Dinner With Oksana
Last night we had dinner with Oksana (the woman I had met in Beatric, whose father is the head of the Law School in Kharkiv) and her two children, Vlad (20) and Lucy (8). She picked us up in a taxi in front of Beatric, and from there we drove to a great restaurant in Gorky Park called Okhoteyi Dvor. It has a "hunting" theme, and the menus were in these fantastic leather hunting pouches with cartridges (fake, I assume) in the neat holders, and a leather strap and buckle to close the whole thing up. Oksana did most of the ordering (except for the blini with red caviar, which I added!) and we had a magnificent feast of many appetizers (a salad with veal and mango, marinated tomatoes and haricots vert - Lucy warned us not to each too many of those because they make you fart - a platter of smoked sturgeon, salmon and trout, the blini and red caviar, and another salad of cucumber and other greens), and then a seared tuna steak and a pork shashlik that we all shared, except Lucy - she got her own coteletti. And best of all, the "hleeb chornay" - black bread. Sooooo delicious - made on the premises, and as Lucy says, awesome!! We also had a delicious bottle of Borola (Vlad had a cognac to start!). It was such a lovely setting - in the woods really - and Lucy is an incredible charmer - I don't envy Oksana in a couple of years!!! She'll have her hands full with Lucy. She is so smart, and so beautiful and so full of confidence - she's going to drive the boys mad! We told her that we only had grandsons, and wanted to adopt her as our granddaughter, which seemed to please her.
We all jabbered away, everyone glad to have someone new to speak English with, although Vlad speaks Russian and Ukrainian and Lucy understands Russian. Vlad was born in Kharkiv - Oksana was a gynecologist in Kharkiv, married to a dentist (who works in the same building as Beatric). After her divorce she went to the States on a fellowship to study genetics in Chicago, where she met her current husband, who is Lucy's father. Oksana told me that there is a pilates instructor at Beatric, but that she's on vacation and will be back next week. She's going to speak to reception about arranging something for me!!! She also knows a fantastic translator for Ed - Vicki works for her father and also teaches English at the Law Academy. (Earlier in the day Ed had fired the woman who was working as the Director's Assistant and translator at the office - she just made things a lot harder, and more unpleasant, rather than easier for him. At the same time he learned that the paralegal, who had been the former Deputy Minister of Justice in Kharkiv, quit because of the uncertainties of the political situation - she'll probably become the Minister of Justice in Kharkiv now!!)
Ed snuck off as if to go to the bathroom and took care of the bill. Oksana later tried to do the same thing, but found that we had beaten her to it. We all left in a taxi together and dropped Oksana, Vlad and Lucy off at the apartments owned by the Law Academy, where she is staying, but only after I made a date with them to meet them at Beatric the next day (today) at 11 a.m. with Belle. Lucy was soooo excited about meeting Belle!
When we got home I asked Ed how much the meal cost for the 5 of us. It was very expensive by Kharkiv standards - 1410 HVA, or $285, and with the tip a little over $300. Oh well, it was delicious and fun and, by our standards, not at all bad for five people, including a fairly expensive bottle of wine, a cognac, coffee, tea and bottled water.
This morning I took Belle with me to Beatric, and Lucy was already standing by the door waiting for Belle. She was a little too exuberant and made the mistake that many kids do with a little dog they want to play with - she tried too hard. Belle, being the snob and princess that she is, would have none of it. The harder Lucy tried, the more aloof Belle was! We all sat outside on the balcony at Beataric, in the shade, while Lucy tried to get Belle to play with her. Oksana and I had coffee and she called Vicki (the translator who works for her father), who agreed to come over and meet me. Vicki arrived in about 15 minutes - she speaks English extremely well and is very experienced in working with lawyers. We had more coffee and talked about Ed's project. Lucy told me I had to have a Beatric fruit parfait, which is basically a really rich sherbert- ice cream that they make there every day out of whatever fresh fruits are available. It was really good and very, very rich! And the perfect thing for a 98 degree day!
Ed had been at a meeting with the Chief Judge of the Kharkiv District Court, but when he got home he came over to meet Vicki too. He was exhausted after 4 hours of meetings and trying to communicate without a really good translator (relying on Gennady and Arkadiy instead). We talked with Vicki for a while (Oksana and her kids had to go visit her parents and left just after Ed arrived). She's going to try and find someone who can fill the administrative assistant post as soon as people get back from vacation (which, in her words, people take "very seriously" in Ukraine - i.e., they are gone all of August) and offered to help out if Ed needs her during August. I hope he uses her. I think she could make his life a lot easier and these meetings would be far less exhausting.
