Today, February 23, is Soldier's Day in Ukraine (and probably in Russia too). Over the years it has come to be called "Men's Day" to counterbalance National Women's Day, which is on March 8 (an official State holiday). At first I forgot all about it, but I did notice that there were patriotic sounding songs being played on the loud speakers in Maidan (Independence Square, at the bottom of our street) and on Kreshchatyk, the main drag here. Then I realized what day it was. But what was really startling was how it really gave me an idea of what the place must have felt like in Soviet times. Kreshchatyk and Maidan are the quintessential Soviet boulevard and square, respectively. The street is very broad with monumental Soviet buildings from the 1930's on either side. With the very Russian sounding marching type music blasting away, and the cold, crisp air (it was down to zero degrees today - and I don't mean centigrade!), and crystal clear blue skies, one could easily imagine oneself surrounded by Bolshevik soldiers on parade. Instead, there were women in high heeled boots and long fur coats carrying chocolates and flowers for the men in their lives. I stopped an bought a bouquet of yellow tulips for Ed.
I think that today's experience at the Russian Consulate in Kyiv takes the cake for bureaucratic bull shit in action.
Now that all our reservations have been made for our trip to St Petersburg with Max and Betsy in May, now that we have received our official invitations and vouchers from the hotel, now that we actually have our paper airline tickets in hand, I decided that I should get our visas so that I don't have the problem I did last time of trying to find a 10 day window when we can let our passports out of our possession without interfering with another trip. (We had to get the expedited visas - very expensive - for our trip to St Petersburg in November in order to get our passports back from the Russian consulate in time to take our trip to Warsaw, which preceded our trip to St Petersburg.) So yesterday I called the consulate to confirm the hours (9:30 to 13:00), confirm the fee for the visas ($100 per visa - 10 days to get the visa), confirmed that I had 10 days before our next trip (March 9 - but March 8 is an official Ukrainian holiday and everything will be closed on National Women's Day), and set off at 11 a.m., first to the bank to get some US Dollars (I need my passport to do that, so I thought it best to get some before I gave the passport to the Russians). That took forever - everything is done by hand here - there are computers, but they still have to enter everything manually, print out long sheets of paper on old fashioned dot matrix printers, cut the paper with rulers to make lots of small pieces of paper, and then you and the bank clerk have to sign all the small pieces of paper. I didn't get out of there until 12:20, so I beat feet to the metro stop - Zoloti Verota (Golden Gate) - about 10 minutes walk away, and hoped against hope that I would make it to the consulate on time. This particular metro is very very deep, and I am not joking when I say that it takes at least 10 minutes to get down to the tracks (and of course 10 minutes to get back up once you arrive at your destination). Suffice it to say that I was 5 minutes late. They let me in the door, but that was as far as I got. "Come back tomorrow" was all anyone would say.
Oh well, I was pretty philosophical about it - it was a beautiful day - clear blue sky, sun shining, very cold - so I made my way back to Zoloti Verota and to Sofieskiy Fitness Center for my second pilates session with Julia. (I had to cancel Tuesday's session because I was totally wiped out after whatever it was that attacked me on Monday night had finished with me.) I had time for a lovely cup of tea overlooking the pool, and then got ready for my session -- this involves checking my coat, scarf, mittens and earmuffs, getting a key for a locker, putting my plastic bag (that I always carry with me in case I want to shop) into the locker, after first taking out my pair of white socks, taking off my shoes and black socks and putting them under my locker, putting on my white socks, removing my sweat shirt and leaving it in the locker with the plastic bag and my coat check, locking the locker and walking up to the pilates studio. I think I am the only woman there who does not bring a complete change of clothes and a suitcase of makeup, but I am also the only woman there who isn't dressed to the nines when she walks in!
Another good session - I'm glad I'm keeping up with this while Katya is away. My back definitely feels better when I can do the stretching and pilates. When I got back home it was already 4 p.m., so I just had time to clean up all the loose threads on the trips to Barcelona and Morocco, before Ed and I headed out the door for dinner at my favorite place - Puzata Chata - that's not CH as in CHair - it's CH as in CHanukah. It means the potbellied hearth and I love it. It's a charming cafeteria with really pleasant surroundings and great food. We had huge amounts of food (kasha, meat blintze, cheese blintze and apple blintze, vegetables, roasted potatoes, chicken and two soups, one beer and one orange juice) for $10, total. And what's more, it is really delicious. We might go again tonight as I have no food in the house for dinner!
Ed and I had a talk about how to deal with some of the problems that come about because of our cramped living quarters and the fact that we are basically together 24 hours a day, 7 days a week now. Ed gets very angry with me for sitting down at my computer and giving it my full attention, getting irritated when he interrupts me. I get very annoyed when he interrupts, especially if I am in the middle of something, like balancing a bank account! We toyed with the idea of having set hours when I could work uninterruptedly - say 9 to 12 - but I really felt that was silly. I told Ed that I will try to be more flexible, and that I will not rebuff his interruptions unless I am really involved in something that can't wait and demands total concentration, and when I am, I will try to tell him so nicely, rather than dismissively. We'll see how it goes. We also talked about the fact that I feel that Ed would be happy just to sit in the apartment 24 hours a day and never leave, and that if I didn't do something about it, that this is exactly what he would do! I'm pretty much of a homebody too, but jeez, you have to get out once in a while - and unless I plan it, it just doesn't happen (except on the rare occasion when a third party organizes something).This really bothers me. I just feel like I'm being drained, and once in a while I would like him to suggest that we go to or do something.
So this morning Ed told me we would take an excursion to what we call "Tin Tits" -the huge Titanium statue of a woman holding a torch symbolizing the motherland, with tits that do look like an old Madonna concert tour costume, which stands above the War Memorial Museum just south of the Lavra. It's quite close to the Russian consulate, so we decided to go to the consulate first and then stop at the museum.
The trip to the consulate was uneventful - another gorgeous clear blue sky, freezing cold, day, and we arrived well before 13:00 when everything turns into a pumpkin. The man at the "reception" desk looked through our papers, brought them back to the woman in the back office, who soon brought them back to us to tell us that we would have to come back, because we were applying for our visas "too early"!!! Our trip is in May, she said - we can't get visas until April!!! I showed her my visa for my July visit to Moscow, which I got in April in the States. That was a different consulate she said, and they obviously have different rules. I asked her to tell me the earliest date we could apply for our visas, and she said April 16 (our trip to Russia is on May 16). I explained that this will be difficult for us because we have other trips planned, which will require that we have possession of our passports, and that there is no 10 day block of time between those trips when we could give our passports to the Russian consulate in order to get the Russian visas. She was, as she said "very sorry," but that is their rule! I asked her to show me where it says that I can't apply for a visa more than one month in advance but, of course, "this rule is not written down." We asked to see the Consul, but naturally he was away on a business trip and would not be back until Monday. She really was quite nice, given the circumstances - not like some of the civil service battle axes we have encountered here (and in the States I might add). She really was sorry but, as she put it, she is just the secretary for the visa section and she can only follow the rules. Such is life here in Ukraine, especially when dealing with the Russians!!! But I suppose it's the same everywhere, really - it certainly was as bad, if not worse, when we arrived in Delhi with no entry visas for India!
It was noon by this time, and neither Ed nor I wanted to go to the War Museum, so we headed home. But I guess the trip to the Russian consulate counts as an outing, doesn't it???
Anna came over for drinks after the training session at Bila Tserkva and then we walked over to Kasak Mamai. But it was CLOSED! I couldn't believe it. I can't tell if it is closed permanently or just temporarily - I hope the latter because it is really good. So, after some hesitation, we ended up eating at the only other restaurant we know about near by - it's called Mokka - and it has fresh sea food on Wednesdays and Saturday - the only trouble was, this was Tuesday!! So Anna and I ordered Vareneki - a delicious Ukrainian dumpling like dish - like little raviolis filled with all different things (these were meat) and usually served with sour cream. Ed had Solyenka soup (a delicious meat soup usually served with a slice of lemon and a dob of sour cream). Anna and Ed were exhausted - they had taken the mashrutka to the office in Bila Tserkva (about a 1 hour ride). They did the same coming back, but made the mistake of taking a taxi from the train station, which is where the mashrutka stop is, because that taxi ride took over 2 hours!!!! It's normally a 10 to 20 minute minute ride. The metro, although crushing, would have had them back in 15 minutes. And of course Anna and Ed don't know each other well enough to just sort of sit there, not speaking to each other - they had to make conversation the whole time - talk about exhausting!!!
