Care Packages

Tanya mailed New Year's gifts to Siberia yesterday.  Gifts for her sister, Luda, her niece and nephew, Ksenia and Slavik, her grand niece Uliana and even something for her cousin's 3 year old grandson, little Tolik.  I wanted to send Tolik a set of wrenches and screwdrivers which for him would be an even better gift than drums or bagpipes but Tanya thought not as I would never be able to go there again.  (At age two, Tolik loosened the wheels on his great grandmother's wheelchair so they fell off and dumped her..."Get up, Babushka...")

Tanya took three bags of stuff to the Post Office.  All unwrapped, as the Post Office has to inspect and approve anything that it ships in country or internationally.  They provide the packaging as part of the cost of shipping.  About $50 worth of gifts and $30 worth of postage but it was ever thus.

One year I mailed $10 worth of Turkish tea (1 kg net) to a friend on Vancouver Island.  The packaging the tea was in put me 50 grams over the 1 kg limit and it cost me $25.  If I had known I would have grabbed 100 grams of tea for my own use.  Too soon oldt und too late schmardt.

We got our own care package from Canada last night.  Meest (bridge) Corporation Inc is an awesome package delivery service from USA and Canada to the FSU.  It was started as a way for people in NA to ship care packages to relatives in Ukraine and grew from there. (That link doesn't seem to want to work in English language but Meest America Inc is in English).

There is a lady in Regina who collects boxes for Ukraine.  I am sure there would be a contact person in every community of any size with a Ukrainian diaspora. The boxes are trucked to Montreal (I think) where they are loaded in a container and shipped to Ukraine.  It takes six to eight weeks. We have made use of this many times in the past 6 years. Cost is about $2.75 per kg plus insurance and delivery.  Max weight is 30 kg and runs about $125 delivered to our door in Mar'yaniv'ka.

Tanya has gone to Krivii Rih today with Andrei and Tania so I am making chili for myself for lunch.  It is not exactly Screaming Sphincter Chili but it is hotter than she likes it and tomato sauce disagrees with her.

Vase dat you say?

We drove Masha home at 6:00 pm Sunday night. Masha and Tanya made greeting cards all Saturday evening and Sunday morning. In the afternoon they went outside and raked and burned leaves.  Kids seem to love fires.  Tanya sorted the apples we had stored in an outside shed and I hauled them into the summer kitchen where they will stay until it gets really cold.  Three laundry sized baskets will last a while.

Masha went with me to walk the dogs.  For a long while we walked hand-in-hand.  Her idea.  I guess I am a pretty good step-dedushka and it feels good.  We stopped by the river on our way home and the dogs immediately bailed in off the edge of the road and swam out and back.  That water had to be cold!  Then they chased each other through the grass and tall reeds until they dried off while Masha skipped stones in the water. Throwing rocks into water is something else that all kids seem to love.

Tanya was dead beat tired by evening.  One-on-one with a 9 year old for a day and a half can wear you out.  She was too tired to sleep so she watched movies on the internet until 4:00 am and then fell asleep upstairs so she wouldn't wake me coming to bed.

Kuchma had decided not to go prowling at 10 pm as usual.  He was sleeping on his couch blanket (dirty feet) when I went to bed and at 5:00 am, I heard him go upstairs looking for someone to let him out.  He makes more noise going up and down stairs than I do. I blindly stumbled out of bed and bumped the bureau, tipping over an ancient 75 cm red glass decorator vase.  It fell gracefully but landed hard.

When I told Tanya in the morning, she was not impressed.  Said I needed a bedroom with only a bed in it.  Reminds me of an Australia joke about a kangaroo but we won't go there.  And for someone who stubs her foot against the bed as often as she, I didn't think she had much room to talk about me but of course one does not say that.  And she didn't break any vases.

Forty Days

Today was 40 days since Tanya's Papa passed away.  The Orthodox church believes that the soul enters Heaven after 40 days and tradition requires certain activities of remembrance   We invited the family for lunch.  Tania was not feeling well so Andrei and Masha stayed home too.  Roman and Lina came.  Roman's cousin Svetlana was here for the weekend so there were five of us. Tanya had even found a bottle of Siberian vodka for the occasion.

