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Ukraine Bulletin

March 20, 2008

Greetings,

Since my last blog entry, I have been home to the United States twice, and moved from Dnipropetrovsk to Lviv. Lviv is in western Ukraine, near the border with Poland. The central part of the city is a UNESCO World Heritage site. It was a major city of the Polish, Lithuanian and the Austro-Hungarian empires, and was only under the Soviets for a few decades. Its architecture is varied but elegant, and there are very few modern buildings.

My apartment is in a 16th-century building on Ploshcha Rynok, the central square, once a market, now the location of the city hall. I am two doors from the former Viennese consul’s building, and each building within a kilometer’s radius from mine has a particular and fascinating history, amply detailed in guidebooks in every European language.

Lviv attracts many tourists, and it has dozens of churches. I hear the church bells from many of them hourly. Lviv was the home to a large Jewish population for several hundred years before 1941, when a combination of Nazi, Soviet, partisan and other depradations forced mass immigration and mass deportation. For many Ukrainian Jews who emigrated, the last large stop on their forced exodus was either Lviv or Odessa. There were at least twelve synagogues in Lviv, now there is one large one and a few smaller congregations. Only about 1,000 Jews survived in Lviv. Janowska, an infamous concentration and transport camp, is not far from the city center. Some sites of former synagogues are marked with plaques.

Many families here have Polish, Ukrainian and Russian relatives. I imagine, but cannot verify, than many have Jewish roots as well. Lviv is a tourist site, and many Poles and Ukrainians visit the city each day – school groups and bus tours. It is a city where Ukrainian is the predominant language, and Ukrainian traditions are cherished and fostered.

I teach at the MA Center for Cultural Studies and Sociology of the Ivan Franko National University of Lviv. My classes are small seminar-style classes for candidates for their master’s and Ph.D. degrees: Memoir as History and Literature, and Academic Writing. I also run two English conversation sessions per week at Window on America with my fellow Fulbrighter Raul Tovares of Trinity College in D.C. I run a separate English conversation session and “movie club” at the MA Center, too. I have met many wonderful students and colleagues here.

One Saturday I took a long day trip to Kolomiya. Last weekend I went to Chernivtsi and Kosiv (near the Romanian border). I have also been to Kiev twice – all this since February 1!! I do like exploring.

The weather here is much warmer than in Vermont, and there has been virtually no snow that stuck on the ground, though recently we have had some flurries. Flowers are even appearing – snowdrop type flowers, and bluebells of some variety. There is still snow in the mountains, but I will probably not get a chance to ski this winter – life intrudes!

Lviv has a lively café culture, and I am doing the café tour of Lviv. I even found two Irish pubs and was able to celebrate St. Patrick’s Day with a colleague! Anya has visited here, and Kristen Morden (a Poltava Peace Corps Volunteer).

David arrives the day after tomorrow, and we are taking a five-day sojourn to the mountains of Romania. I am working out the details now, but it looks like two nights in Suceava to see the painted monasteries, and two nights in Sighisoara, a fortress town and UNESCO World Heritage site – famous not only because it was the birthplace of Vlad the Impaler, believed to be the model for Count Dracula, but also for its medieval architecture and narrow streets. It will be nice to see where that fellow was nurtured.

The fifth night is either an adventure or a train ride as we loop back to Lviv. Romania has a large Roma population, but also Magyars and other ethnic groups. We hear the roads aren’t good and presumably we will hit “Romanian Mud Season” so we will feel right at home! Horse carts are common transport there.

David is ready to meet my new friends here, of course, so we will gather for coffee the evening before he leaves to return to Vermont. We are also hoping to squeeze in a tour of a brewery here.

I have many projects planned – one is hosting a conference of university students from all over Ukraine here in Lviv in May, where the students would formulate a broad project of interest to them, and create an action plan. The hope is that they would all meet in the fall again to assess their progress and plan the next steps.

I hope to take many side-trips during my stay in Lviv, and to spend some time in late June-early July in and around Chamonix on my way home – another attack (I’ll confess, it’s a cushy hut-to-hut hike) on the “Haute Route”. I’m looking for hiking partners, so I hope you will consider joining me.

I will be home no later than July 15 – and hope to see you then. Perhaps we’ll hold a “canoe-in” at the cabin!

I can’t miss the chance to let you know that the Green Mountain Film Festival (http://www.greenmountainfilmfestival.org/tickets) starts THIS Friday, March 21, in Montpelier. Call the ticket office (802-262-3456) for paid reservations. This is another fabulous set of carefully chosen films that Central Vermonters will be talking about for months. Don’t miss out (and you’ll see all your friends at the theater).