On Wednesday Anna went to Kharkiv to check things out for herself. I spent most of the day finalizing the details for our trip to Morocco, doing laundry, marketing - the normal tasks of life. I also had my last session with Katya in the pilates studio before she leaves for her London training. I had another really good session and I walked away feeling great. I asked her if there was someone I could train with in her absence and she suggested either of the two Julia's who work there. I asked her if she would speak to either Julia, and explain my situation so that I could work one or two times a week in her absence. So it looks like I won't have to go cold turkey for over a month after all. I think (and Katya thinks) I understand the principles well enough to be able to work with someone on an individual basis even if the trainer can't speak English. So I'm hopeful I won't lose a lot of ground.
Thursday was the grand opening of the Bila Tserkva office. Ed and I met Anna at the Hotel Gintama, where she is staying, and took a taxi to the International Renaissance Foundation office on Artema Street. We could have taken the tram, but we were dressed up. I was actually wearing high heals - granted, they are Arche washable nubuck high heels, with a very broad base at the bottom of the heel (not at all like the spiked heel shoes the Kyivian women wear) and, even worse, with rubber soles - but high heels nevertheless. We all piled into the waiting van - Anna, me (I'm the official photographer for the event), Ed, Roman Romanovsky who heads the project at IRF, Vasylyna Yavorska, the Project Coordinator in Kyiv, and another woman who was a representative from the Ministry of Justice. I've already had complaints from some of my more devoted readers about the lack of photos - but it is so time consuming to put them in the Blog. But I do realize that they make a tremendous difference, and I am going to come back to this entry and put some of the photos I took of the opening (not all 67 of them though!!) in later.
When we arrived at the office the place was abuzz with activity. Victor had everything really well organized. It's amazing what a difference there is between Bila Tserkva and Kharkiv. For one thing the Presiding Judge here is fantastic - he is really supportive of the whole project and has taken a personal interest in its success. Also, Victor is a really good manager - he found great offices, was able to get all the agreements in place (using the documents Ed had negotiated in Kharkiv), and organize the press conference and signing ceremony without Ed having to hold his hand every step of the way. He even had a blue ribbon across the doorway leading to the lawyers' offices, for an official ribbon cutting ceremony! The Chief Judge was there, as well as the Chief Investigator, Chief Prosecutor, all the lawyers, the head of the Bar Association, the Mayor of Bila Tserkva, the Director of Public Affairs from the Police Office - and lots of press. Everyone said a few words - Victor, the Judge, Roman, the Justice Department representative, the head of the Bar Association, the Mayor (who cut the ribbon), the Chief Investigator, the Chief Prosecutor, the police representative, and, of course, Ed. There was an official signing of the agreement between the police and the office of the public defender and then we all went out to a lunch of "American Pizza" organized by Victor. This was my first experience with the celebratory "business" lunch in Ukraine. And it turns out that everything I had heard about this occasion is true - everyone has to make a toast, and all eating stops during the toasts, so the lunch takes hours and hours. There were two tables with about 12 people at each table - everyone at the opening was invited (except the press), and everyone came, and I think there were about 8 toasts all together. We didn't finish eating until 4 p.m., and then we had a one and half hour drive back, followed by a dinner with Roman, Vasylyna and Anna!!
When Ed and I got back to the apartment at about 5 p.m. the thought of going out again for another meal was positively horrifying, but I really can't complain since we so rarely have these "business" functions. Anna came by in a taxi at 6:45 and we met Vasylyna and Roman at a great restaurant (chosen with me in mind because I had talked all day about how much I loved Ukrainian food) called "Vareneki" which has the largest selection of vareneki in the city. I felt a migraine coming on, and to top it all off they had the usual ubiquitous TV on in the restaurant, with the booming music that doesn't match the image on the screen, and the speaker was right above my ear. I finally got them to turn it way down, took a migraine pill, and within a half hour I was ready to dig in - I was full, of course, but that didn't stop me! Roman ordered a selection of savory varenekis - meat, mushroom, liver, potato - followed by sweet ones - apple, cherry, and two different kinds of berries. Delicious! I can't wait to go back. We really had a good time too. It was good to get to know Roman and Vasylyna better - especially Vasylyna - I think I had her all wrong - sometimes emails and cell phones give the wrong impression about a person, especially when there is a language issue. Vasylyna was extremely nice, a lot of fun, wants to help in any way she can, and I genuinely liked her. So all in all it was a really nice evening.
As we were leaving the opening ceremony lunch earlier in the day, the woman who is the Chairwoman of the Bar Association came over and asked, through Vasylyana (because she spoke only Russian), what kind of law I practiced. I told her I had been a "business" lawyer - tax and business acquisitions mostly - and the Chairwoman asked to meet with me the next day! I was flabbergasted, but had to say yes. After she walked away I asked Vasylyna what that was all about. She said that Alla (that's the woman's name) wants to meet with me because I was taking the photos and she wants a photo to put on the cover of the Bar Association quarterly magazine, which will feature the opening of the office. She also asked to meet with Anna and Ed, so the next day the three of us went over to her office (Anna picked us up in a taxi, but it turns out her office is right down the hill from our apartment). I had actually put on a skirt and high heels again - a first in Kyiv for me I think - and my fur coat because it comes down to my ankles and, with a skirt on, it was essential to cover up as much as possible. The office is very well located in the center of town. The obligatory cakes and chocolates were sitting on the desk upon our arrival. We chatted for a while, with Anna acting as translator, and it turns out that Alla represented Yushenko in the Crimea during the Orange Revolution, and took a real risk to do so (she even had death threats made against her). She's a real networker - you can see why she's the head of the bar - she just wanted to meet us, make contact, assure me that if I knew anyone who needed representation in Kyiv that her firm would be the very best place to send them, etc. But it was interesting to see a lawyer's office in Kyiv. I'm sure it's one of the nicest around. Of course it has the usual Ukrainian entrance (horrible), but the office itself was nice, although nothing like what we are used to in the U.S. - and I'm not even talking about the really wealthy NY and LA law firms. But it had a desk, a computer, a fax machine and a printer - and someone in charge who really wants to bring in business and seems to be effective at it! What more do you need?
On Friday I met with my temporary pilates trainer - Julia. We had a great session, and of course she speaks English - she just says she doesn't! I understood her perfectly and I'm going to enjoy working with her. We set up two sessions for next week - Tuesday and Thursday. I'm really looking forward to it. The rest of my weekend was a total and complete bust - I had to spend the entire weekend undoing all the arrangements I had made for our trip to London and Morocco and redo everything, with the correct dates this time!