It was not an easy day for Lina either as it was a little over two months ago that her mom died of congestive heart failure.  Her mom was 60.  Papa was 80.

Papa had heart trouble for several years and a series of mini-strokes left him bedridden this summer.  We were in Turkey and connected to the family by Skype.  What a great invention.  Tanya had been able to talk to and see her Papa every day on Skype from May 2011 when Luda and Valerie got a computer.

Today we connected again with the family in Siberia.  Luda had her cousin Natasha and Natasha's two girls  and grandson Tolik there for dinner.  We had not seen Natasha for several months as she had been in hospital.  Her hair was starting to grow back and other than looking a bit pale, she looked like the old Natasha - full of fire and fun.  Tanya says she is to be my next wife.  She is 10 years younger than Tanya and I do not think I could begin to keep up to her.  Viagra would be like putting a new flag pole on a condemned building.

Natasha's youngest daughter Liza is a singer and performs in the clubs in Abakan.  She was in Belyy Yar (lit. White Ravine) to perform at a concert which is how she ended up at Luda's.  We had not seen her since 2006.  A very pretty young woman.

Having Sveta visit is always fun.  She is one of those people around whom it is impossible not to smile.  Sveta is a plant breeder and works for a (French) corn-breeding company, managing lab work, test plots and such, about half way between Dnipro and Kyiv.  Her mother lives in Lozuvatka which is about an hour from here so we don't see Sveta very often.  Maybe things will slow down this winter and we will see her more often but in summer it is long days and when she gets a chance she goes home.

The Ukrainian Election

Preliminary results would indicate that President Yanukovych's Party of the Regions will form the next government.

The Kyiv Post reported at 5:30 Ukraine time the following results:

These are the preliminary results as of 17.30 p.m.

Preliminary results of the leading parties that pass the 5 percent threshold on the closed party list. Figures taken from the Central Election Commission, after 69.21 percent of protocols were counted.

Party	Percentage of votes	Number of votes
Party of Regions	33.51	4 564 369
Batkivshchyna	22.97	3 129 026
Communist Party	14.51	1 976 813
UDAR	13.13	1 789 236
Svoboda	8.95	1 219 979

Preliminary results of the leading candidates in the single mandate districts. Figures taken from the Central Election Commission. Results are based on 59.22 percent of votes counted.

The First-past-the-post results can be seen here and are being updated as new counts come in.

Exit polls do not agree with the counts above that show the Regionnaires and the Communists with a lower percentage of the vote and the Batkivshchyna (Fatherland) and UDAR with a higher percentage.

The Economist's Eastern Approaches blog believes that Yanukovych will get a simple majority but not a Constitution changing 2/3 majority, which means that Ukraine gets a shot at unseating him in 2015. 

The Party of the Regions and its allies are unlikely to win two thirds of the seats in parliament. It wanted this in order to change the constitution to abolish direct elections to the presidency. This would lower the risk for the unpopular Mr Yanukovych of losing the presidential race in 2015. If direct elections were abolished the president would be elected by parliament.

Family Dinner

Yesterday we took a chance and invited the boys for supper, hoping we could have one more feed of shashlik before it got too cold.  The wind howled all night.  This morning it was +20C, though misty and drizzly.   A warm enough day for shashlik if the BBQ could be kept in the shelter.

Tanya made chicken salad this morning and cutleta (fried hamburger patties), chopped up the pork and put it to marinate. I drove Tanya to vote about 2:00 pm, then picked up Roman and Lina about 3:00 to start the BBQ.  Roman is THE cook when it comes to perfect shashlik.  Masha was in dance class until after 4:00 so I drove back into town at 4:30 to pick up Andrei, Tania and Masha.  School is out next week so Masha is staying over (and I get to sleep on the divan).

We all seven of us crowded around the table, ate and drank our fill and had a good visit.  How Sunday nights should be; filled with family, food, fun and love.  I wish the rest of our family could someday join us so we could all be one family.

Head down; Mouth shut

Today was housecleaning day.  Tomorrow is election day.  We are kind of hoping Ukraine cleans house too but of course it isn't going to happen.  Yanukovych's Party of the Regions is going to win and people know it.  Not that they have anyone else to blame.  They voted him in last presidential election and enough of his party last general election to form a government, knowing (or they ought to have known) what was in store for them.

