ukraine: Epiphany (Крещение)

Крещение is Epiphany.  According to the Orthodox calendar, Christmas is 7 January, and Крещение is 19 January.  The 12th day of Christmas. The tradition here in Kyiv is to take a dip in the Dnieper River.  Something about washing away the old, and starting the new year all clean and shiny. This year the air temperature was 1C, and the water was probably the same.  I saw a few chunks of ice in the water, as it had been colder a couple weeks ago, and some areas of water were still frozen. Last year the air temperature was -8C, ice was forming at the edges of the water.
Some years the weather gets cold well before this holiday, so the river freezes. When that happens, a hole has to be cut in the ice! I'm not sure I have the guts to jump in that kind of water. 
This year I found someone to make a video with my smartphone, so I walked into the water, went all the way under three times (the tradition) and came back out.  Then I discovered the guy hadn't done the video right, so I ended up doing it all over again! EEEEK. The water was COLD!!! It was hard to hold my breath each time I went under. Most of my body felt fine as soon as I was out of the water.
Except for my toes, which took several hours to warm up to normal. SO COLD!!
After my swim, I put on several layers of warm clothes, after taking off my wet swimsuit. I had two towels with me, as well as a scarf and hat. If only there was something I could do with clothes for my toes!!

kyiv: mosaic park, st michael's, st andrew's, andreivsky sputz

friday afternoon, after i was done teaching, i again met up with bo to wander around kyiv...when he'd seen the city in november, he and ben had gotten a bit lost and had to abandon the second half of the walking tour suggested by lonely planet...this time i wanted to show him the city i've gotten to know over the year i've been here...
we started by taking a look at st michael's, one of the many churches in the city...it's beautiful...st michael's is part of the ukrainian orthodox church, in the kyiv patriarchate...(i do not know the specific differences among greek orthodox, ukrainian orthodox, and russian orthodox)...st michael's is very much an active church as well as being a tourist spot...

from there we walked toward st andrews...another beautiful church...i don't think this church has services as often, but i could be totally wrong about that...there is a bit of a museum feel about it, and several bits of history displayed...when the area around the church is open, you have a great lookout over the river running through the middle of the city...
next to st andrews is a street filled with stalls selling tourist kitsch...in russian its known as andreivsky sputz...some of what is for sale is very soviet, some is traditional ukrainian...bo ended up buying a few momentos for his family...i looked for postcards, and looked at some of the paintings...

after that we went to my favourite park in town...mosaic park...bo told me i should've sent him and ben here in november, they would've spent hours climbing all over and taking photos...hee hee...i love this park!

kyiv: vydubytsky monastary

 despite teaching a full schedule, i was lucky enough to have two afternoons a week where i finished teaching at 1230...when bo was in town, we took advantage of those afternoons to get out and see some of the town...

our first sight was yet another religious place (there are a lot of them in kyiv)...vidubytsky monastery...to get to the monastery, we first took the subway, then walked...the guidebook makes it sound as if it's quite difficult to get to the monastery by walking, but i thought we figured it out pretty easily...cross a couple streets, take one turn, then walk a bit...ta da!! this was another time when it was super handy to be able to read street signs, as they were nearly all in ukrainian...

the monastery is at the bottom of a hill, the rest of the hill is the botanical garden...after paying the entrance fee to the gardens, we found a map and figured out how to get to the monastery...only one wrong turn!! despite being mid may, there weren't many flowers blooming in the gardens...i don't know when the flowers all bloom...

as we started descending the hill we caught glimpses of the domes of the monastery, it seems to peek out at you without fully revealing itself to you until you're almost at the gates...bo and i couldn't stop taking photos...i love love loved the blue onion dome with gold stars...

this monastery was established between 1070 and 1077, by vsevolod, who was the son of yaroslav the wise; it was originally a family church...according to wikipedia, the monastery and the surrounding neighborhood were named after an old slavic legend of the pagan god perun, and grand prince vladimir the great of kyiv...it's part of the ukrainian orthodox church, in the kyiv patriarchate, though it did spend some time as part of the greek catholic church (1596-1635)

the monastery is small, we only walked into two buildings...one had beautiful frescoes over all the ceilings and walls...i kept bumping into the walls since i was wandering around looking straight up...as we were in this building, we were the only two visitors...it was soooo quiet...