The whole idea for the trip started because we wanted to see a particular ballet in London with Carlos Acosta on April 19, and also go on the Shakespeare Sonnet Walk, which we assumed would be Sunday April 22, because it has always been on the Sunday nearest Will's birthday. When I bought the ballet tickets last October I figured I might as well get tickets for my favorite ballet, Eugene Onegin, as well. It's last performance at the Royal Opera House was scheduled for April 12. So I got both sets of tickets. Last month we decided that, since we were going to London, and since airfares are so cheap from London to just about anywhere (while they are pretty expensive from Kyiv to just about anywhere), we should rearrange some of the trip so that we could go to Morocco (for only a couple of hundred dollars). So I exchanged the ballet tickets on the 19th for the same ballet on the 9th, kept our tickets for Eugene Onegin on the 12th, and got airline tickets on Easy Jet to Marrakech on the 13th. Originally I thought we would stay in Marrakech and take some day trips – but that was before I did my research - so we decided to ditch the return tickets and instead drive to Fez via the Upper Atlas and Sahara, staying two nights in two different desert inns on the way. So I got some cheap tickets back to London from Fez on the 21st. I also kept my eye on the website for the Globe Theater and got the tickets for the Sonnet Walk the second they went on sale online on February 12. Well, when reviewing things on Friday evening I noticed that we were not coming back from Fez until April 21, while the Sonnet Walk this year is on a Saturday – April 21 - and starts at 11 a.m. - and we don’t get back to London until 2 p.m.that day!!! And I knew all this BEFORE I got the tickets back from Fez. What was I thinking??? I'm just planning too many trips at the same time, plus trying to do all the ordinary tasks of daily living. Since there are no cheap flights back from Fez on the 20th, I had to rearrange everything. Now we fly to Fez instead of Marrakech (changed the Marrakech tickets to a flight to Split in September - maybe we’ll be able to use them, maybe not), gave up the tickets to Onegin (because there are no flights to Fez on the 13th, so I had to get tickets leaving London on the 12th), and drive from Fez to Marrakech instead of the other way around. Of course I had to change all the hotels (in Fez, Marakech and the two in the desert between the two cities), the car rental pickup and return date and place, and get new airline tickets. It took HOURS!!!!! But I got it done - only who knows if it's right this time. I even managed to get Onegin tickets (with a much better cast) for March 16 when we will be in London on our way back from Barcelona (another one of those trips that was planned around a ballet in London, but where we added 2 plays and another ballet and a trip to Barcelona while we were at it!!).
By the time I was finished I was really sick - and I mean really sick. I got up from the computer dizzy and shaky and feeling awful. I thought my blood sugar must be really low, so I drank some orange juice, made some dinner, and then got REALLY sick. I so wanted to throw up - but there was a big problem - earlier in the day, after using the toilet for all sorts of necessary things, I discovered that there was no water running in the apartment building - soooooo, no way to flush the toilet. The idea of being sick in there was enough to make me sick. I finally had Ed rig up a waste basket with a plastic bag lining and used that, and instantly felt better, but not great - just better enough to not wish I was dead. Soon after, I heard the sound of running water in the pipes in the walls, and went in and flushed the toilet - is there any finer sound than the sound of water rushing through a toilet - I ask you???
Yesterday it really snowed hard - people on the street waiting for trams looked like snow men! Then, last night, it poured - all night - and by this morning everything had frozen. Ed had to go to a training session for the new lawyers at the new office in Bila Tserkva (that's White Church in English), the suburb where the second defender office is located (Kharkiv being the first), and he had to leave at 7:45 to get there by 11 a.m. Belle and I slept in until about 8 and then I took her for her morning walk after her breakfast. It was really, really slick out there. I opened the door, stepped outside and almost fell on my butt. But I grabbed on to the apartment door handle and recovered my balance (thank you Pilates) and managed to goose step my way up the hill to the road to Gintama. Belle HATED the conditions. She was, to put it mildly, outraged. She kept looking at me with eyes that said "you have got to be kidding - do you really expect me to walk on or squat down on this?" But we both soldiered on, without much joy on Belle's part (or mine for that matter). She got right down to business and we were back in the apartment within 15 minutes.
I really do like living in this little apartment. I can sit at my desk looking out at the snow covered roofs of Kyiv, or curl up on the sofa or the eating nook-reading bed with Dr. Zhivago, or look out the very big window in the kitchen as I fix our homey little meals. It was so nice to come in from the icy streets this morning with Belle, sit down on our entry bench and wipe her little feet, hang my parka and scarf on our coat rack, and walk into the kitchen, fix my little breakfast (Nestle's Fitness, a pot of Fortnum & Mason's Earl Grey Tea, orange juice) and sit down at our cozy little table to eat it, after turning on the BBC Radio 4 Today Program on the computer, broadcast over my wireless speakers which sit on our drinks cart (it has wheels, so that with one swift movement the speakers either face the kitchen/dining or the living/bedroom/office area - it's brilliant!).
I walked up to Sofiyskiy for my pilates session with Katya at 1:30. I don't know how these Ukrainian women do it - it is so slippery outside, and instead of concrete sidewalks they have these ochre colored brick shaped tiles that are some sort of ceramic and are slippery as eels. I risk life and limb by choosing to walk in the cobble stoned streets (which give one's feet a little purchase), through slush and puddles and God only knows whatever else is under all the slush and black snow, to avoid those lethal tiles. Meanwhile the women here are wearing leather boots with skinny high heels and seem to have no problem at all. They are not looking down, picking their way through the ice patches - they somehow manage just fine. I'm wearing my galoomphy Uggs, with treads on the bottom that could substitute for snow tires on a jeep, and I can barely keep it together.
Anyway, I had a great session - we got the studio with all the fantastic big equipment in it (there's only one, and we can't get it every time) - a fantastic pilates reformer, also the one they call the cadillac, and a couple of other smaller things, all with every kind of attachment and accessory imaginable. Katya is leaving Friday for a 3 week training session in London (she's certified by the London Pilates Studio), so I wanted to get in as many sessions as I could before she leaves - she'll be back on March 11, but I won't be back until March 16 (we leave on March 9, the day after National Women's Day - an official State holiday here!), so it will be an entire month till see her again. I left the building feeling 6 inches taller, like I could walk on a high wire without losing my balance, and so flexible that I could twist myself into a pretzel without thinking twice about it! It's a great feeling.
I made it back without any missteps or mishaps, and settled in for a nice afternoon of reading and blogging, waiting for Ed to get back from his day in Bila Tserkva. We're taking Anna, to dinner tonight at a really good Ukrainian restaurant called Kazak Mamai. She's the very smart and lovely young woman who is our first contact person at OSJI - she's in Kyiv from Budapest to help run the training session, and is then going to Kharkiv to see what's going on there for herself, and coming back on Thursday for the "official" opening of the office in Bila Tserkva, which will be attended by the press and by me! What a difference between launching this office and launching Kharkiv - all the agreements are in place, the Director has met with the police, the judges, the investigators and the prosecutors (there still has not been a meeting with the prosecutors in Kharkiv!), all on his own initiative. The office space is rented, equipped and staffed, and ready to take cases on Monday. So pretty soon they should start having results and data that can be used to evaluate the Project - it's effectiveness, cost, quality of representation - all the things that will have to be put together in order to convince the Ukrainian government that this is a worthwhile enterprise that should be state supported. We'll see.
I've had to take a few days off from the Blog because I've been busy planning our next two trips - one in March to London and Barcelona, and another in April to London and Morocco. I'm quite excited about the second trip as we have decided to rent a car and drive through the Sahara from Marrakech to Fez. Finally, a place where hotels don't cost an arm and leg. We've been very lucky because we've been traveling not just during the "off" season, but apparently during the "don't even think about coming here" season, so we have gotten amazing rooms for practically nothing. I've been trying to book rooms in St Petersburg in May for us and the Gitters, and the room that cost us about $200 a night in November would cost us $850 a night in May!!!! Without breakfast!!! Without VAT!!!! Moscow is even worse - we're going there with Laura and Portis in October, and the rates (compared to those in July when we went with Bob and Dian and their younger son) are outrageous. We have finally settled on a horrible Soviet era building, used to house Soviet officials who came to the capital in former days, for the bargain rate of $290 a night. I just read an article in the Kyiv Post (an English language weekly here) that said that the very same standard Radison SAS hotel room that costs $72 in Budapest and $189 in NYC, costs $359 in Kyiv and $478 in Moscow!! It's all about supply and demand - capitalism and the free economy at work.
But I've gotten all the arrangements made - the car rental, the hotel rooms, the planes, the guides where necessary - for all our upcoming trips, so I'm now ready to come back to the Blog.
