Ukraine Bulletin #5

March 2, 2007

I have just finished my first full week of teaching. Although I am teaching “10 hours” a week, it turns out that an “academic” hour is only 40 minutes long. Did I pick the right field, or what!?! Sometimes the classes don’t meet, and we don’t make up the time. So far this doesn’t feel like a terribly difficult schedule. Tuesday, 12:40-2 p.m., Wednesday 12:40 -2 p.m., Thursday 2-5 p.m. The classes are relatively small – 10-20 students in each of them. The largest class cannot read or write English, so (ah shucks) I have no “correcting”to do, and their “final project” will have to be some kind of group effort. In that class (American Social History) I have a translator, so an hour lesson is really a half hour. This means I don’t need to do too much preparation. Another class has no final exam. So this feels like a very easy workload.

I’ve already been asked to other universities to do a lecture or teach a class. However, I prefer to keep those commitments to occasional visits, as I think I should “dance with the one that brung me”. My Wednesday English conversation classes are designed to meet some of these requests (at a time that is convenient to me). I did teach a class of upper level students who are learning to teach English, and pointed them toward Emily Dickinson (“There is a certain slant of light”) and Robert Frost (“The Road Not Taken”), which they will look up on the Internet and read.

Still, it is astounding to see how many universities, institutes, law schools, technical schools, medical schools, private colleges and so on are in this city. Many of them are housed in grand buildings with pillars, marble steps, tall ceilings, large windows, decorated plaster and so on. I would guess these buildings date to about 1890-1910 or so.

The universities are really not in the digital age yet. Very complex schedules are written out by hand (for the whole university), on an almost weekly basis. There seems to be very little administrative oversight as the buildings are quite separated from each other, all around the city. In some ways, this decentralization gives a tremendous amount of latitude to faculty as far as course content and scheduling. The faculty have department meetings, but no university-wide committees, for example. They are trying to conform with the Bologna Process, by which their educational system would meet European standards. One practical result has been that a department that once awarded two diplomas (Psychology and English) to each student, now can only award one (Psychology), with a “certificate” in English. Each department has English faculty attached to it, and these faculty teach general English as well as terms specific to the profession for which the students are training.

The psychology department is not happy about this change, as they wanted their students to receive recognition for their English skills and achievement. They were perplexed when I told them about double majors, which is a subtlety that hasn’t quite trickled down to them yet. Psychology students are not happy about the change, either, as it happened after they had enrolled and when some were ready to graduate. I mentioned our system which generally includes a safeguard for a student who enters a university under one set of policies (if those policies change, the student is only held to the requirements stated in the year he/she entered) as well as the general practice of not significantly altering the name or content of the degree in midstream. This seemed incomprehensible to the faculty – they simply don’t have that kind of control over the degrees they offer.

It is perpetual April here, with the ugliness of post winter. It is mild (30s and 40s) and no snow. I plan to plant flowers on our balcony for a bit of cheeriness – the whole city could use some beautification. The parks, avenues and river are beautiful in the spring or summer, but many of the buildings are grim and gray. There is some construction going on, but there are also many unused buildings. This could be a great city for artists to move to, as there is space for studios and galleries. Many enormous buildings contain a sort of permanent indoor mini mall – kiosks and booths selling everything from jewelry to Xerox services. The exterior of the buildings doesn’t really indicate what is inside them, however. It has taken me a while to realize I will never know what is going on in a building unless I go in the doors. The building we are in, for instance, gives no hint of the lovely apartment we have.

There is something here that I can’t quite put my finger on, about not demonstrating wealth or possessions. Everyone carries plastic shopping bags around town – these could contain onions or diamonds and no one would be able to tell the difference. It seems as though a spiffed-up building might just invite vandalism or resentment. This is an odd contrast, for me anyway, with the thousands of women wearing gorgeous fur coats, hats, and all the lovely boots, gloves etc to match. To my eyes these furs look like a confident display of wealth.

Only about ten years ago, there was nothing on the shelves to buy. Travelers write of going into mom and pop stores to find a shelf of homemade pickles in jars. Those with enough money traveled to Kiev or even Moscow to purchase simple food items. This problem is attributed to “wild capitalism” after the 1991 dissolution of the Soviet Union. Systems of supply, storage and delivery had to be initiated and implemented. Eventually, businesses began cultivating contacts for bread, milk, eggs, meat, etc.

One Western indulgence that has transferred to Ukraine whole-cloth is the cosmetics industry. It is astonishing that every item you could want is here in beautiful gleaming stores. Fashion and beauty are worth paying for, apparently. I can’t find toner for my printer (I’m sure it is somewhere in the city) but I can get all the creams and makeup I could want (and then some). The women’s styles are quite high on the urban femininity scale. A bit hard to describe: spike heels designed to out-Condoleeza Condoleeza, tight see-through tops, spectacular (often visible) underwear, net stockings, short skirts, black leather everything, waists tightly belted with enormous belt buckles, fingernails with entire landscapes painted on them, tight pants, flowing coats, and certain very, very Ascot-y hats.

The female comrade in blue work clothes sitting on a tractor and smiling as she works is nowhere to be found.

I heard an interesting saying this week: “Kiev is the first city in Ukraine, but Dnipropetrovsk is not the second.” Kiev has politics, more museums, more churches, and the best university. Dnipropetrovsk has wealth. Many Dnipro-ites see this as a clear choice, and are eager to stay here and join the bustling business life.

I hope you all are well and enjoying winter!
Best,
Linda