Victory Day in Kyiv 2012

Wednesday was a mid week holiday in Ukraine. Throughout the former Soviet Union, Victory Day was founded on May 9th, 1945 to honor the glorious victory in World War II, in what veterans here call "the Great Patriotic War". The Nazis surrendered to the allies in France on May 8 and the surrender was ratified in Berlin later that day, but when it came into effect it was past midnight in Moscow. Ever the behavior in this part of the world to take nothing for granted, May 9th was determined to be the more accurate day that that cataclysm finally ended for the Soviet Union.

In May 2008 and in May 2009, I celebrated Victory Day in Sevastopol (feel free to see my blog posts from those months). Both May 9ths will go down in my memory as two of the most moving moments in my travelogue, but the 2009 V-day was particularly poignant as I saw the parade of veterans. Imagine a whole city, men, women and children turning out, smiling, bearing flowers along the street. Then imagine three groups of veterans marching stoically down a tree-lined boulevard. The first group is the veterans of the Great Patriotic War. They wear their khaki uniforms emblazoned with medals. They carry the flowers that strangers have given them, and the ones that continue to pass to them as they walk down the street. The second group is the graying ranks of the veterans of the Afghanistan campaign of the 80's. The third group is the current soldiers and recent veterans of Ukraine's international peacekeeping efforts through various multilateral organizations and agreements. The entire crowd, young and old alike chants "Congratulations!", "You are heroes!”, "We love you!" and "Thank you!". Tears flow from the eyes of all like fireworks.

To celebrate Victory Day in two cities that were actual battlefields; leveled by the destruction of World War II - it places the whole notion of honoring veterans in a new light. This Victory Day in Kyiv, I unfortunately missed the parade, but I managed to get down to Independence Square just as the concert portion was wrapping up. I snapped a series of decent shots. Then my camera battery died with no warning. As you can see from these pictures, on Victory Day, it is customary for people of all ages to approach the veterans in uniform, hand them flowers, look them in the eye and say "thank you". We honor our veterans back home in the US on both Memorial Day and Veteran's Day. Among the many holidays and customs we have borrowed from other nations, we ought to use the homecoming of a new group of honored veterans returning from Iraq and Afghanistan, to consider adopting the custom whereby the anonymous saved look the unsung saviors in the eye, and thank them for the struggle that was so tremendously grueling in waging, and for a peace at such a large and dreadful price, won.

Just Another Worker's Holiday in Crimea

The first time I led an excursion in Crimea, it was four years ago. All of the other Peace Corps volunteers I invited down had very little money, and a couple of the tents we pitched on the seaside cliffs of Balaclava were pilfered for what little valuables they held while we cooked dinner by the fire. Although the Balaclava police were extremely helpful and ardent in their search for the perpetrator (they eventually caught the guy): I hung my head low, defeated as a tour guide.

This time around, I led a thankfully uneventful excursion with newer colleagues, although aircraft replaced the long distance train, and we stayed in hotels rather than tents along the shore. Wary of how comfort and convenience so readily displace novelty, we endeavored to take local transport as much as possible so as not to dilute any remaining ounce of novelty of the Crimean travel experience.

The weather was spectacular for the entirety of the five day trip. So much so, that I even heard a several exclamations of "жарко!" along the route. Indeed, it was nearly 80 and we all got sun burnt the first day out in Bakchasarai.

Returning to Bakchasarai for the first time in three years was a real treat. I could immediately tell that the town was already capitalizing on its burgeoning tourism industry. In the old city, a tourist information center had been established. Backpackers were everywhere - a promising sign as backpackers are some sort of hunchbacked seabird indicative of impending landfall on that tourist mainland filled with air conned buses filled of fanny-packed Euro-toting Swedes and Germans.

We checked into the Hotel "Meraba" located behind the Khan's Palace, a UN world heritage site. I remembered when the two Polish fellows were building this hotel-hostel. Now it was not only finished, but they were constructing a third floor, and possibly a swimming pool. Ah, progress.

After a delicious Crimean Tatar lunch of soup, shashlik, bread and fresh vegetables, we set off for Chufut Kale. The Mountaintop ancient city of Chufut Kale was first settled by refugees of the fall of civilizations in the West and East centuries earlier. Later, the Muslim travelers also arrived, and then, Jewish entrepreneurs settled the city. Even though it was likely my 9th or 10th time there, I never get tired of walking the place.