It's been snowing hard for the past few days, and it really looks and feels like winter here at last. Today I had a haircut and color at a place that my Pilates teacher told me about - one of her clients said the stylists and colorists were good there. And it was good - finally, I was able to get a really good haircut and fairly good hair color in Kyiv - at half the price I've been paying for four months at Sofiasky Spa. And it's closer to the apartment too. I saw a haircut that Tanya (my stylist and colorist) gave to a guy last week when I made my appointment, and it was really good, so I'm going to send Ed there too - he hasn't had a good haircut since we arrived in Ukraine (except from Keiko during our visit to the States).
Yesterday we had a late lunch - early dinner - with our only friend in Kyiv, Mike Willard and his girlfriend, Olga, and her daughter Valentina. In Kyivan restaurants, it is apparently not unusual for little kids to leave their tables and wander around the restaurant. As soon as we arrived, Valentina left us and found another little girl about her age (she's 6) and the two of them became fast friends and played together throughout the entire meal. Valentina would occasionally come back to the table to take a bite of food, but most of the time she was away, playing. It's like getting free day-care for your kid while you have dinner - a great system!
Mike and Olga and Valentina came to the apartment first for drinks at about 2:30, and then we all went to an Uzbek restaurant called Safron for dinner. It's really a lovely restaurant - beautifully decorated - and excellent food. We didn't get home until almost 8 p.m. and poor little Belle was frantic by the time we got back - not frantic to go out and pee, because she had already done that in the apartment (she's done this several times, but at least she does it on the kitchen tiles and not on the living room/bedroom hardwood floors or on the rug we bought here). Ed has taken over all dog-walking responsibility as his share of the work in our division of labor. It is nice not having to go out in the cold and dark and I'm really enjoying this. Of course, at home we never have to walk Belle because she has the doggie door and the dog park (which I took her to regularly). I just couldn't get mad at her though - she had waited almost 12 hours.
Belle goes for a walk three times a day now - after breakfast in the morning (she sleeps in and only gets up when she hears her food being poured into her dish - but we really sleep in too - sometimes we don't get up until about 10!!!), after dinner in the evening at about 6 p.m. and then as late as Ed can manage (he just wants to get in his sweats and relax), usually about 8 or 9 at the latest. Belle HATES her late evening walk - she's almost always asleep on the couch and refuses to get up. Ed stands at the door, holding her leash and calling her (from about 6 feet away) and she just keep snoring. Finally I have to get up from whatever I'm doing - blogging, reading, trip planning, whatever - and push her off the sofa and tell her to go with Ed. She also really hates the snow - she sticks her head out the apartment building door, takes a look, and tries to come back in. Ed insists, and then she takes a quick pee right outside the door and tries to come back in again. Ed insists yet again - and she trots as quickly as she can to the road to Gintama (the hotel around the corner from our apartment), her favorite bathroom spot, does her first business as soon as she rounds the bend, walks a few more feet and does her second, and then hot foots it back to the apartment. That is, unless she spots the hated yellow Lab - we don't know if the Lab is male or female (we'll just call the dog "him" for now), but, man, does Belle hate him. Her hair stands on end, she strains at the leash to get at him, snarling all the while. This isn't like the growling she indulged in at the dog park, where she earned the nickname "The General." Back then, whenever a new dog came to the park, Belle would run up to the dog, shove her face into his or her's, and growl and bark, sometimes scaring the living daylights out of the newcomer - the bigger the dog, the more emphatic her barks. One poor Great Dane actually tripped over his hind legs and fell backwards trying to get away from her. We all concluded that she was basically saying "I know I'm small, and I'm a girl, but don't ever try and mess with me!" It worked - no dog ever messed with Belle, and she basically ignored most of the dogs, most of the time, and spent all her time there jumping from one person's lap to another. But the little monster inside our little sweet princess really comes out when the Lab is on the scene. When people see big Ed, with little Belle growling and snarling and trying to attack the yellow Lab, they just burst out laughing. But I'll tell you this, I wouldn't want Ed to drop the leash!
Here's one thing about dogs and their owners in Ukraine, or at least in Kharkiv and Kyiv. NOONE picks up dog poop here. EVER. We did for awhile in Kharkiv, using the usual plastic bag and putting it in a public trash can, but after being accosted by several different people on several different occasions upon dropping the bag in the trash, I stopped. They objected to having the poop in the trash can. But the remarkable thing is, there is rarely, if ever, any dog poop in the street or on the sidewalks. The dogs always go on the grass or on the verge somewhere, and I have never had to dodge dog shit while walking here. And then there are regular "cleaners" who are up and at it early every morning with rakes and brooms cleaning the grass, so the accumulation never gets disgusting. Somehow it works.
Except for her encounters with the yellow Lab, Belle is an absolute sweetheart. It's so nice having her snuggle against us in bed now that the weather is frosty (she usually manages to take up most of the bed, lying horizontally rather than vertically, with her head against one of us, and her rear against the other); or have her come over and jump on my lap as I sit reading. She loves having visitors and just goes nuts when anyone comes over - including the landlady, the cleaning woman, or any of her dog sitters. She's gotten much better about staying with other people - she doesn't stop eating any more, she doesn't get stress colitis, she seems happy to see her chosen attendant, and doesn't go crazy when we leave. All of this is good - very good since we are traveling so much. It means that I no longer get stress colitis every time we leave, worrying about her!
Now, here are some of the things I have learned since moving to Kyiv. For one thing, I have learned that if you call and order a taxi by phone it is much cheaper than if you get one on the street. The problem is, the taxi dispatchers speak Ukrainian or Russian, so I can't call them to get a taxi! So far, the only taxis we have taken are to the airport, and I've solved the problem by having Belle's baby sitter call for us and arrange the fare (95 UHA as opposed to the 150 UHA I had to pay on the one occasion when we had to get one on the street), and the time of pick up at our apartment.
I've also learned that in Kyiv you can order groceries on line, but again - it's all in Ukrainian or Russian, and I can't manage that. But I called the store (Furshet) and found an English speaking guy there, and he takes care of my semi-weekly orders for a dozen 6 liter bottles of water, 12 boxes of orange juice, 24 cartons of milk, 10 boxes of Nestle Fitness WITHOUT fruit, and sugar, as well as kleenex and toilet paper on an as needed basis. These are the really bulky and/or heavy things that are hard for me to carry, especially now, when the streets and sidewalks are covered in ice. We live on a hill, and one way or another I have to go up or down to get to a store and then down or up to get back, so I am very very happy to get delivery of these things by phone. I'd be perfectly happy to go to the store and order things there - they have a wonderful branch right near Bes'arabska Market, where I go to buy wine, or specialty foods, or one particularly spectacular bread that they bake there - but I have never been able to get anyone to understand me when I have asked if they will deliver the things I purchase there. So I gave up on that and struggle home with my load of goods on foot. I suppose I could take a taxi, but then, who would call one for me?????
I suppose it really is time to say a few words about the Project - after all it is the reason we are here in Kyiv. The folks at Open Society Justice Initiative asked Ed if he would stay on in Kyiv for an extra year as an "OSJI Fellow" and Ed agreed. So we will be in Kyiv until the end of December 2007. Ed will be setting up Public Defender Offices in the Kyiv area (Bila Tserkva) and then one or two more, probably one in the West, near Lviv, and one in the South, near Odessa. But we will live in Kyiv and he will take the train or fly to these places on an as needed basis.
The situation is very different now that he has had the (EXTREMELYdifficult) experience of setting up the Kharkiv Office. First of all, he can use all the agreements and forms and protocols that he established for that office in the new offices. Second, it is already clear that the director in the Bila Tserkva Office is as different from Gennadiy as night is from day. Gennadiy is a very nice man and is very dedicated to the Project, but he is not the right man to be the Director. He might be a very good lawyer, I have no way of telling whether he is or not, but I sure can tell that he is a terrible administrator, and that he is far too timid and intimidated by authority and rank, and much too literal when it comes to interpreting rules and regulations, to be an effective leader. Ed literally had to do everything to get that Office going - he had to help buy the computers, help arrange to have the offices cleaned, help arrange for more than one telephone line, and, of course, without him, there never would have been any agreement negotiated with the police (not that the police are complying with the agreement), or any other protocols established for running the office.