the other building we entered was a tiny church...due to renovations we weren't able to go very far in, but even if we had, it wasn't large...

we saw several graves/memorials as well on the property...

kharkiv (харкІв)

a three day weekend, so of course i wanted to go somewhere...i hadn't seen much of the east of ukraine, so that seemed like a good idea...since cloe's parents had been visiting, she knew she needed some down time so she didn't come along for this trip...this was my first time traveling with christina...christina booked the tickets, and also found our accomodation, yippee...she's been in ukraine for a year and a half, she knows a lot more russian than i know, (which isn't at all difficult, seeing as how i hardly know any) and has friends, or at least aquaintances all over the country...

we decided to go to kharkiv...unfortunately, we waited too long to make this decision, so the only train tickets left were not at convenient hours, to say the least...our train to kharkiv departed at 0345...i had a difficult time staying awake...people in ukraine almost never sit directly on a floor, or on the ground, or on outside steps, or anything along those lines...every single one of the chairs in the train station was full...most everyone sitting in those chairs was sound asleep...it's amazing the number of positions possible when sleeping in a chair...anywho...i walked, and walked and walked and walked, as there was nowhere to sit...it would've been so easy to sit on the floor and use my backpack as a pillow, but not a single other person was doing so, so i figured that wasn't the best idea...fortunately, i was able to go to sleep rather quickly just after boarding the train...

the train arrived around 1230 in kharkiv...we were in a car with a futbol (soccer) team, high school age i think? they practiced their english a little with us...
kharkiv is great in that they have a subway system, and there is a stop at the train station...we hopped right on, and made our way to the end of one of the lines...christina had booked us a place to stay in a flat of a local lady...after we figured out where to meet her, she arrived and took us to the flat...in terms of decor, i'd call it.....unrenovated soviet...definitely not new, but that didn't matter to me or christina...
after an hour or two of chitchat/relaxing/unpacking we made our way back into the city centre...christina had arranged for us to meet with someone she knows who lives a couple hours outside of kharkiv...a peace corps volunteer...(side fact: ukraine has the most peace corps volunteers of any country in the world...is this necessary? i don't think so, ukraine isn't an isolated country with no resources...the peace corps has been active here for a while, though they did pull out all volunteers during the orange revolution, back in 2004-ish...i don't know when the PC people came back)

it took us a while to figure out where to find ty...each subway station has a few exits, not always close to each other...we roamed around a bit before spotting ty...he took us to a restaurant decorated with parts of russian fairytales...the food was good, and goodness knows, by that point i really needed real food...(as opposed to the nonstop sugar intake i'd had going for me earlier in the day)...ty lives in a village/town not easily reached, so he had to take a bus at 1800...we finished eating around 1745, we were worried he wouldn't make the last bus, but he did...we continued wandering around town, mostly to orient ourselves...plus, now that it's spring, it's lighter much later...we ended up getting back to the flat around 2130, and both of us went to sleep fast...
the next morning we both slept in...well, i woke up at the same time i always do, but i dozed a bit, as well as reading a book i'd brought...it doesn't bother me to wake up early when i know i don't have to get out of bed...:)

this was sunday...easter sunday...15 april...the date is different from the western calendar, because much of ukraine is orthodox, and the orthodox calendar is different...this year, ukraine celebrated easter a week later than many western countries...we arrived in the city centre, and found a giant setup...two huge easter bread/muffin/cake looking things...(i've forgotten what they're called, pasca, maybe? everyone eats the stuff on easter)...also a couple easter egg trees...and a banner overhead saying Christ is Risen...did i mention this was in the city square? a public city square!! according to ukrainians it is the second largest in the world behind tiennaman square in beijing...it didn't seem that big to me, but whateva...at one end of this square (it's actually a rectangle) is a statue of lenin...(remember how i've said in previous posts that eastern ukraine is much more russian than the west?)...the lighting was awful (gray-ish skies are never a good background) but we took photos anywho...by this point christina had figured out i like to take a lot of photos, and will wait until just the right moment to take my desired photo..