There are always a lot of weddings in Bakchasarai. It's not surprising - it's quite a romantic place with everyone from Catherine the Great to Pushkin loving this lovely little canyon. Wedding processions usually involve decorating a lotta little Ladas.

The next day, we set off for my Sevastopol. Not only do I never get tired of walking Sevastopol, but I never tire of showing it to other people. Looking around that perfect evening by the waterfront, as it was peopled, but not crowded on a holiday weekend, I always marvel at how, throughout its routine, long the city has kept itself a secret. The same pensioners gathered at the behest of the same accordion-playing lady, at the same spot on the harbor terrace to sing the same Soviet songs I'd heard throughout my two wonderful years in this pretty, proud place of salty calm, remembrance and dignity.

We made it by taxi over the vineyards of the Crimean War battlefields to Balaclava. The secret submarine base there is a secret no longer. We could feel the Cold War in the air as we walked the dank, chilly tunnels where nuclear-tipped missiles were once loaded into mini-subs bound for the shores of Turkey.

This sign, painted on the wall says "Don't say everything you know, but always know what you say!"

The restaurant "Barkas" along the harbor in Sevastopol has the best calamari and karaoke music in the Oblast. There one may savor every morsel of their sturgeon shashlik, while sipping strong Crimean wine that is sometimes called "women's cognac". Across from Barkas sits the Hotel Sevastopol, and its fine balcony where guests watch the ships come in as they sip their morning coffee. Before we embarked down the coast to Yalta, we watched a ship "the Princess Dnieper" dock from its long journey down the Dnieper from Kyiv. The Ukrainian Navy band played while the passengers disembarked, smiling.

The way to Yalta reminded me of all the little scenes from this peninsula that makes the sum of all senses in Crimea so unique. As a friend of mine once said, the Black Sea has a deep, deep blue that is prettier than any blue in the world. Sometimes, as happened in Yalta, one can see the horizon blend together so that it appears the sea extends to the stars, or that the sky breaks over the shore. Match that with the lizard-clan granite bones of the Earth launching skyward, match it with the cypress trees and dogwood, match it with the tulips, the minarets, the dozen kinds of sub-tropical pine - you get a sense of Crimea.

On the road to Yalta, one might wonder how this peninsula kept itself secret. Then one reaches Yalta on the 30th of April and abuses one's self for thinking for one moment that Crimea is in any way a secret.

The Boulevard in Yalta during the May Day holiday is just like Disney World in Orlando on Christmas Day. Look - there's children's rides, ice cream, crushing crowds, noise and over there - there's even a picture of Mickey. True, one of the duckling's shirts is red (Huey?), but I doubt Disney has ever seen the Communist Party of Ukraine march down the street. In Yalta, it occupies my mind the significance of how the Statue of Lenin's gaze fixates at the McDonald's before it.

May Day is the international day of the worker. We don't celebrate this day as much in the United States, but in this part of the world, it's a two-day holiday with colorful parades and fireworks. Well, fireworks in Ukraine are an all-summer long affair, but you get the idea.

After checking in at the historic Bristol Hotel on Roosevelt Street, we went to Livadia Palace, where FDR, Churchill and Stalin signed the Yalta Accords in 1945. Unlike my last trip to the grounds of this stately palace built by the last of the Czars, I got to go in and see this place close-up. First on the excursion, we saw the room where the Big Three signed the Yalta Accords, which decided the course of Europe for the balance of the 20th Century. Having read the book "Yalta" by S.M Plokhy just a few months before, I was especially interested in seeing first hand where one of my favorite Presidents sipped his scotch late into the night during his last diplomatic trip abroad.

First picture: the grand hall where most of the meetings took place.

Second picture: the garden where the famous picture was taken. It was hard for me to picture General George C. Marshall standing in the hallway of Livadia Palace with the Secretary of State Stettinius and his toothbrush while they waited for the bathroom. But once upon a time, it happened. Then we got lost in the gardens of Livadia. Literally.