Not only did Ed have to initiate and follow through on everything in Kharkiv, but after all that blood, sweat and tears, Genna, because he is so timid and so afraid of confrontation, actually completely undermined the entire operation during a meeting with the General in early December. Here's what happened.
After we came back from the States, Ed checked in with Genna to see how it was going now that the Agreement with the General had been signed. Genna reported that the police were not cooperating and that the PD Office wasn't getting the calls that it should be getting from the police. Moreover, he was having trouble with the lawyers, who seemed to feel that they were independent contractors and could run their cases any way they wanted, without any oversight by Genna. So Ed went back to Kharkiv to meet first with Genna to go over the lawyers' case files to see how they were performing, and then to meet with the lawyers to read them the riot act. What happened? First of all Genna couldn't meet with him to go over the case files. Second, Genna had not seen the case files because the lawyers wouldn't give him access to the files on the grounds of "client confidentiality rules." Third, Genna agreed with their position that they couldn't show him the files. And finally, only two of the lawyers even showed up!!!! It was totally unbelievable. So Ed told the lawyers who were there that they had to show their case files to Genna, that he would be back in two weeks to review their work and that if they didn't cooperate they would be dismissed.
Ed asked Vicky (our friend and his translator) to contact the General's Deputy, Yolana, who was very supportive and helpful during the entire process of negotiating the agreement and getting it signed, to arrange a meeting with the General to discuss the lack of police cooperation in Kharkiv. The meeting was set for early December and Ed flew to Kharkiv. He and Vicky and Genna met with the General, the Police Chief from the Kominternovsky District (the District that the Kharkiv Office serves) and Yolana. Vicky later told me what happened at the meeting - she was so furious she could barely speak. It seems that Ed explained that it was clear that the police officers were not calling the Office whenever a suspect was detained or arrested, and that it was important for the General to know that the agreement that he had signed was being disregarded by the officers who were under his jurisdiction, and thus, in effect, they were disobeying him. Of course, it was Genna who was reporting to Ed that there was a lack of cooperation from the police, and it was Genna who, at Ed's request, prepared the data and charts to demonstrate this to the General. As soon as Ed finished, Genna said something to the effect of "Well, it's not so bad, the police really are trying, I'm sure they want to cooperate" etc., etc. Well, the impact was stunning. Ed had always been something of a mystery to the authorities - no one ever quite knew who he was or what his authority was. Now it was instantly clear to the General that Ed was not in charge, that he could not control Genna, and that he (the General) could do whatever he wanted. Moreover, this had the effect of pulling the rug out from under the feet of not only Ed, but Yolana, who had gotten the General to attend the meeting by reporting to him that the data showed a lack of cooperation by the police! And Genna saw none of this. He saw his comments only as an effort to gain the cooperation of the General - he didn't see that by doing what he did, the General lost respect for both him and Ed and possibly Yolana. (Do you think the fact that Yolana no longer returns calls from Genna says anything about this?) Anyway, the whole thing is so depressing, and, of course, there is still no cooperation from the police. The Office has practically no cases, and so they are going to expand jurisdiction to another police station.
As for Ed's second meeting with the remaining two lawyers - by then another lawyer had quit and one had been fired - they, and Genna, took the position that there could be no discussion of the cases among the lawyers and that no one could see the case files except the lawyer handling the case. Their position was based on the fact that the Kharkiv Office was set up as a "charity" - a non-profit - rather than as an "association" of lawyers. They then argued that the exemption from the rules of client confidentiality that apply to the lawyers in an "association," thereby allowing the lawyers in the association to discuss their clients' cases and communications with each other, did not apply to a charitable organization. This was the most ridiculous thing I had ever heard, and I told Ed so, and he agreed. But in an effort to appease them, not having been able to convince them of the rightness of his position, he proposed that they get the clients to sign waivers (which he drafted) permitting the lawyers in the Office to discuss the cases with each other. The next response was even more ridiculous than the first. They said that a waiver would allow them to discuss the cases with each other, but they would still not be able to show Genna the case files. This of course meant that there was no way to oversee the lawyers' work - a completely untenable situation. Ed then arranged to have the relevant rules and regulations translated, and it was clear to him and to me that Genna and the others were far too literal in their interpretation, and that of course the lawyers could not only talk to each other, but show the files to each other, even without a waiver. Ed raised the problem in his December Monthly Report to OSJI, and it was agreed that the OSJI people and Ed would all meet with the Kharkiv lawyers in Cheltenham to "persuade" them that they were wrong. The meeting took place after dinner one night, and after about 2 hours of discussion, the lawyers finally agreed.
Meanwhile Ed still has to hold Genna's hand for every little thing, and has to initiate every action. For example, they have now gathered statistics on the number of arrests and detentions in the district served by the Office, and it seems they are very low and that the Office needs to expand its jurisdiction to another police station. The General is not at all opposed to this, and in fact suggested this at the last meeting. But instead of Genna taking the initiative and calling Yolana to arrange a meeting to discuss this expansion of jurisdiction, Ed had to call Genna and persuade Genna to do this - Genna thought that the "head" people at the Renaissance Foundation should suggest expansion rather than himself. And of course Ed will have to go to this meeting because Genna will not be able to handle this on his own.
I will add, by way of explanation, not of excuse, that Genna is probably like this because he is the product of three powerful influences that affect almost everyone of his generation here: First, he is the product of growing up under the Soviet system, being educated under that system and beginning his life as a defense lawyer under that system. This was a system where authority was, if not respected, obeyed without question, where rank mattered above all, and where initiative got you nowhere except maybe in trouble. Second, it was also a system where defense lawyers were looked upon as lower than low, the most despicable of creatures, and were treated with contempt by the police, prosecutors, investigators, and judges alike - attitudes which persist today. Third, according to Ed, Genna does fight hard for civil rights in his paperwork - he may not be able to confront someone in person, but apparently he files motion after motion demanding that European standards be adhered to and that civil rights be respected (I am taking this on faith from Ed, as I find it hard to believe). All this may help explain his behavior, but it does not excuse OSJI and Renaissance Foundation for keeping him on as Director of the Kharkiv Office - he would probably be just fine as a public defender lawyer, but he just is not the man for the Director's job in my humble (or not so humble) opinion.
The Director of the Bila Tserkva Office, Victor, is cut from an entirely different cloth. I met him in Cheltenham, where OSJI held a conference for Public Defenders from all over Eastern Europe and former Soviet republics (Bulgaria, Kazakhstan, Mongolia, Lithuania, to name a few). I also met all the other defenders in these other countries, and most of them were very impressive - particularly the ones from Bulgaria and a young woman lawyer from Lithuania. Victor is a former prosecutor and is used to acting with authority. He has already found office space, hired a paralegal and administrator, contacted the police to put in place the agreement that Ed negotiated in Kharkiv, and input all the forms and protocols, which Ed had developed for Kharkiv, on the Bila Tserkva office computers. It looks like Ed will be able to limit his attention there to attending the weekly meetings with all the lawyers, and to meeting with Victor once or twice a week to review the Office operations, including evaluation of the level of cooperation from the police and overall performance of the lawyers.
Which is great, because it means we'll be able to continue our trips to the Eastern European capitals and other places that we can easily visit for four or five days here, but which would require us to take a very long vacation from the U.S. if we wanted to visit them once we returned home. Since we've been back from the States we have been to Warsaw (twice), Krakow (and Auschwitz), Budapest, Berlin, London (three times), and St Petersburg. We have plans to go to London again (with a side trip to Barcelona because it is sooooo cheap to fly almost anywhere from London, whereas it is quite expensive to fly anywhere from Kyiv - but at least you can fly almost anywhere from here, as opposed to Kharkiv) in March, to London again in April (with another side trip, this time to Marrakech), to Vienna, Lviv and St Petersburg again with Max and Betsy when they come to visit us in May, to Turkey with all four McGuires in June, to NY for Emily Gitter's wedding in July, then on to Los Angeles to see family and friends, and then to Moscow with Laura and Portis when they come to visit us in October. We're also going to Capetown to visit Michael and Jeremy next December (we wanted to go this year, but it was impossible to get our tickets with BA miles until next December, even though I made the reservations last November!!). And that still leaves Sofia, Split, Sarajevo, Chechenau, Scandanavia, Siberia and Mongolia, to mention just a few places that are high on our list.