Ukraine Bulletin

November 30, 2007

The fall semester has flown by – I am still really enjoying life in Dnipropetrovsk. I have met more students, and have gotten to know some of last year’s students even better. The English conversation sessions have expanded from one time per week to two times per week, with an occasional third session on Saturdays. Some members of this group read The Incredible Journey. This group has new members each week, and we have had up to 20 people of all ages attend. When David came to visit here in October, he was the featured speaker! We also hosted American artist Janos Enyedi who spoke to the group.

This year I am teaching literature, history and memoir. Last spring we read I know why the caged bird sings by Maya Angelou. This fall, we read the autobiographical novel A Separate Peace by John Knowles. We also looked at poetry, songs, and the students are reading Beloved by Toni Morrison. In addition, they are choosing books to read from among a ton (almost literally) of books I have brought here: One Writer’s Beginnings (Eudora Welty), Night (Elie Wiesel), Never Cry Wolf (Farley Mowat), Written by Herself (Jill Kerr Conway, ed.), Sula (Toni Morrison), Bird by Bird (Anne Lamott), Writing for your Life, (D. Metzger) and so on. Some members of this group want to form a book club and a writer’s group.

I am teaching European History and the Atlantic world to history students, and non-profit organizations and foundations to International Economics (similar to business) students. We hosted a member of the Dnipropetrovsk Soroptimist organization who spoke about the charities her group supports, and how the group is organized. Each of these students is researching a non-profit group or foundation and reporting to the class about it.

In addition, I have asked all of my students to interview an older person, and ask him or her about his/her earliest memories and strongest memories. Students report to the class about the interview. Most chose to interview their grandparents, and most of the earliest memories are about World War II – often about the arrival of enemy soldiers or the sound of bombs or living in close quarters.

At the beginning of the semester, all my students wrote and talked about their goals. Now, I have begun asking students and others to list three hopes and three fears that they believe Ukrainians have. This is done anonymously on paper. We are collecting and collating these – and an energetic colleague has agreed to formulate a ranking system. Although this is not a “scientific” sample, it does spark some interesting discussions.

At this time of year, I have students evaluate what they have learned (anonymously). I use this information to see what was new for them, what they already knew, what information was absorbed and retained. In addition, it is a useful exercise for deepening their own understanding of their learning.

Some of the responses to these questions have been enlightening. In addition, there have been some fascinating turning points in conversations. I provided readings on the United States and world events. The students are quite unanimous that they would like to read more about Ukraine. Most of the students had no knowledge of the existence of non-profit organizations or foundations before they took the class. One student mentioned that as a result of the class he knows what his goals are. Many said they learned about the stories of their own grandparents and their classmates’ grandparents.

In class and in English conversation sessions we have had lively discussions about the different forms of the Ukrainian language in different regions of Ukraine (and which one is purer), the possibility of abduction by aliens, stem-cell research, the California fires, discrimination against minorities in the United States, anti-Semitism in general, and anti-Semitism in Ukraine, the election process, art, business, spiritualists and the occult, American traditions, Native American culture and history, Ukrainian heros, the fatal explosion of a building here in Dnipropetrovsk, the various Mafia “clans” in Ukraine, human motivation, ecumenism, the functions of international organizations, and job prospects in Ukraine.

Students want to know why American men come to Ukraine to find brides. They asked about elevated highways, curriculum, music, university life. They wanted to know why, during Halloween, we pretend to be ghosts. Why are American blacks treated badly? They want to know how much Americans earn. They ask about Hillary Clinton. Have I been to Hollywood? They want to know what Americans know about Ukraine, and what they think about Ukraine. Professors want to know what Americans think of Marxist theory. Why, they ask, do Americans not know other languages?

So, these questions keep me on my toes. Because we have entered the darkest time of the year, we are watching movies twice a week in the afternoon. “The Incredible Journey”, “A Separate Peace”, “Philadelphia Story”, “Kramer v. Kramer”, “Saving Private Ryan”, “Tootsie”. You can imagine the discussions we have!

Ukraine Bulletin September 2007

September 2007

I have returned to Dnipropetrovsk after a wonderful Vermont summer. I’ve been here four days and already I feel pretty settled in. It’s nice to come back to the apartment we had last spring. I will be here until February 1, 2008, when I move to L’viv. I have already rented an apartment in L’viv, which is on the border with Poland.

I started teaching yesterday. It was fun to see the students again, and to plan with them what we will read this year. They had some ideas which they voiced—I guess the “participatory” classroom I was trying to create worked.