It was bad enough when they had proportional representation. Ninety odd political parties, many of them fictional, produced little clusters of deputies who sold out to the highest bidder.  Party of the Regions won the most seats and so drew the most of the small blocks.  This time, they have gone back to 50-50  proportional and first past the post. First past the post favours the Regionnaires  as there will be dozens of candidates, again many of them fictional, to split the votes of the opposition.

Polls have been banned for the past several weeks.  When 87% of the populace say they hate your guts two days before the election and you end up with 53.7% of the vote, it is a bit embarrassing, so no polls please.

The Orange Revolution in 2004 was the only time in the past several hundred years that Ukrainians "beat city hall".  And it got them the square root of Sweet Fanny Adams.  A president with no balls and a prime minister with big brass ones.  The folks who helped bring them to power wanted their payback and turned out to be just as incompetent and corrupt as the crowd they threw out.  So in a fit of pique, Ukraine voted in the bad guy next go round.

Yulia is in the slammer, sitting this one out, which may not be a bad thing.  She is better looking than Yanukovych, 1000 times more clever, and just as corrupt.  If she and her cronies were in power, how would things be different today for the Ukrainian in the street?  Other than Russian would not be the unofficial official language, maybe not much.  Just a different set of folks would have enriched themselves. My opinion.

So folks here are pretty discouraged and resigned, which is too bad.  The Economist reckons that the defeatism may not only let the Regionnaires win the election but get a Constitution changing majority. won't that be fun.  World Affairs has also written off this election to the Regionnaires but speculates about when Yanukovych himself will get the boot from his own party and supporters who may also tire of his incompetence.

In the meantime, Ukrainians will revert to form.  Head down, mouth shut and try not to be noticed while working to survive.  They, as a people, survived the Poles, the Turks, the Austrians, the Tsar, the Communists and the Germans (though a great many of them didn't survive those two inflictions) and now independence and a "market economy".  They will still be here when Yanukovych is gone.

Personal Responsibility

When the Religious Right use the term "Personal Responsibility", they mean "I'm OK; F.U."  However in Ukraine, people are, in a many respects, responsible for looking out for and after themselves.

If there is a hole in the middle of the road, such as an extra large pothole, and you hit it and break an axle, that is your problem.  Same if you are walking through the park, day or night, and step into an open manhole, after someone stole the cover, that is your problem.  Streets, sidewalks and stairs to the Metro icy and you slip and break a leg, that is your problem.  Icicles fall off the old buildings as you are walking by and kill you, that is really your problem.

People are also responsible for looking after their own documents because there is no guarantee the authorities will have copies, in fact, more likely that they won't.  So if you visit the doctor, you keep your own medical records and take them with you next time you go to the hospital or the doctor.  Tanya has medical file folders for both of us.  And several file folders related to the house. All documents to do with the gas permits; to do with utilities contracts (garbage pick up fees are based on the number of people registered to that address); to do with the Village Council.  You name it, we have copies of it and Tanya has it filed away somewhere.

Not sure what would happen if any of them were destroyed.  I'd feel happier if they were all scanned onto my computer, not that the copies would be accepted but at least it would give us a start in replacing them - at a fairly substantial cost, I expect.

On a side note, when we go married, Tanya kept her previous name because of the cost and complexity of changing all the necessary documents.  For example, she graduated from Krasnoyarsk Agricultural University thirty years ago and would have to contact them to change her name on her Diploma.  Go figure.

Updating Deeds and Titles

Try to imagine a country in which nothing is legally surveyed.  Farmland, individual small plots, housing lots, nothing.  That was the status of Ukraine post break-up of the Soviet Union.  No cadastre system.  So how does one return anything to private ownership when there is no legal description that will stand up in court?  With great difficulty and expense and over a period of time.

Farmland is an issue I won't deal with, as I don't know enough of the history; just that there have been a great many projects and a great deal of money involved in bringing it up to international standards.  I will deal with housing as we are just beginning to go through it ourselves.