Now on to readers' complaints - yes, I will be adding photos - from all our trips and from Kyiv - I just wanted to get back into the swing of things before doing that. They've changed the Blog set up and I think it will be a lot easier to insert photos - it used to take ages to do it with any sort of reasonable layout, but now I think it will be a one or two step process at most.
Our trips really have been fabulous - on our first trip to Warsaw, in late November, we contacted a human rights lawyer there, Zbignew Lasocik, who is on the Board of the International Senior Lawyer's Project - the organization that put us in touch with OSJI in the first place. He graciously invited us to have dinner at his in-laws' apartment, where they were celebrating his father-in-law's name day. It was such an incredible afternoon - Zbig and his wife Kashya (a director of TV programs, two of which are now running), their 22 year old son Michael, Kashya's sister, Marta, and her 20-something daughter Anya, and Kashya's incredibly elegant mother and father, who spoke no English (needless to say, we speak no Polish). The meal was unbelievable - course after course of the most delicious food - the conversation lively, and there was a great rapport between us all that was so warm and easy. They asked what we were doing for Christmas, and we told them that we were thinking about going to Berlin so that we could have a "real" Christmas (they celebrate Orthodox Christmas in Ukraine, which is January 7, with the real celebration on the eve, January 6). They said "Berlin! No!! For a real Christmas you must come to Warsaw and celebrate Christmas Eve with us." The celebrations start at 6 p.m. and go on until the wee hours. We agreed - and it was fabulous. The only disappointment was that, for the first time in living memory, there was no snow on Christmas Eve! But still, there were 12 courses of fish before midnight, 3 different soups, 2 different noodle and kasha and poppy seed dishes, at least 6 different cakes, the special poppy seed dish called Kutya (poppy seeds and honey and nuts with sour cream) that is incredibly delicious and served only during this holiday season, 6 courses of meat after midnight (and a brief stop at their neighborhood Church for Midnight Mass - we didn't stay the entire time), Christmas caroling at the homes of the neighbors, and lots of Polish vodka and a fruit compote drink that is also only served during the holiday season. Everyone had to prepare a little skit and they were all really funny and cute - but I must say, ours was the biggest hit. I introduced Edwardo the Magnifico, the world's greatest magician, who would make me, his assistant, disappear. I then held out my arms, demonstrating that they really exist, my legs, my hands, etc. Then Ed came over with my shawl, and we hummed - da ta da da, da ta dah (well, you had to be there) - while he put the shawl in front of my legs and when he pulled it up higher (knee length) only one leg was there - same with the next leg, the arms, the hands. They were really loving it, and we had loads of fun. We got back to our hotel about 2 a.m. and left the next day (Christmas Day) on the train for Berlin.
I was completely blown away by Berlin - I had been there with Dick and Donna in 1990, just after the wall had come down, and it was a totally different city. First of all, we were incredibly lucky with our hotel choice - the Adlon Kempinsky. Ohmygod - the hotel of my dreams. The service, the amazing concierge, the building, the rooms, EVERYTHING, spectacular. And, really, on sale until New Year's eve, and we were leaving on the 30th. We took a taxi from the train station and drove down Unter Den Linden, which was soooooo beautiful with every tree on both rows in the center island outlined in lights. We passed two Christmas Markets that looked fabulous before driving up to the Brandenburg Gate, the beautiful Adlon, which is next door to the Modern Art Center, which in turn is next door to a gorgeous Frank Gehry office building, all harmonious and blending together perfectly. That's the amazing thing about Berlin - the architecture is astounding (as is the music - the magician concierge got us fabulous tickets to the already sold out performances - believe me I tried on the internet - of The Magic Flute at the gorgeous Statsoper - with the greatest and most handsome bass I have ever seen or heard in the role of Zoroaster, a fantastic chamber music concert on Boxing Day at the Chamber Music Hall, and, the best of all, Simon Rattle conducting, Mitsuko Uchido in a Berlin Philharmonic concert at Philharmonic Hall). The Peter Eiseman Memorial to the Six Million Murdered Jews of Europe was, without question, the most moving holocaust memorial I have ever seen, or will ever see. It is right behind the Adlon Hotel, and I won't even try to describe it, because words and picture cannot begin to convey the feelings evoked when you walk through the site. From the borders it brings to mind those old Jewish cemeteries in Eastern European cities, like Prague, but when you walk through it you feel as if you are lost in a horrible maze with no way out. I'll never forget it. The renovation of the Reichstag was great, as were all the new Norman Foster buildings surrounding it, the new Hopfbahn, and Pottsdamer Platz, all are breathtaking in their own way, as is the beautiful church right next to Kudam where the new building emanates from the old ruins. It looks like Germany, or Berlin anyway, recruited the best architects in the world to rebuild the city after the wall came down. And a great job they did, too. And, on top of everything, it was Christmas, with beautiful lights everywhere, and Christmas markets with enough potato pancakes, wursts, and marzipan to keep even me happy.
But before Christmas, there was still the trip to Krakow (and Auschwitz) and to St Petersburg, again in late November. The great thing about traveling during the winter is that all of Europe and Russia is on sale, including the great hotels. So we got to stay in a fantastic place in Warsaw, called Le Regina, just outside the Barbican at the edge of the Old Town Square, an equally fabulous place, just off the Old Town Square in Krakow, call Stary, and the fantastic Hotel Astoria facing St Isaac's in St Petersburg, all at a fraction of what they cost at other times. (I know, because I've been trying to get hotel rooms in St Petersburg for us and for the Gitters when they come in May, and how does $800 a night for the room we stayed in for $190 a night sound????)
After our dinner with the Lasociks and Zbig's in-laws in Warsaw we went to the ballet to see "Romeo and Juliet." The hotel had gotten our tickets, and when I looked at them I was very disappointed because I had requested the first row of the orchestra and it looked to me as if these tickets were in the first balcony. When I inquired, reception called the ballet theater and the theater insisted they were the very best seats in the house. When we arrived at the theater - which is very beautiful, with incredible crystal sculptures, chandeliers and clock (all modern, but very elegant), we were directed to the first level. I was soooo unhappy, but what could I do at this point - not much. The usher took us to seats in the first row of the first level, two off the aisle. Well, at least I had an unobstructed view, even if it was, for me, far away (around Row N of the orchestra). Two women showed up soon after, and one told me, in English, that we were in the wrong seats. We looked at her tickets, and at ours, and indeed, they were the same. The thing about the tickets - they are not really tickets - instead you get a beautiful "card" with the seat locations hand written (beautifully) on them. The woman indicated that we were probably in a different section and showed us where she thought we should be sitting. There must have been something about her manner that prevented me from being obnoxious and telling her that these were our seats, and that maybe she was in the wrong section. We went over to the ushers, who got very flustered, went back with us to the seats, spoke to the woman in our seats (in Polish) and then told us to sit in the two aisle seats next to them. Well, this was okay with me. The woman told me that the seats we were in were the Director's seats and that sometimes when the Director of the Opera and Ballet Theater was not using the seats they were sold. We had bought a very expensive and beautiful program showing all the great dancers who had danced Romeo and Juliet, and of course I had seen them all - from Fonteyn and Nureyev to Barishnikov, Marcia Haydee and Richard Cragun - you name it. I asked the woman if she had seen this particular production, and she said "Oh yes, many times." I indicated that I had never seen it, although I had seen the ballet itself many times with performers like the ones in the program. I then asked if she liked this production, and she said "Well, I am the Director of the Ballet, so I think the answer is yes." Ed turned to her and said "Should we tell you how much we liked the performance now or should we wait until after it's over?" She loved that and asked us to really tell her what we thought - she would like to hear it. Thank goodness, it was great - the sets were the best I've ever seen, Juliet was gorgeous, the music of course is beautiful, Romeo was really good too, as were the other male dancers and the corps. We told her how much we had enjoyed it and she gave us her card and told us to let her know when were next in Warsaw and she would like us to come to the ballet as her guests! When we decided to go to Warsaw for the Christmas eve celebrations, I looked at the schedule and decided we should leave for Warsaw on the 21st so that we could see The Nutcracker there. But when I went online, it was SOLD OUT!! I decided to take Jolanta up on her offer, called her, told her my problem and asked if she could help us get tickets, which we would pay for. We ended up in the same seats as last time (great seats by the way, although I still prefer first row orchestra so long as you can see the feet of the dancers from there - it depends on the theater - you can't always), and had a lovely coffee with her the next day. She was a principal with the Warsaw Ballet, and then the Vienna Ballet, before coming back to Warsaw to teach at the ballet school, becoming the director this year. I really want to go back again, because they are dancing Onegin, my favorite ballet (we're seeing it in London in April) and Jolanta said she would take us to the school and show us her most promising students. We'll have to see - we're running out of open travel slots!!