One class of third year psychology students decided to read A Separate Peace by John Knowles. I am re-reading it now. I had forgotten what a well-written book it is. It describes World War II, but from an American perspective. However, it is primarily about relationships and coming of age. I hope they will enjoy it.

The parliamentary elections here are September 30. There were billboards in Kiev, but there is little hoopla here. I will be one of many “international observers” for the elections. I will be paired with a Russian or Ukrainian speaking observer. I plan to observe in Kiev, about six hours north of here. Later this month we will get training from the US Embassy and from OSCE, which oversees elections in different countries.

This is not a presidential election, it is an election for members of parliament. However, it will serve as a referendum on the president and prime minister. Most expect that Viktor Yuschenko will lose some influence as a result of this election.

It is difficult to find any election fervor here – no one here has yet mentioned the election to me. Disillusionment, disinterest and apathy are the main reactions, rather than interest.

Another Fulbrighter has come to Dnipropetrovsk, Dr. Young-Tae Shin. I have enjoyed getting to know her. She teaches Political Science in Oklahoma. She will be here until the end of June.

Tomorrow I will visit an art therapy program at a hospital for disabled children, and then take a walk by the river with Young-Tae. Monday I meet with a television crew (help!) called Encyclopedia, and then teach in the afternoon. Tuesday, I begin my Russian lessons.

Anya, our Ukrainian student visitor, has arrived back in Dnipropetrovsk and is visiting her family outside the city before returning for classes. She is studying to be a mining engineer, and enjoyed visiting Rock of Ages, which (coincidentally) owns a mine in Ukraine! Olga, my friend and translator, flies home to Dnipropetrovsk tomorrow. This summer has been a whirlwind of activity and impressions which none of us will soon forget.

I also thoroughly enjoyed the Alps on my way home from Ukraine in July. I spent three nights in Interlaken with my sister and nephew. We took cog railways and other teleferiques to the “top” (well, almost) of the Jungfrau, and to Murren, a carless village. Then I spent about 8 nights in the Chamonix valley/Mont Blanc area. I fell in love, despite persistent downpours.. My home base was Argentiere, a perfect village outside of Chamonix. I did hike, and spent two nights in mountain “refuges” on the Tour de Mont Blanc (everyone should do this once). Then, chaufferred by my French sister and her son, Simon, we visited the Vallee d’Aoste in Italy for two nights. My French mother, “Maman”/”Ninette”, in her 80s, is still up and able, as energetic as ever. It was truly wonderful to see her in her mountain home again. Two nights in Chaville, outside of Paris, completed a wonderful time in Western Europe – long evenings chatting with my French sister, Cati, who is working on a plan to move the family back to Savoie after a long stint in the outskirts of Paris.

Finally, David’s 60th birthday bash in late July was an event to remember. David wore the Irish flag throughout, even as he led the over-60s to victory in whiffle-ball. You might say the young’uns let him win, as he was the ONLY over-60 who played. Devin and Bryce came home for the event, and we were all gratified by good friends, good food and a gorgeous Vermont day. Thanks so much to all who came to help us celebrate. The next one is 70, and, well, after that the rental cars don’t let you rent anymore.

This year is quite different for me as David is not here. I will return home for Thanksgiving and again for Christmas. David plans to visit October and in the Spring. We are hoping Devin and Bryce will come over, too.

I hope you all are well. If you are thinking of coming to visit, please do. I even have a spare bed and lots of room! Be well.

Linda

If I lived at the market.....

I am in Dnipropetrovsk, site of one of the largest markets in Ukraine. In addition to teaching, meeting with colleagues and running an English conversation club, I spend time in the Azerka market. Ostensibly, I do this to improve my Russian – the dominant language in this eastern Ukrainian town. Since both my purpose (to look or buy) and theirs (to sell) are clear, the scene is perfect for practicing a few Russian phrases over and over. “What is this?” “How much is this?” and so on.

The market covers an enormous area – several large city blocks – and sells everything from meat to whey, socks to furniture, crafts to raspberry bushes. Babushkas are there side by side with Azerbaijani pomegranate sellers and bored hired vendors. As I wander around, the patterns of activity continue. Do they ever stop? Even when the market is closed, vendors are moving goods in and out, purchasing stock from other merchandisers, settling up accounts, gossiping with others. It seems like the Azerka market never sleeps, which allows the impression that hundreds of people live at the market.