First off, in the late 80s, when Tanya decided to build in the village of Mar'yanivka (I spell it Marianivka too), which is our actual address, not Zhovti Vody, she went to the village council and was assigned the lot on which our house stands.  It is 25 meters wide and 40 or possibly 60 meters deep with an extra 35 meters behind which we rent for  our kitchen garden; we never measured it and there are two drawings which do not appear to be to scale.  She has clear title to the house but no title to the land because there has been no legal description to date.

We are now in process of getting our lot surveyed and getting a deed drawn up by  the village council.  We took all our documents to them yesterday.  The village office and post office are 5 km from here on the other side of the Zhovti (Yellow) river.  I have never driven past there so have no idea how much farther the village goes.  They tend to be very long and very narrow on one or both sides of a river or stream.

There is a company that does the survey work, using satellite.  The villager we buy milk from sits on the council and he said that once there are about 10 people ready, they will contract the survey company.  That way it is cheaper.  By the time we pay for the survey and all documents it will cost us about $500 (4000 UAH) which is a month's pay for someone in the city with a good job and an unheard of sum for poor villagers.

Once we have the land properly documented, then we will bring our house documents up to date.  We did some remodeling when we first moved in; tore out a couple walls and added an upstairs bathroom.  We need to have new scale drawings done and registered at the village office. Having done remodeling in Regina, it is not much different other than there we were supposed to get the permits first.

House and outbuildings.  NOT accurate or to scale, I think but gives you an idea. Outside dimensions look impressive.  Once you deduct 18" walls it is not so big inside.  Front faces more or less SE

Ukraine Slowly Loses Its Freedom

I said in an earlier post that the Regionnaires would likely win the election 10 days from now and it appears I was right to think so.  The Economist blog Eastern Approaches today posted this article: 

Ukrainian politics - Ten days before polling day

The ruling Party of Regions and its allies look set to win Ukraine’s parliamentary election on October 28th. They may even gain a constitutional majority with control of two-thirds of the parliament. This will likely happen despite the fact that most Ukrainians regularly tell pollsters their country is heading “in the wrong direction” and less than a quarter of them plan to vote for the Party of Regions.

Perhaps the most important reason for this is that Ukraine has reverted to the mixed proportional and first-past-the-post system last used in 2002. Back then, it allowed Leonid Kuchma, an unpopular president, to secure a working majority in parliament thanks to a divided opposition and post-election defections to his camp.

The same conditions are in place now for Viktor Yanukovych, the current president. His candidates can come out on top in first-past-the-post constituencies where three or more opposition politicians are competing. On October 14th the two main anti-Yanukovych forces agreed to withdraw some of their candidates in some districts in order to limit this phenomenon, but they have stopped far short of a genuine alliance. It is testament to the current parliamentary opposition’s ineffectiveness that it allowed this electoral reform to pass last year, giving the ruling party a chance to retain power in an election that could be classed as free and fair (given that an elected parliament had agreed to its rules).

Still, it appears Mr Yanukovych’s team sees no compelling reason to take that chance: there are plenty of ways to skew the vote before international observers, who see this election as a crucial test for Ukrainian democracy, arrive to observe the polling itself. Evidence from various quarters suggests this machinery is in motion across the country.

For more click HERE

This article is not comforting and simply reflects how Ukraine is sinking deeper into the morass.  It is becoming more and more like Putin's Russia.  It was more free under Yushchenko than ever before but that is rapidly giving way to government control and a police state.  Ukrayinskiy Tyzhden, Ukrainian Week has a very depressing article on how the government is clamping down hard on the few remaining independent media outlets, including their own magazine. They concluded the article with this information on a new Law on Slander that will kill investigative journalism.

On September 18th, the Verkhovna Rada passed a bill “On Amending the Criminal Code and the Code of Proceedings of Ukraine to Increase Liability for Attacks on the Dignity and Business Reputation of Individuals”. Officially sponsored by the Party of Regions’ Vitaliy Zhuravsky, the draft law was actually designed at the Presidential Administration as proven by an electronic file posted on the parliament’s website. The list of crimes in the new draft law includes slander, punishable with prison terms of one to two years or two to five years. Slander that accuses someone of a serious crime may carry up to a three-year jail sentence. Top officials are not hiding the purpose of the draft law. In its response to a question by the online publication Economic Truth regarding corrupt property foreclosures based on court decisions, the Ministry of Justice wrote that it was “dishonest activity” similar to that of the publication that “brought forth the legislative initiative to implement liability for slander”. The question about corruption was left unanswered.