On the second day of our Yalta trip, we went on a boat ride to the Swallow's Nest (now an Italian restaurant) in the morning and made a trip to the Massandra winery in the afternoon. For me, 2012 is definitely the year of learning the vine. The wine down here was a little sweet and strong for my taste - the dry reds and whites of Moldova are much more appropriate to my American palette. But I saw why these wineries are so famous. Even though the wine was extremely sweet, even I could tell it was of high quality.

Our last night on the Crimean Excursion we spent in a pizzeria of our hotel called "Дядя Самса" (Uncle Sam's). Their "chili pizza" rocks. What a great idea - why didn't we think of that?!?!? All in all, it was another worker's holiday back in Crimea: a port to where I'll never stop returning, and a destination of which I'll never tire.

Minsk - A 32 Hour Layover

It wouldn't be right to call my trip to Belarus this week a "trip", really. I was hurried in and out on the road less-published; spending almost half of the balance of time I spent at my destination, Minsk, on the rails, roads and airways to and from this place.

Despite the short duration of the trip, this week brought about a handful of personal "firsts": 1) First time I traveled "Lux" class (really just like the four berth "kupe" minus two upper berths and plus a dormant flat screen television. 2) First time anyone has picked me up at a railway station since I was about 14.

3) First time I actually enjoyed Spaghetti Bolognese outside the USA. Well done, Restaurant "Gurman." 4) First time I ever flew on "Belavia". 5) First time I ever spent 300,000 of anything in local currency in 24 hours. Oh, and first time I've been to Belarus. I can't say too much. I was only there for less than 32 hours. It was more like a layover than a "trip." My new definition for layover: "Spending only one full night in one city in a country, before departing in a hurry on one's onward journey." Of course, this was a work trip, and the hurry was not my choice. If I had my way, I would have stayed for at least a couple days to see the sites of beautiful Minsk; a city that thoroughly and pleasantly surprised me.

I expected Minsk to be much a more Sovietized, concrete-blocked eyesore than what it truly is: a beautifully laid-out metropolis with wide boulevards, charming 19th century architecture and a bright, clear light and blue-sky feel that was soundly Baltic. Upon arrival, that blue-sky though, surrounded by plains and fields made me think of Kansas City curiously. As my trip progressed though, the city began to feel more Baltic - magnificent forests, bogs and swamps I saw on the way to the airport confirmed the latter impression.

There are a few cities in the former Soviet Union that Stalin insisted on great care on when rebuilding. Minsk, like other "hero cities" that fought the most intense battles and endured the greatest hardships on behalf of the USSR in the Great Patriotic War, was granted not only the esteemed title of perpetual distinction, but also was awarded the gifts of 19th Century taste and aesthetics with the rebuilding of its central district buildings. However, Minsk makes great use of the Soviet innovation of sub-street walkways to allow ease of pedestrian traffic.

Vehicle traffic in general in the city is a thousand times lighter than in Kyiv, presumably owing to wider streets, more generous use of sub-street walkways, flatter ground and futuristic flat paneled traffic signals.

Well, here you go. That's it. These are the only pictures I clicked on my BlackBerry from my 32 hour layover in Minsk. I hope to return to this clean, handsome country with its nice, intelligent people soon. Next time I'll bring my real camera, and hopefully a bigger suitcase than my little carry-on because a brief layover in Minsk simply doesn't satisfy.

Chisinau, Moldova – Fine Food, Leaf & Vine

Three days after I had returned to Kyiv after being three weeks in the
USA, I boarded an Air Moldova puddle-jumper to Chisinau. The puddle-jumper didn’t jump a puddle, but the few hundred miles of villages and farms that separate the Dnieper and the Dniester rivers.

Tiring of hotel rooms and considering I was going to be in town for more than a month, work assigned me an apartment near the US Embassy and twenty minute walk through a park to the office. The flat resembled the late 80’s excessive compulsive floral styling of Lorraine Bracco’s character in Goodfellas: roses adorned the rugs,
paintings on the walls, the bed sheets, the draperies, the furniture upholstery, but after months on the road, I was just happy to have access to a kitchen to cook up proper chicken and rice.

Chisinau (pronounced in English “Kish-en-now”) is Europe capital city with a population of around just 700,000. Like Tbilisi, the city’s name also means “water spring.” Arriving from the airport, one sees, as he expects, like its sister victims the world over, the city’s been blighted by twisted Soviet architect-errorists, old and new. But perhaps because of its small size and/or its proximity to the EU, Chisinau is definitely more leafy and relaxed than bigger, louder cousins like Kyiv or Donetsk. Like Chernivtsi in Western Ukraine, Chisinau has some tremendous edificial gems leftover from the 19th century – when whimsy was vogue and buildings were designed to invite, rather than terrify pedestrians.