If I lived at the market, who would I be? Would I be the six-year-old who runs to get a snack for his mother? The person from the Carpathians whose brother-in-law’s cousin’s doctor’s son painted the little boxes, personally? The broom-maker? The woman who sells tea to the vendors from a metal cart, and picks up the latest news as she stirs heaps of sugar into the plastic cup? Would I be the one in a blue apron who sweeps around the “tyalets”? Perhaps the strong sixteen-year-old who is happy to demonstrate his biceps as he delivers huge dollies piled with bagged merchandise around corners and down alleys to his aunt’s stall. The hunched woman in her 90s, dressed in five layers, dispensing dried herbal medicines and advice. The dog who waits at the end of the day for scraps of lard from a woman who makes this task her daily charity. The sparrow dodging the metal roof rafters of the dried fruit section. Would I be the sweater seller who doesn’t look up from her dog-eared paperback as customers enter her tiny booth? Would I be the one who fries delicious cheese pastries for a steady stream of patient customers? Would I be the charming gray-haired university graduate who assures each customer, “This coat would fit you”? The vendor with hands worn red who never forgets a face, “Do you want some more lavash . . . .how was it”? The wholesaler who comes to each of her vendors once a week to monitor sales and inventory? The armed guard in a bullet-proof vest? If I lived at the market, would I be the woman in the scarf who displays three horseradish roots and four eggs? If I lived at the market, who would I be?

Map of Ukraine with Cities Visited (Click on Map to Enlarge)

Ukraine Bulletin #14

June 1, 2007

Odessa

There are three ways to say Odessa. First, you say “Odessa”, then smile, then sigh. The second way is to sigh, smile, and say “Odessa”. The third way is to smile, say “Odessa” and then sigh.

Odessa is all of those things. It is endlessly delightful, and if a city can be nostalgic, it is. It is a set of characters on a real life stage. It is a cluster of neighborhoods and networks, crimes and catacombs, smugglers and con artists, and gorgeous happy little children.

Everything seems possible in Odessa, and Odessa makes everything better than it is. It is an exaggeration, and a pleasant one, a wry joke, a secret bargain. Odessa enhances people, and even we seemed better than we normally are, while we were there. The city provides a glow to daily interactions, as does a wedding day, or a light snowfall, or a beautiful garden.

While here in Ukraine, I have thought a lot about how settings affect people – their learning, their openness, their eyes, their thoughts. I have felt for a long time that the academic setting affects the learning at an academy or school. This is not a theory I have proved, but rather an argument in favor of respectful, clean, ordered and artistically pleasing teaching environments. Learning in the Wind River Range of Wyoming last summer was always enhanced and enriched by the setting – a trout stream or a mountain or a crag. My supposition is that it is not simply a “visual” effect, but that the lovely and grand setting of a chapel or a reading room or a university green affects the energy of both students and teachers. Perhaps our sense of perception is piqued by what we see and feel in such settings. Perhaps we simply pay more attention because honoring life demands that we do so.

We only know one person in Odessa, a student Fulbrighter. We did not let her know we were coming. We met her twice in three days, without planning to. There were two girls cradling a black box – the size for fairy slippers – at an outdoor café. Eager to share in their secret, I peered in. A turtle, “Masha”, who travels with them, banked with cabbage leaves and carrot slices. Lisa and Sasha, turtle caretakers, were delighted to make Masha a model of terrapinic beauty. They were adorable in their own right, and gladly posed for the camera.

Yet, behind me was the majestic cream colored Opera House, all gargoyles, dome, columns, sculpture. Should I turn the camera there? At another angle was a film crew gathering a crowd as the actors appeared in wedding garb – should I turn my camera there? For, just as the vows were the most solemn, a wild fight erupted between bride and groom. Mary Belenky was quietly relating a fascinating story. At the critical moment of her story, she gasped. “He is ripping off her dress!”.

We turned to see a naked bride ferociously disrobing her groom. As they stood in the heat, in scant panties and not much more, we realized this was no Disney film. Horrified, we forgot our conversation, and gaped while we watched the director ask the cameras to “cut” the action and call for a break. Bride and groom redressed (odd word in this case) and prepared for Take Two. Police kept gawkers (and Bob’s tall conspicuous camera-bearing self) from approaching too closely, but twenty-year-old boys hid behind bushes for a closer look. We tried to concentrate on the waiters at the restaurant, who, ever vigilant, gently laid blankets over the shoulders of lovely women who were cold in the soft breeze. It was no use. After repeated lessons, we learned that the gown and tuxedo were attached with Velcro in the back, and ripped off rather easily. Her veil still covered her lovely breasts, until that little wind blew it aside.