  

If passed, the law on slander will destroy the remnants of independent journalism in Ukraine. In lieu of a fair judiciary, any journalist who criticizes an official or publishes an investigation on potential corruption will automatically become an object of criminal persecution with the outcome known in advance. This is essentially an attempt to apply the tools used against jailed opposition members to attack legitimate free media outlets using obsolete soviet provisions of the Criminal Code. Despite promises from government representatives to soften the draft law following sharp reactions by the Western and Ukrainian public and politicians, the law, if passed, will signal the end of free speech and journalism in Ukraine. After that, journalism in the country may degrade completely.The government seems to have taken a step back under pressure from the public. When this publication was being prepared, the Party of Regions’ Vitaliy Zhuravsky stated that he would recall his draft law on slander. However, he also said that he was going to submit a finalized version to the parliament after the election. According to The Ukrainian Week’s source in the Party of Regions, legislative changes on criminal liability for slander will “definitely” be passed after the parliamentary election. 

This is nothing new. If the tactics employed by the government on a massive scale succeed to win them a constitutional majority in the new parliament (300 out of 450 seats)—even if supported by no more than 25% of the population—the Yanukovych regime will be able to completely ignore the international community. In doing so, he may point to having “absolute popular support” and a constitutional majority in the parliament as signs thereof. “All questions about Ukraine will be answered after the election,” said Yanukovych at the Yalta European Strategy conference. In this light, this phrase may gain an entirely new meaning.

For the full article, click HERE

To be honest, moving to Russia is appealing.  At least there it is all Russians and one knows how the system works.

The Quiet Life

We've been home a week now and settled back into the old routine.  Plus rain.  Fall in Ukraine is when we get the rain we needed all summer.  So far we have had about 60 mm or 2.5 inches; my dog dish isn't very precise.

Tanya managed a half day in her flowers and gutted the front flower bed so it was a good thing I got pictures when I did.  Since it is too wet to work outside we are in cooking mode.  Which is time we can share so we are both happy.  Borshch yesterday.  Potato salad today.  Pizza tomorrow.  Mexican cornbread next day or maybe tomorrow too; Tanya has a hankering. Friday will be a double batch oatmeal raisin cookies as Saturday Tanya is going with Masha's class to Krivii Rih to the circus and museums.  There will be 27 kids plus two teachers and Tanya.  So I need 60 cookies.  Or maybe 90.  Masha made a special request.

Kuchma and I are in the doghouse.  I suppose we should be in the cathouse by rights but that has a different connotation.  I let him in the house at 7:00 am and went back to bed.  We were out of milk so I gave him sour cream instead.  The cat didn't complain so I guess it was OK.  He must have lost his mind as he jumped on the bed on Tanya's side.  She flung him over to my side and he proceeded to pick dry mud out of his feet all over the blanket.

So far the green netting on top of the fence has kept Bobik from climbing out and when they are let out to run, they come back in an hour or two, happy to go back in their pen.

The Bible commands us to love our enemies and love our neighbours, which Mark Twain observed is usually because they are the same people.  We have not been on good terms with our neighbours for a couple of years now.  They are not easy to get along with but again, there are always two sides to a story.  I am by loyalty, forced to pick one side...however...

The rain has washed holes in the pavement that were patched earlier in the year, making driving difficult again.  Water soluble pavement is a new one to me.

We have an election coming up this month sometime for Deputies to the Verkovna Rada (Parliament).  The Party of Regions are the crooks currently in power and have little support in most of the country except Donbass region.  There may be up to 90 parties to choose from; one of the "benefits" of proportional voting.  Deputies from the smaller parties will sell their souls to the highest bidder after the votes have been counted.

The Regionnaires will most likely win.  It is not who votes but who counts as Stalin noted.  Several parties have teamed up to try to defeat them but I won't hold my breath.

Tomorrow is garbage day.  I am so excited.

Bobik climbs the gates without the green mesh on top.

Front garden Oct 11 before Tanya re-readied it for winter

Apple Trees

When Tanya moved to Ukraine from Siberia about 25 years ago she was so in love with the idea of growing fruit that she planted 30 fruit trees in her yard, half of them apple trees.  Sort of like my mother with her zucchini but Tanya didn't have any cows to come to her rescue.  We have been cutting them down ever since and have more to go.