It's snowing out now - we had our first snow last week - before that only a light dusting one beautiful night early in November - we were having dinner at the apartment of our one friend in Kyiv, Mike Willard (boy, how different the city seemed to me when he took us out to dinner the second night after our arrival in Ukraine!), and Olga, his "might-as-well-be" (our term for someone who might as well be the other's spouse), and we got to walk back on a pristine fresh white carpet - it was magical with the golden domes of St Sophia and St Michael shining in the clear sky, lit only by the moon and stars. Well, that snow completely disappeared by the next morning. Last week's snow is here to stay - although now it is more like black ice - and a fresh batch is welcome if only to make it beautiful once again. I've got a cold so I've stayed in for the past couple of days, and now I have to stop blogging and start reading Val McDermid's The Mermaids Singing so that I can listen to the BBC Radio 4 Book Club discussion, which will only be available to me on the internet for about 5 more days. Descriptions of our trips to Krakow, Auschwitz and St Petersburg will have to wait until another day.
What Do Bird Flu , Cheltenham And Budapest Have In Common?
Well, I know I said that I wouldn't be making entries every day, and I won't as a general rule, but there is still Laura to think about and the fact that for two solid weeks she won't be able to lift her head and desperately needs material that can be read to her by loyal P. And after what I just saw in the online NY Times, I just had to go to the Blog immediately.
Where have we been in the past month? Budapest (Hungary, of course) and Britain (London and Cheltenham - the races were really fun - my first steeple chase). And what do I read in the NY Times today? There is an outbreak of the deadliest form of bird flu in the largest turkey farm in Europe, which is located, guess where - yes, Britain. And what did we eat for dinner in Cheltenham? Turkey of course - Ed's favorite food and generally impossible to find in Ukraine. Reading on, I learned that there had been an outbreak of the flu in France the year before, but that had been contained and there were no further incidents until last month, when it was found in the domestic goose farms in, yes, of course, Hungary. And what did we eat in Budapest - what food is Budapest most famous for? Goose (goose liver in particular), of course.
Being me I have naturally brought along a supply of Tamaflu, but I never dreamed that I might actually have to use it. And being the unbelievable hypochondriac that I am, I probably won't get any sleep tonight.
So that brings me to some of our travels. We have actually been traveling so much and have been to so many charming, old world Eastern European capitals in the last few months that we were burnt out (they all began to look and feel the same) and didn't get to enjoy our most recent trip, to Budapest (and with the goose bird flu thing I hope it isn't our last trip!), as much as we otherwise would have. It's a beautiful city - especially at night from the top of Gellert Hill on the Buda side of the Danube. One mistake was our (my) choice of hotels - it was right near Hero's Square, which is also gorgeous - with huge columns in a sort of semi circle, and the magnificent Art Museum (with a van Gogh exhibit on while we were there) on one side and another, equally beautiful museum on the other. But it was about two miles from the city center and somehow we felt a little out of it. The metros there are great, but we didn't know that you had to pay when you changed from one line to another and we got fined $25 each during what I believe to be an entrapment sting operation - they block all the exits to the car at the last stop (which happened to be our stop) and make you show them your validated ticket before you can get out. Then you have to pay the fine, in cash, which of course we didn't have. Ed was held hostage while I was allowed out to go to the nearest ATM and withdraw the necessary Florints using my Visa card, which I never leave home without.
The Budapest opera house is stunning, and we saw Gotterdamerang (with super titles in Hungarian - oy vey, what a language - IMPOSSIBLE!!!! Except for Basque I have never seen anything that comes close) - not such a hot performance, but worth the $50 per ticket cost (I am still flabbergasted at how little one has to pay for tickets in these cities) for the gorgeous music and the hall and seeing everyone dressed to the nines - I'm talking ball gowns and tuxedos. We were nicely dressed - but not that nice!
The weather was unbelievable - in the 60's F. in January!!! The only way we knew it was winter was that it got dark at about 4:30.
We had a tour of the Parliament - also breathtaking - went to the synagogue (the second largest in the world) and walked through the "Jewish" section - where they never heard of bagels - and walked past the new Gresham Four Seasons as much as we could - what a building, what a view, and what a location - truly amazing. I must go back and stay there (at about 4 times the cost of our hotel). We had our first elegant dinner anywhere since we left the States in June - at Grundel - very near our hotel (delicious food - goose of course and goose liver of course) and fantastic musicians who play this xylophone type instrument that's native to Hungary and is really extraordinary, and then got a taxi to take us to Gellert Hill to see the city at night (so very beautiful with the lights on the bridges and The Four Seasons Hotel!). The driver waited for us while we did that, and then took us to the baths that Budapest is famous for. We chose Rudas, one the oldest baths, founded by the Turks in the 4th century or something like that - anyway, very old but supposedly renovated last year. These baths had recently changed their policies and hours and now permitted women in to the baths while the men were there, and also extended their weekend hours (they used to close at 6 p.m., but now they let both sexes in between 10 p.m. and 4 a.m.). I'm afraid the baths are just not for us. They have about 6 different pools, all different temperatures, ranging from 35 degrees C (that's really hot) to about 18 degrees C (that's really cold). I just felt like I was taking a bath with a lot of other people, mostly very fat people wearing very skimpy bathing suits. We left shortly after arriving.
We decided that we should check out the location of the law school that has invited Ed to teach a U.S. criminal law course for 6 to 8 weeks next fall. We knew from our discussions with them that the law school is not next to the University itself (which is right smack dab in the middle of the city center). In fact, it turns out that it is really way, way out of town - requiring two buses to get to and from the city center. Since we will have spent so much time living in Eastern Europe by then, we decided to be perfectly frank with the director of the program that arranges these gigs, and explain to him that we either wanted to live in a city center, or go to some exotic place like Mongolia. We'll see what happens - when we emailed his assistant, she emailed back to say that they had thought this law school was in the center of the city and would we reconsider if it was - well, sure, we said, but it's not in the center - it's the University that is in the center. Obviously they weren't totally offended by our rather obnoxious position (we had said in the email that we realized that this was an obnoxious position and that if they wanted to cross Ed off the list that would be okay), so we'll see what happens.
Cheltenham and London will have to wait - it's getting late here, and if I write about Cheltenham, I'll want to write about the Kharkiv Office and the project in general, so I'll do that next time.
Okay, Okay, I get it - some of you really miss my Blog. The complaints keep coming and the longer I wait the harder it is to jump back in. And its only out of Laura's pain and discomfort that the Blog is resurrected. It's not easy keeping your head down for two weeks solid, so if I can help by providing reading material for her (through her trusted reader, Portis), I shall do so.
