn't in the least bother any of the two or three cow drivers, this was an every day happening for them as I was later informed.

Fun, Fun, Fun

Slowly but steadily the mass of black, white and brown thinned and eventually dispersed leaving the road clear of all except the occasional cow dropping. Soon we were well on our way to the mountains.

After a while of driving we came the village where the woman who had been my mothers assistant in Krivoyonia lives. The woman who at the time when she was mothers assistant was a little less then ten years old, is now a fully grown woman. The woman agreed to help us get back into Krivoyonia, she would stay there a few days herself as most of her family lives there. We were to meet then go back to her house and then drive in two cars into the village.

We came to the place where we were supposed to meet without problem, I was told the name of the meeting place but all my attempts to read the road sings were futile as they were in the cyrillic alphabet. A rather old looking truck pulled up, and out of it the woman we were meeting her husband and her small child.

My mother recognized the woman and we all greeted each other. The woman came into our car and navigated us to her house. After a little while we arrived there. Is was a larger house in the more rural part of the village. As we came inside I was supprised to see two elderly people there, at first I thought they were visiting then I remembered that in Ukraine it is often traditional for grandparents to live with their children. We had a delicious meal consisting of ethnic Ukrainian foods that by now I have forgotten the names of, well all except salo, but I'll get into that later.

After the meal we talked for a while, I understood more of the the conversation then I had first thought I would, the Slovak and Ukrainian languages are both of Slavik root and are very much alike. After this discovery I took it upon myself to learn to read Ukrainian. Eventually after much pain and struggle I did.

We were going to go in two cars, Calinka (the woman who was my mothers assistant) with my mother, brother and father. I was going in the second car with Calinkas husband and son. Calinkas car was an old truck that was missing several parts in several places, it was old but reliable.

Calinka speaks some English which is good for me because I don't speak any Ukrainian. Unfortunately Calinkas husband doesn't speak any English at all. Now, I wouldn't if you've ever tried to communicate with someone who does not share a common language with you, but here is something you should know about it; it is insanely hard. Like for real. Luckily he spoke some some Czech, Slovak and of course Ukrainian, all of these languages are very much alike because they all share a Slavik root.

With a combination of all the languages mentioned earlier and hand signals we managed to have a "conversation" about Ukraine. The time passed and we made our way farther and farther into the mountains. The trees we had been driving through for a while suddenly broke and revealed a beautiful clearing with an extraordinary view over the mountains. We stopped the car got out and spent a little while just looking out at the view. When we finished appreciating the view we got back into the car and went along on our way.

The road was more or less a pot hole minefield. Somehow everyone came out of it in one piece. Now we were in the village, I mean the only one I've been talking about, the with the long complicated name.

As we had arrived rather late all we did was unload the car then go to sleep.

To be completely honest I'm not sure how many days we were in Ukraine for so I'll just give you an overview of everything that went on in Ukraine.

The first thing that happened was the beds, yes beds can happen. As you most likely aren't aware of I have allergies to dust, not so severe ones but enough to cause myself discomfort. Now that you know about my allergies you can probably guess what was up with the beds, but just in case you can't I'll tell you.

The bed I slept on could have been completely made of dust from the way I sounded during the night and the way I looked in the morning. I was told one morning after waking up by my mother that she woke up in the middle of the night and heard something, that at the time she thought was a wolf outside the house, it turned out to be me breathing, or more trying to breathe. The last night in the village I slept in another house in which I was able to have a comfortable sleep without worrying about dying.

Now I'll tell you about some more fun things that we did in Ukraine. Ukraine has a good number of mountains and being the fact that we in them we figured that we might as well climb them. One of the people who my mother photographed has a house even higher in the mountains where his wife was currently taking care of their animals which are at that house, the one higher in the mountains. We were invited to hike up the mountain and go sleep at that house. We agreed and went with one eleven year old boy (who actually was the Mayors son) named Andrej. After navigating through many the cow-shit minefield, walking through a stream or two and climbing many feet in altitude. At the house we had a delicious and not at all nutritious meal of some mac and cheese then some bread and salo. Salo is a traditional Ukrainian food that consists of fat, fat and fat, it is straight fat that you're supposed eat on bread. Although this food is extremely unhealthy it is really, really, really good. Up at the mountain house we also went wild strawberry picking then ate the strawberries with this amazing cream that the Hutsels make. We slept at the hut high in the mountains then went back to the village the next day.

Screening my fathers movie.

From the photos my mother made, my father made a movie. This movie is called "Pictograph". I've seen this movie about 253456256 times and been promised about the same number of times that I would go the place in the movie someday. It was very interesting for me to finally get there and actually see the place the film is about. We screened the movie in the village, that's what the photo above is.

In Europe Futball, no I mean Soccer is extremely popular and they play it pretty much everywhere. As the village is in the mountains there is not very much flat ground to play Soccer in so being resourceful they play in grass path that goes through the entire village. We set up some beer bottles for goals and then I got scraped in Soccer, scraped real, real bad.

Getting demolished in Soccer.

One of the main attractions of Krivoyonia is the fact that Ivan Franko an extremely famous Ukrainian writer once had a summer house there. There is a museum dedicated to him, there are also two more museums one has some of my mothers photographs, the museums weren't very interesting for me so I'm not going to write anything about them.

I was able to observe another way of life in Kryivounia, one I would not normally be able to see, one most people who aren't born into it aren't able to see.

Not to long after we arrived we had to leave, it was sad but true, but fortunately our trip to Ukraine was not at a close yet. After Kryivounia we where to visit a larger Ukrainian city by the name of Lviv maybe you have heard of this city, maybe not, but that dosen't change the fact its one of the biggest citys in Ukraine and often reffered to as the capital of western Ukraine.

We were going to Lviv to meet my mothers old friend who grew up in Syracuse and is now the head of the Ukrainian Catholic University and a priest. We rented an apartment from some older woman who loved to talk, and talk, and talk. We met my parents old friends and had dinner and all those fun things which you have probably have been through yourself. I learned lots, and lots about Ukraine's history, culture, alphabet, and current political situation which is more precarious then you would think. This was extremely interesting and eye opening for me.

On the way back we stopped to find the grave of my great, great grandfather, somehow we did find it. We took some earth from the grave put it in a little bag for sentimental reasons then we took some photos, paid out respects and left.

I bet you a dollar you cant read the tombstone.

The trip back was just as long as the trip there. That actually isn't true at all, The way back was about
 four hours longer than the way in. At the border we passed the Ukrainian border with no problems at all then we came into the mile long line for the Slovak side of the border, we waited in that line for five hours. The problem on the Slovak side wasn't with anyone's paperwork, it didn't have much to do with the few cars being completely unpacked, it wasn't even because there were to few people. It was because almost all the people there weren't doing anything they were all just kind of sitting and chilling. Finally we made it through all the lazy border guards and came into Slovakia.

Instead of sleeping at a church we slept at Mr. Musinkas (you may remember him from one of my former posts) son. After a good breakfast we came back to Bratislava and were home.