Never a big fan of apples, having consumed some 2400 from my school lunch box over a 12 year period, I like them even less when they are windfall.  We raked and hand picked two wheelbarrow loads tonight and will continue from now to snow fall.  We use maybe one wheelbarrow load of non-windfall ourselves for eating and for juice.

We have these two huge trees and three or four little ones.  Oh, yes, and our new "Pear tree" planted four years ago has apples growing on it.  Thank God our apple trees only bear apples every two years which I never knew before, having never had an apple tree, so we only have a mess every second year.  One of the big trees will come down this fall and two of the  smaller ones.  One of them is almost dead from last winter anyhow so no loss.

Now I don't like cutting trees down.  They take a long time to grow.  I just wish they were anything but fruit trees.  We have planted a birch in the front yard and have a couple of spruce growing in the side flower bed.  We will sit under them for our 25th wedding anniversary.

Tanya loves trees, too and when she worked for the Raion Agriculture Department many years ago was responsible for planting hundreds of trees along the roadsides, including many fruit trees, which are available to anyone to pick.  In spring the roadsides are lovely with blossoms and in fall no one is bothered by the fallen fruit.

Tanya thinks if every person in the  world could plant just one tree every year that we could re-green the earth.  I like the idea. Just not apple trees...in my yard.

Two giant apple trees (pictures all from 2010)

 

 

Wooden Yew Know It

One of the things I have missed in Ukraine is wood working.  I am not good but I can "make a board".  When the kids were young I made lots of wooden toys, then got into house remodeling (our own) and now in my old age I would like nothing more than to make stuff again.  A garden bench for Tanya and a dog house for the mutts for example.  I left all my power tools in Canada as they are 110v and Europe is 220v but brought some of my hand tools.  Like my Estwing hammers with the leather handles.

Unless you live in western Ukraine, wood is a premium item.  this is surprising when you consider that Russia has the largest area of softwood trees in the world but no lumber industry as we know it in Canada.  Wooden houses are built of solid log timbers, not framed as we do in North America, so use a huge amount of wood per house.  But no one will ever drive their out-of-control car through the side of it.

In most of Ukraine, houses are built of concrete and brick.  The FSU, in its quest for scientific socialist efficiency, decreed steel and concrete to be THE building materials as they would last for a long time where as wood was considered impermanent.  So here in Zhovti Vody individual houses and cottages are built of cement blocks and bricks while wood is used sparingly, mainly for framing the roof.

Dimension lumber, (where you can buy it in town) is as it came off the saw, in exact dimensions 1"x1" or 25mmx25mm, 2x4 or 50x100, etc.  Lengths are random around 2 to 3 meters.  If you want it planed you need to own a planer. Which I do not. And every board MUST be hand picked or it will be crap.

One can buy OSB and plywood and the plywood is like we got in the old days - many thin layers.  It is awesome.  But expensive.

And this is not to say there are not mill works in town that turn out fine quality windows and doors and other wood products.  It is just to say that everyone is an amateur brick and tile layer not amateur wood butcher as I am used to. And the "Home Depots" and "Ronas" and the mom and pop stores are all geared to masonry.

Close up of dimension lumber (badly picked over)

Local construction materials store lumber piles badly picked over.

Saw mill about 1 block from our home.

 There is a saw mill about 1 block from our place, built a couple of years ago.  In Soviet times, mills like this would have been on every collective farm.  Loads of logs arrive periodically and are dumped at the left of the big door.  You can see a large log there. The logs are man-handled up on the drive and onto the saw frame.  Sawn lumber is piled to the left under the windows and scraps to the right of the drive way.  Scrap will be hauled away for fuel someplace.  They cut some dimension but a lot of random width unedged 25 mm boards which will be used for roofing.

Stack of unedged 25 mm boards for roofing

House and garage under construction

Roof sheath with random width unedged lumber

Finished roof on another building

Roof are then covered with plastic or metal sheets of various colours and styles.  Roofing tiles are also used but mostly by folks with money.  Plain grey asbestos sheets are used mostly by folks without money as they are cheap. Asbestos shingles are now available and I expect that those roofs would be sheathed in OSB to provide a solid surface.