after lenin and the pascas, we went to meet someone else christina knew...vladislav i think was his name? i'm sooo bad at remembering names...ooops...he had plans for the next couple hours, but we arranged to meet up later for a city tour...we went to a cafe briefly, one that had wifi...christina was dying to check email and facebook on her phone...both of us liked the drinks we ordered, though they weren't cheap...note to self, skip that cafe next time...
instead of waiting in that cafe for an undetermined amount of time, we walked back toward the city centre, taking photos along the way...(of course)...we took photos in the giant city square (allegedly the second largest in the world after tiennamen (sp?) square in beijing, china) which had a large setup for easter...i can't imagine such a religious setup in most places in the US...it said "christ is risen"...at one end of the square (it's actually a rectangle) is a statue of lenin, of course we took pictures...lenin wasn't the nicest of soviet leaders (were any of them nice?) so i'm always surprised to see any sort of memorials for him...

eventually we got into the city centre, and met up with vladislav and his sister...instead of taking us to the churches i wanted to see (they were mentioned in the guidebook) he took us up another street, called pushkin street...a statue of pushkin (famous soviet author) and a small park filled with miniature versions of some of the buildings in the city...in the middle of the park is a sculpture of a couple kissing...cute...they're stretching quite a bit...(this last sentence makes sense when you see the sculpture, it probably doesnt make sense w/out seeing the sculpture)
continuing walking, we ran into a couple christina knew, and ended up talking to them for quite a while...they're in the process of adopting a couple ukrainian children, so they are experiencing another aspect of ukrainian beauraucracy...
we got back to one of the main streets in town, and walked north...eventually we came to a park...it looked as though the park was under construction...vladislav told us they were doing renovations in preparation for the EURO cup...i don't know if the park will be ready in time, it didn't look to be anywhere close to being finished...i'm assuming the workers are working nearly every day in order to get everything finished in time? the start date is coming up fast!!

after walking behind a movie theatre, vladislav took us to the starting place of a cable car...it wasn't fancy at all, but i was still expecting a high fee...but it wasn't!!! only 10griven!!! (about $1.25)...with that price, i was expecting a short ride, but it ended up being around 10 minutes or more...awesome...definitely my favourite part of kharkiv:)...the ride across the park took us to a completely different area of town...fortunately, vladislav knows the town and knew of a close subway stop...we rode the subway back to the centre of town and went looking for a church mentioned in the guidebook...locals call it the candy cane church, it's easy to see why...fortunately, we walked in just after a service ended...i say fortunately, because i have the feeling the church isn't always open to the public...a minute or two after we walked in, the lights inside started being turned off...by the time we left about 10 minutes later, nearly all the lights were off...it was dark inside!!
by that point i was rather hungry, and tired...we figured out a place to go eat, an irish bar...i thought it would have pub food...but when we looked in the window, we couldn't see any food at all...so that plan didn't work...instead, christina and i went home, grabbing a bit at a grocery store on the way back...both of us slept soundly that night...

on our last day in kharkiv, we had no plans...well, that's not true...i really wanted to see the churches in the city centre...we'd come so close to them several times, but i'd only seen them from outside the walls...never in the church grounds or in the churches themselves...it finally happened!! we packed up our stuff, and took the subway to the train station...we found a left luggage office, and deposited our stuff for the day...the ladies working helped us figure out how to set a combination and work the lockers...in the city centre we finally went to the churches:)
after i'd wanted to see these churches for three days, they weren't that great...as soon as you entered the grounds of the churches you could see two boxes...one with scarves for women to borrow, and onewith wraparound skirts for women to borrow...i had a scarf with me, but no skirt; christina borrowed both...the inside of the churches wasn't great, i was a bit let down...oh well, life goes on...

afterward, we wandered a bit more...we saw something that i think was supposed to be an eternal flame, though there was no fire...
mostly unbeknownst to me, christina had made plans for vladimir to meet up with us again...he was 45 minutes later than she said...this time we took a bus north of the city, it went past the park with the cable car...vladimir told us to get off the bus a couple stops later, it turned out to be a park/war memorial...i really really liked it...i believe there was also a memorial to the holodor (the famine in 1932-33, caused by stalin)...simple, moving...
we took the same bus back, hopping off at the earlier park in order to ride the cable car again...hee hee...christina and i loved it...i had a car all to myself this time, and the weather was better:)...when the ride ended we walked to the nearest subway station, and rode the trains back to the train station...vladimir showed us a yummy bakery, of course i stocked up on pastries...raspberry pastries aren't very common...in retrospect, i should've bought even more than i did:)
our train arrived back in kyiv at 0400...ugh...that was a loooooong day at school!