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).