When I can afford to buy a good planer and can find a source of half decent dimension lumber, I have a room in our outbuilding that someday will be a wood working shop.  Someday.

Small Business "Strip Malls" in Zhovti Vody

Small business in Ukraine is just that, small.  The next step up from a market stall is a small shop on a side street.  Tanya and I stopped at one such small shop on Saturday.  It is one of over a dozen small Ladies Wear stores in town; this one  located on Petrovskava St.  I don't know if it was new or if I just hadn't seen it before.

Petrovskava is lined with blocks of old two and three story flats, set back a dozen meters (mixed metaphor?) from the street.  Other streets may have newer 4, 6 or even 9 story blocks.  Entrances are always at the back, never on the street.

So to create a store, once one has done all the appropriate paper work and bribed all the appropriate officials to sign the documents, one buys a flat or two, guts them, except for load bearing walls, chops an entrance to the street and builds steps and a landing.  One shop may attract other shops and soon there are several of the bottom floor flats facing the street converted to shops, forming a strip mall Zholti Vody style.

Owner redecorates the front corresponding to the size of the store

 The store, Sofia's, is located in a single renovated flat, in three sections (former rooms), totaling about 30 to 35 sq meters (350 to 400 sq ft).  It carries along with women's clothing, a few handbags, a few toys and some stationery supplies. 

The sign isn't up yet. Name is on a paper on the door

Time on our hands

It was too cold and windy for Tanya to work in her flower garden so we drove into Krivii Rih to our favourite store Epicenter.  Combination Home Depot with Linens and Things on the second floor.

Tanya wanted grow lights for her bedding plants as they do not get enough direct sunlight.  What a circus.  The people in the garden section didn't know squat.  The people in the lighting section were not much better but we kept digging and finally found someone who actually knew something.  No fluorescent lights but some incandescent bulbs, so we bought a desk lamp and grow-bulbs and will try it out.

Tanya bought a garden gnome.  A cute little guy about 1 meter tall laden with mushrooms he has been picking.  I set him in the back seat and belted him in. Masha will love him.  So will Bobik.

Then we went upstairs to look at a summer blanket for our bed.  Found the right colour but wrong material.  Then we went to look at clocks.  We have been wanting to buy a good wall clock (mechanical, not battery with chimes, chains and pendulum) for over our fake fireplace.  Found sort of what we wanted but decided to wait and keep looking.  But we bought a new kitchen clock and one for our bedroom too.

Every time we go to Epicenter 2nd floor, I go to look at the ornamental guns, swords, ships and such.  I had admired Lord Nelson's Victory for some time so today Tanya decided she would buy it for me.  I think she likes that kind of stuff too.  Anyhow, it is sitting on our fireplace for now. 

There was a galleon Tanya liked better but I preferred the English ship to the Spanish.  The new Spanish Navy has glass bottoms so they can look at the old Spanish Navy.

New Kitchen Clock and Masha's writing board

Lord Nelson's Victory

The bedroom clock.  NO alarm. We are retired.

March Winds

Today would have been a perfect day for flying a kite, if I had such a thing.  March winds are howling.  It is +12 and warmer in the sun.  The sky is clear and blue as the top half of our flag.

There is still a few spots of snow on the north sides of things but most of it is now gone.  The creek/river by our place is spread out into the hayland but not like it could have been if we had a fast melt.

Sunday, Tanya pruned the grapevines while I held/moved the big ladder for her.  Masha who had been here for the night, helped clean up the vines after. I got a picture of Tanya dressed for pruning in her teenage jeans with the store-bought raggy holes and patches and wearing her "Goodbye forever, young girl" black felt zipper boots with white fluffy band around the top.  A contradiction in fashion statements.  She said if I put it on the internet she would compost my corpse to grow flowers. I will put it on her computer as wallpaper.

Tanya is itching to get into her flower beds and has started working on anything she can reach from the sidewalk. There are hundreds of shoots coming up in tulip beds, crocus beds, hyacinth beds and daffodil beds.  I have no idea how many bulbs she planted last fall and neither does she.  Lots.