But where to start - after FOUR MONTHS!!! That's as long as we spent living in Kharkiv. I suppose I should start by renaming the Blog "Ed & Susan's Adventures in Ukraine and Their Travels Throughout the Former Soviet Union Republics and Satellite Countries." (Notice the deletion of "The" before "Ukraine" - I finally get it!) We have been on the road almost non-stop. After almost three weeks back in the States (first Marblehead MA for Ed's cousin's wedding - really fun to see all members of the extended Eidson family again - then a really brief stop in NY - where we didn't get to see very many of our friends because there was no time to do so - on our way to LA, where I was either at a doctor's office or at the Orange County Performing Arts Center watching the Kirov Ring Cycle - we did get to see a bit of Jane, Jed, Jenny and Jackson, and of Scott and Joan -more of Joan since she went to the Ring Cycle as well-but that was it!).
Now where was I? See I can't even remember where I am in the Blog, let alone where I have been for the past four months. Oh yes, after our almost 3 weeks back in the States, and a few days in London where we got to see four LA friends (Bob & ML and Brad and Sally) and Laura and Portis who came especially to see us (and a few fabulous plays and ballets - which we got to see too), we got back to a very chilly, but by no means freezing Kyiv on October 18. Now it was time to settle in and learn about a new city, new food markets, new places to get one's hair cut and colored or ones finger and toe nails clipped and polished.
My internet was up and running (at $20 a month, a big relief after the $250+ I was spending in Kharkiv each month to stay connected), the cable TV worked (although there was still precious little to watch - even the pickings on BBC Prime are very slim), we had great water pressure and hot water almost all the time. There was one memorable day when an auto accident caused a serious interruption in the delivery of hot water. No problem, we thought - our apartment has its own boiler so we never have to go without - or so we were assured when we took the place. And yes, it's true, there is a boiler here, but to turn it on you have to first take everything out of the cabinets under the bathroom sink so that you can turn off the hot water intake valve. Next you have to go into the hall closet (which is the only closet we have that is accessible when the bed is down, so it is jam packed with all sorts of stuff), clear enough space so that you can open the circuit breaker box in the back wall and turn on the circuit breaker for the boiler. Finally you have to get the 12' ladder out of the other closet (the one that is inaccessible when the bed is down, but which has a six inch opening giving access to the ladder even when the bed is not up) bring it over to the entry hall - a matter of about 10 feet, the entire length of our apartment - move the coat rack and the bench and cupboard thing in the entry way so that you can set up the ladder against the entry way wall, climb up the ladder, open the cupboard door that is just below our very high ceilings, and turn on both valves on the boiler (this means letting go of the ladder and hoisting oneself up using the ledge of the boiler cupboard so that one can reach the boiler valves - this last thing only has to be done if one is alone in the apartment, as one was because Ed was in Kharkiv, when the hot water ceases to flow. But I got it done, was able to shower, do the dishes, etc. I could even tell when the city hot water was turned back on because then the radiators began to work - so I was able to reverse the process and turn the boiler off within 24 hours. So far we have only had to resort to the boiler twice, but I'm prepared to do it again if need be.
Speaking of radiators - this was something I was dreading, having experienced the horrors of steam heat radiators in old apartment buildings in NY. I still remember the pans of hot water that had to be placed on the radiators to keep any moisture in the air or in your skin. And it was virtually impossible to turn off the heat - yeah, you could theoretically turn off the radiators in your apartment, but the pipes in the walls were still really hot and kept the place at an unbearable temperature. I thought I'd survive in Kyiv because our tiny apartment has two air conditioning units! But unbelievably their use has proved entirely unnecessary. Somehow the Ukrainians (it's okay to use the "the" here I think - this is what you do when referring to any nationality I think - the Americans, the Russians, etc.) have got this one right - somehow a steady stream of very light heat flows almost continually through the pipes and radiators, never drying out the air too much and never sending the thermometer soaring. We've had an incredibly mild winter until just this week and I have not been uncomfortable at all, and when I am, I just open the windows a bit. My little office alcove is especially comfortable for me because it is in the space that used to be the balcony, the walls are all windows, and even though two of the three radiators in the apartment are located here, it always stays quite chilly - I of course love that since I can't bear the heat. When it gets really cold, as it has during the past few days, I just turn on one of our deLonghi portable electric heaters, put it under my desk by my feet and get toasty warm within a few minutes. (I'm sure it costs us a fortune since we have been averaging about $40 a month for electricity, which, as I understand it, is almost double what most people pay.)
Oh, and did I mention my obscenely expensive "fitness center." It's so ironic - at home I wouldn't dream of joining a health club or fitness center, but I really miss pilates, and my lumbar region misses it even more. So I bit the bullet and charged the $3600 (that's right, dollars, not Hryvnas) for a year's membership to my Visa card. This buys me the right to pay an additional $30 for each personal training session with the only yoga/pilates trainer who speaks English, Katya. Fortunately I really like her a lot - she's a wonderful teacher, and it's paid off in many ways - most of all in an absence of back pain. I've tried the group classes a few times (Big Ball Pilates, Gymstick Pilates, and yoga) but it's really hard to do when all the directions are given in Russian - I have to keep looking at the instructor or the other participants to see what I'm supposed to be doing, with the result that I can't concentrate on relaxing (that's right,CONCENTRATE on relaxing - the relaxing part is the hardest thing for me to do and I really have to, ironically, work very hard at it). So for now at least I've pretty much given up on the classes and reconciled myself to the fact that I have to pay for personal training.
Oh, and the furniture we needed - I found everything we wanted within a week of coming back to Kyiv - a really good looking coffee table that is square and takes up quite a bit of room, but with the bed up, the place is really quite sparcely furnished and can handle this - and a matching night table. We saw that we really needed something on the floor too - the living room and office nook have light wood floors, and cry out for a rug. We found that too - but not until November when the Nasatirs came to visit and we took them to an "outdoor" museum which has houses and churches and other buildings from every region of Ukraine, and which sells the best crafts available here. We walked into one cottage, saw a shelf of rolled up carpets, and I immediately spotted one that I thought would (and does, in fact) look great. So the apartment is really homey and comfy now - our chatchkes have replaced the owner's chatchkes, our furniture is installed, our rug is on the floor, our towels are on the bathroom racks and our linens and duvet on the bed. It's definitely "home" in a way that the Kharkiv apartment never was.
The other day I got an email from a colleague of Betsy's who is spending 6 months in Paris on sabbatical with his wife, and their Cairn Terrier Monty. Betsy had sent me a copy of his journal entry about walking Monty, and I almost want to just copy it, change the names to Ed, Susan and Belle from Dennis, Pat and Monty, and put it in the Blog and claim it as my own. I had responded by telling him so, and he asked me what I found most surprising or unique about Ukraine. I can't even remember what I told him, but on reflection, there is one thing about living here that I truly hate. It is almost impossible to get away from the ubiquitous TV screens that are everywhere - in the gym, in the restaurant, in the cafe, in the bar, in the train station, in the train cars, in the metro stations, in the airport, in the hair and manicure salon - just everywhere - that play MTV Russian candy pop music videos incessantly, or show models walking down runways with the same horrible music blaring. It's amazing, because classical music, opera and ballet, as well as great literature, is really embedded in their upbringing here - there are many, many children, both boys and girls, at all the ballets, concerts and operas we attend, and they are rapt audiences, they don't make a peep. But somehow, when they leave the theater or the opera house or the concert hall, they put all that aside and opt for god-awful ring tones on their cell phones that never stop and horrible MTV music channels on TVs everywhere, 24/7. The other day I was in the dressing room at my fabulously expensive, elitist and snobby fitness center and was shocked to hear classical music playing softly in the background! But alas, a stop was soon put to that!
So now I suppose you want to hear about our travels and the Kharkiv Defender Office. Well, it will have to wait until tomorrow or Sunday. Friday nights we get Dalzeil and Pascoe on BBC Prime, so gotta go now.