Bob returned. “Not my kind of photography, really.” It was at once riveting and disheartening, lovely and mildly pornographic, and the couple’s anger (roused for each take) jarred with the lovely setting of plane trees and topiary. The most disciplined waiters in the world now gathered discreetly in the café doorway, timing their eyes for the scene’s salient part.

Mary wisely waited to finish her story another day.

There were many unforgettable vignettes: a beach walk, a morning promenade, an inspection of the port, wading in the Black Sea, a tour of the only functioning synagogue in Odessa, reminiscences about Jewish aid organizations (JOINT/JDC) which, funded largely by Americans, helped Ukraine’s surviving Jews during and after the famine of the early 30s, and continues to do so today. We saw crumbling baroque architecture, shaded city parks filled with people, each bench holding a conversation, mother and daughter strolling arm in arm, men playing chess or passing along information. We ate well, choosing from the cuisines of the 100 different nationalities in Odessa. We smiled. We sighed.

“In Odessa, Jews had a chance,” Mikhail paused, “they had a chance here”. This poignant phrase is oddly hopeful-sounding, and it has been an inspiration for my thoughts about Odessa. Mikhail is the erudite and lively director of a young Jewish Museum in Odessa. As a new city just 200 years ago, Odessa quickly gathered immigrants of dozens of nationalities from both east and west, drawn to the business potential of a port city. An early governor devoted 20 percent of the city’s revenue from the port (for a few decades it was a “free” port) to beautification of the city. City planners set up clusters of neighborhoods around lovely open parks, figuring that with so many ethnicities, families would feel most comfortable living with “their own kind”.

To describe the effect of the wars on Odessa would take a volume or two. But the cores of some of these ethnic neighborhoods survive. Few churches or synagogues remain after Stalin (a nickname that means “steel man”) ordered their destruction or reuse and banned all religious practice. As elsewhere, rituals continued in homes. A city which once had 78 synagogues (a dozen or so of these were major buildings) serving a Jewish population estimated at 200,000-300,000 – around 50 percent (estimates vary)of the prewar population of Odessa – the Odessan Jewish community now has only two. Estimates of the number of remaining Jews in the city run about 30,000. We saw four churches – too few for such a large population. It is impossible to get precise estimates of how many Jews emigrated, how many were deported or transported and how many were killed. Who knows how many assimilated?

Now, just three percent of Odessa’s one million inhabitants are Jewish. They are mostly orthodox Jews, and remain divided into sects (Brody, Ashkenazi, Lubavitchers, Hasidic, Or Sameah and so on). The Palestinian (later Zionist) movement began in Odessa, and since the 1980s, when Jewish Ukrainians were allowed to emigrate to Israel, many did so, from villages and towns, as well as from Odessa. As one guidebook notes, the fact that the Jewish population predominated in Odessa during the early decades of the 20th century means that the city’s tone of tolerance and piety, music and literature, as well as business and family, were influenced by Jewish culture of that time. That influence seems to continue today. Certain street scenes, where older women are sure of things, and smiling older men lean their faces together to hold intimate discussions, transported us to memories of the Bronx, or Brooklyn, or New Jersey, or Brighton Beach.

Long limestone tunnels – 2,000 kilometers of catacombs – run under the entire city and extend out 20 kilometers to the suburbs, providing safe havens for smugglers, the persecuted, and, during WWII, for partisans who resisted the occupation of Odessa by Nazis and their Romanian enforcers. The great open Black Sea provides a stunning contrast to the dank, dark cool tunnels, and gazing at Odessa’s Opera House and lighthouse from the stern of a passenger ship was the last vision many émigrés held of European landscape and culture.

“Why didn’t I die in 1910?” Behind this Odessan lament is an irrepressible life force, quite similar to Sholom-Aleichem’s Tevye in “Fiddler on the Roof”: “La chaim”. Odessa’s trouble with Russia accelerated in her 1905 workers’ rebellion, immortalized in black and white in the film, “Battleship Potemkin”. Yes, we walked down the stairs. Two thousand protesters were murdered on and around the steps by Russian troops.

Sholom-Aleichem, Yiddish author, was born in central Ukraine, and the village on which he based his story can still be found there. But his daughter lived in Odessa after her marriage, and he visited Odessa many times and lived there for three years, one of hundreds of writers, playwrights, poets, philosophers, musicians, dancers, actors and artists whose lives enriched the city. His daughter had a daughter who remembers these visitors to their home, and who emigrated with her parents to the United States and took the name of Bel Kaufman when she wrote Up the Down Staircase.

Lunches where we languished over delectable food with Mary and Bob Belenky were the highlights of this incredible visit. We still can’t quite get Odessa out of our minds – and why would we want to?

LBG