Ed took Belle home while I went to the market. When I got back to the apartment Ed was drafting some letters, so I got to work on my Blog. I actually had two comments posted! Very exciting. Comments are so rare - so few and far between. As I typed away on the blog I tried to remember what I had ordered for dinner last night. I remembered absolutely everything that we had all shared as appetizers, and I remembered what everyone else had ordered, but I could not for the life of me remember what I had ordered - maybe a first for me! I usually have total gastronomic recall. Ed couldn't remember either. I looked at the bill and tried to figure it out - I could decipher some of the things (it is in Russian, so my Ukrainian-English dictionary wasn't much help). There was one expensive item that I could not figure out so I thought that was probably what I had ordered. I called Oksana to see if she could translate for me. My phonetic reading of the word was useless, and she asked me to text message her with the English spelling of the Russian word. I did this, and she immediately rang back to tell me that the word "obslujevaneh" is "SERVICE"!!! I laughed and said that in that case the guy got a really good tip since Ed left another $30!!! But at least we now know the word for "service" in Russian. Ed had been out meeting with Gennady when all this was happening, so when he got back I told him. He was really pissed because he had asked the waiter about service, but I think the guy just didn't understand what Ed was talking about - I really don't think he was deliberately trying to deceive him. At least, I hope not. (In fact, when I got the Visa charge online later, the additional service Ed had added wasn't included!)
We all jabbered away, everyone glad to have someone new to speak English with, although Vlad speaks Russian and Ukrainian and Lucy understands Russian. Vlad was born in Kharkiv - Oksana was a gynecologist in Kharkiv, married to a dentist (who works in the same building as Beatric). After her divorce she went to the States on a fellowship to study genetics in Chicago, where she met her current husband, who is Lucy's father. Oksana told me that there is a pilates instructor at Beatric, but that she's on vacation and will be back next week. She's going to speak to reception about arranging something for me!!! She also knows a fantastic translator for Ed - Vicki works for her father and also teaches English at the Law Academy. (Earlier in the day Ed had fired the woman who was working as the Director's Assistant and translator at the office - she just made things a lot harder, and more unpleasant, rather than easier for him. At the same time he learned that the paralegal, who had been the former Deputy Minister of Justice in Kharkiv, quit because of the uncertainties of the political situation - she'll probably become the Minister of Justice in Kharkiv now!!)
Ed snuck off as if to go to the bathroom and took care of the bill. Oksana later tried to do the same thing, but found that we had beaten her to it. We all left in a taxi together and dropped Oksana, Vlad and Lucy off at the apartments owned by the Law Academy, where she is staying, but only after I made a date with them to meet them at Beatric the next day (today) at 11 a.m. with Belle. Lucy was soooo excited about meeting Belle!
When we got home I asked Ed how much the meal cost for the 5 of us. It was very expensive by Kharkiv standards - 1410 HVA, or $285, and with the tip a little over $300. Oh well, it was delicious and fun and, by our standards, not at all bad for five people, including a fairly expensive bottle of wine, a cognac, coffee, tea and bottled water.
This morning I took Belle with me to Beatric, and Lucy was already standing by the door waiting for Belle. She was a little too exuberant and made the mistake that many kids do with a little dog they want to play with - she tried too hard. Belle, being the snob and princess that she is, would have none of it. The harder Lucy tried, the more aloof Belle was! We all sat outside on the balcony at Beataric, in the shade, while Lucy tried to get Belle to play with her. Oksana and I had coffee and she called Vicki (the translator who works for her father), who agreed to come over and meet me. Vicki arrived in about 15 minutes - she speaks English extremely well and is very experienced in working with lawyers. We had more coffee and talked about Ed's project. Lucy told me I had to have a Beatric fruit parfait, which is basically a really rich sherbert- ice cream that they make there every day out of whatever fresh fruits are available. It was really good and very, very rich! And the perfect thing for a 98 degree day!
Ed had been at a meeting with the Chief Judge of the Kharkiv District Court, but when he got home he came over to meet Vicki too. He was exhausted after 4 hours of meetings and trying to communicate without a really good translator (relying on Gennady and Arkadiy instead). We talked with Vicki for a while (Oksana and her kids had to go visit her parents and left just after Ed arrived). She's going to try and find someone who can fill the administrative assistant post as soon as people get back from vacation (which, in her words, people take "very seriously" in Ukraine - i.e., they are gone all of August) and offered to help out if Ed needs her during August. I hope he uses her. I think she could make his life a lot easier and these meetings would be far less exhausting.
Ed took Belle home while I went to the market. When I got back to the apartment Ed was drafting some letters, so I got to work on my Blog. I actually had two comments posted! Very exciting. Comments are so rare - so few and far between. As I typed away on the blog I tried to remember what I had ordered for dinner last night. I remembered absolutely everything that we had all shared as appetizers, and I remembered what everyone else had ordered, but I could not for the life of me remember what I had ordered - maybe a first for me! I usually have total gastronomic recall. Ed couldn't remember either. I looked at the bill and tried to figure it out - I could decipher some of the things (it is in Russian, so my Ukrainian-English dictionary wasn't much help). There was one expensive item that I could not figure out so I thought that was probably what I had ordered. I called Oksana to see if she could translate for me. My phonetic reading of the word was useless, and she asked me to text message her with the English spelling of the Russian word. I did this, and she immediately rang back to tell me that the word "obslujevaneh" is "SERVICE"!!! I laughed and said that in that case the guy got a really good tip since Ed left another $30!!! But at least we now know the word for "service" in Russian. Ed had been out meeting with Gennady when all this was happening, so when he got back I told him. He was really pissed because he had asked the waiter about service, but I think the guy just didn't understand what Ed was talking about - I really don't think he was deliberately trying to deceive him. At least, I hope not. (In fact, when I got the Visa charge online later, the additional service Ed had added wasn't included!)
posted by Susan Spivak at 10:35 AM
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