Leafy is indeed a fitting word for Moldova (pronounced "Mawwl Doh VAHHH", Bostonian English), even in the midst of February. While the hills surrounding the city are bald save the concrete stubble, the valleys of Chisinau feel as though they were most certainly cut out of the snowy forest. Then there are serene parks with statues to revered heroes, like this one to Pushkin.

And I did indeed happen to land in country in the middle of the deep freeze of
one of the coldest winters in memory. It was 25 below zero – Fahrenheit – on my second night. But then it warmed up quite a bit so it could dump snow the rest of the month.

Needing my aquatic exercise as I do, finding a swimming pool was not a problem. There was one only a few blocks from my apartment. It was open, in both meanings of the word - an outdoor pool, open in winter, heated to around 80 degrees F (28 degrees C). The process and the building was of a 20th century, crumbling affair: 1.) Enter and 2.) surrender your shoes to the lady who gives you a key and lock in return 3.) put on your sandals, 4.) pay the fee at the ticket window 5.) enter at the appropriate time (:45 past the hour), surrendering your ticket 6.) change in the locker room, 7.) shower 8.) enter the pool underwater. This involves exiting the shower area, taking off your sandals and entering a dedicated tank via ladder. Then you swim under the wall and into the pool. The reason for this is obvious in winter: the pool deck is covered with an inch thick layer of ice.

Swimming fast laps in warm water in winter takes a little getting used to. Besides the temperature, one must contend with the poor visibility above water (steam rising from the warm water into the cold air causes a heavy fog) and, at dusk after work, below water, as the lights on the pool are located on the pool deck, not under water. Still, I have to say, it was a tad exhilirating to swim in the morning in a snow storm, or in the evening under a clear, moonlit sky.

For part of the month, the three middle lanes had thick sheets of plastic floating on them, presumably to keep the pool warm. I watched in horror as the swim coach made his students swim under the plastic sheets to get to the other side of the pool. This ostensibly builds character, and an American personal injury lawyer's worst nightmare - or sweetest dream.

In Chisinau, the restaurants are really quite good for a city of its size. I ate a wonderful steak, fabulous placinta (Moldovan style pastry filled with goat cheese), Greek food, quality pizza and pasta. And throughout the month I managed to get myself invited to four excellent dinners at colleagues' houses.

But what people come to Moldova for is the wine. In one month in this country, I attended three wine tastings - which is an awful lot considering I'd never been to one before I arrived. One of those tastings involved a trip to the famous winery, Cricova, just outside the city.

The Cricova store rooms are located a couple hundred feet below ground in a granite mine. Deep in these catacombs, the founders age wine in massive casks, bottle wine in underground factories, and here they also located an impressive museum and storage facility. Here one could see a dusty bottle of Israeli sherry from 1903, eerie bottles confiscated from Goering by the Soviet Army and one V. Putin's private stash of chardonnay.

Further on, at the end of the tour, hewed out of the rock walls, the visitor is surprised to encounter a swanky collection of themed tasting rooms. The seven of us sampled six wines with a variety of cheeses, fruits and placintas in the aquatic room. One of my colleagues said she expected Sebastian the crab to emerge any minute from a wine bottle belting out "Under the Sea!"

What a pleasant month here in this proud, quiet, friendly and unpretentious country. I'll remember this winter here fondly: surrounded by warm people with remarkable stories, with fine wine in fire-lit tavernas amongst the snow, trees and statues of Chisinau. Though, the dull knives, the glass cutting board and the hard bed in the floral apartment are beginning to wear on my adaptability. Spring is fast approaching Ukraine and I’m ready to head home to Kyiv to wait for it - salt and bread in hand.

Striking Berlin

I've wanted to see Berlin ever since 2000. That was when I was studying abroad in Wales. The month of April was a full month off and all the foreign students scattered with their backpacks across Europe. When we reconvened in May, all the backpackers got together in the pub and told tales of what we all had felt, seen, tasted and heard. One of many constants was that Berlin was the place to be. "Cranes!" One said. "Berlin's skyline was covered with cranes as far as the eye could see!"

President's Day was the perfect opportunity to get out of Chisinau for the three day weekend, and six weeks ago Lufthansa was having a sale. That's how it is in Europe - like if I was a Washingtonian wanting to escape to Chicago for a few days by grabbing a cut rate airfare through Memphis... ...it's that easy to jaunt off to a completely different, famous foreign capital - just for the weekend.


And it's a good thing that Munich was my Memphis and not Frankfurt. FRA workers were having a strike that was shutting down a bulk of short haul arrivals.

But having dodged severe travel injury of the inconvenience bullet of labor organization in one place, my foot caught the whizzing by of another. When I arrived in Berlin I was greeted with signs notifying the riding public that there was a "warning" strike that would shut down the U-Bahn all day Saturday. This shot across the nose of the city government would not affect the S-Bahn, though, and it was manageable enough to navigate the metropolis on the surface minus the underground.

Whenever I'm only in a place for 48 hours or so, like any tourist, the main things I do is walk and eat and look. But museums are the main reason I spend hundreds of dollars on a weekend getaway to a European capital. This weekend, I made it to three: the Alte (Old) Gallery, the Berlin Wall Museum and the German Historical Museum.

The Old gallery wasn't quite big enough to satisfy my fine art craving, but it will at least tide me over until I get back to Kyiv. It held a fine collection; particularly nice 19th and early 20th century paintings but a special modern exhibit that I didn't quite emotionally connect to.

Unfortunately, the Berlin Wall Museum was mostly a waste of time and money. While there were a couple of interesting exhibits on escape of those from East Germany (by window, on foot, by kayak, by balloon, by car, by tunnel), this museum was very poorly maintained and amateurishly presented. The museum lacked even one clear map showing where the wall was through Berlin! The final portion was an attention-deficit disorderly hodgepodge of exhibits dedicated to world peace, Ronald Reagan and a disjointed, profoundly subjective criticism of a smattering of regimes.


On the construction curtains outside the museum near Checkpoint Charlie were much better (and free) explanation of events surrounding this extremely important area of Berlin. Entering the American sector, one finds a McDonald's on the right. When leaving the American sector, one finds a non-profit organization slogan on the left.

The German Historical Museum really impressed me. This definitely one of the best historical museums in the world: arranged chronologically from BC to 1989. Unfortunately I spent too much time in the 1st millennium A.D (wow to a map showing the movements over 1,000 years of tribes across Europe) and the 16th and 17th centuries (wow to a 17th century Ottoman battle tent captured during the breaking of the 1683 siege on Vienna). Here I had the opposite problem as the Old Gallery: a half day wasn't nearly long enough. By the time I arrived at the 20th century, my quads were like jelly. On my next visit, perhaps I'll start at the fall of the Berlin Wall and walk back in time.


There were a few other things I had time for when I was in Berlin for the weekend. For example, I picked up an excellent dim sum lunch with an American traveler from Baltimore, a Canadian physicist who spoke Mandarin and a German finance student. I swam laps in two of Berlin's crystal clear public swimming pools. I visited the Brandenburg Gate and the Bundestag. I ate pork and sauerkraut with a large stein of fresh beer on a long wooden table.



Architecture is the one type of art that is forced down everyone's retinas. Here in this city, for the most part, old and new architecture comfortably compliment each other - sometimes new cradles old, sometime old cradles new. Sometimes they throw up on each other, like this picture of the space needle and Baroque statues. But that's OK - it's funny. At mundane places in the city, Berlin sometime reminds me of Washington DC: between 20th and 14th, between K and M - glass boxes, yet creatively apportioned, each one vying for the sparse attention of punctual, workaholic pedestrians.

I was just a little kid when the Berlin wall fell. I remember wondering what all the fuss was about. Today on Freidrichstrasse, I squint my eyes hard to try and imagine what this place must have looked like in 1962 - some sort of no-man's land between the American and Soviet sectors, with burned out buildings and rubble still leftover from the Second World War. My imagination failed me. I couldn't see beyond the glass walls, the bullish banking sector and the slick electronic hope to find disrepair and despair. Today's already changed the empty lots and cranes that my friends saw 12 years ago. The empty lots and the cranes are both fleeing Berlin.