Yesterday we went into town and bought 33 twelve inch square patio blocks, three square meters worth, for under a dollar a block.  These are going into the flower beds in strategic locations so she can work in muddier conditions than last year.

Today she transplanted into individual little pots, 30+ geraniums from seed she saved last fall.  Said it was easier to start new ones than try to keep last years plants alive over winter.  We also picked up her seed order from InterFlora at the post office.

The dogs have stayed in their yard like good boys though they are dying to get loose.  Their yard hasn't been cleaned for months thanks to nice fresh snow falls that saved me the trouble at the time.  Today I went out to clean it and it looked like I had kept cows in there over winter or maybe elephants, instead of Fox Terriers. Fibre soaks up a lot of moisture and the cheap ($30 per 20 kg bag) dog food I buy them has a lot of fibre. Shoveled and swept everything into piles.  Maybe I can hire a corral cleaning contractor to spread them in the fields.

Kuchma has been banned from the house because he stinks up the place something fierce with Tomcat smell. But we made up a soft bed for him mostly in the sun and he can invite the neighbour cat over for meals once in a while.  He sure is lonely for human companionship though.  When we go outside he is meowing and rubbing all over wanting to be petted.  But just don't pick him up.

Andrei hit a huge badger on his way home from Krivii Rih two nights ago and wiped out the front of his Lexus.  Bumper, grill, headlight on one side.  So he borrowed our car.  It needed washing anyway.

Steps have been taken?  No, placed.

Day Tripping

Tanya and I are going to Prague for 8 days.  This is our first time in Europe (EU) so rather than try to organize, we are going with a package.  What a circus to try and get a package, you cannot believe.  Tanya was several days on the internet and talking to travel agents in Krivii Rih, Dnipropetrovs'k and Kyiv.  We had found what we thought was the perfect package.  It was affordable, and included two days in Vienna.  Regardless of the fact that the price on the internet site stated airfare was included, we were informed by the tour operator that it was NOT included.

Anyhow we finally found something close.  And started to close the deal.

Tanya needed a Schengen visa.  If we go west she needs a visa; if east, I need a visa;  Turkey lets us both in for a fee at the border.  One applies for a Schengen visa at the embassy of the country of first entry but the travel agent will look after the logistics once we have all the documentation.  Along with the usual suspects, we needed a notarized document stating that I was paying for the trip.

So yesterday we went to Dnipropetrovs'k.  Can't tell you how many months it had been since I was there.  It is spring so the road is full of chuck holes and driving is rather nerve racking.  In Ukraine if you see a driver weaving violently back and forth on the road, they are fine.  If they are driving in a straight line staying in their lane they are drunk.

The reason for the Dnipro trip was that we have no certified English translator in Zhovti Vody.  Our friend Natalia, head of the city foreign relations department, translated my little letter and sent it to her notary friend Oksana to have it notarized.  Cost us $30 at the lawyers and coffee, dessert and a visit with Natalie. 

I got my McDonald's fix for a few more months - they have a new Ukrainian burger - Pumpernickel bun.  And had a look at the winter crops and snow cover.  Less snow the farther east we drove.  Too early to confirm winter kill from the road but the reports are maybe 30+% will have to be reseeded into summer crops.  10 hour day, four hours driving and I was in bed by 8:30.  Driving is no thrill on these roads.

We would have gone to a travel agent in Dnipro but the one we use doesn't have ability to process credit cards.  Cash only. So today we drove into Krivii Rih, to see another Oksana at KiiAvia who had done our last two trips to Turkey.  This was the first time I drove through downtown KR myself with out someone familiar with the city to guide me. 20 minutes, outskirts of ZV to outskirts of KR and almost two hours to reach the travel agency some 60 km down the centre of the city.  New York is the city that never sleeps and Krivii Rih is the city that never ends.

Tomorrow I will sleep in and then do some real work.  I have a proposal to prepare.

The pictures are of a metal grapevine outside a restaurant in Dnipro.  The vines go up each side of the door than along the wall the length of the building.  No idea what they would cost in Canada or in Ukraine but the artwork is absolutely wonderful.  Tanya says she wants something like it. 

Now is the Winter of our Desk Content*

* or as Peter Sellers might have said, Snow  fuel like an old fuel.

We have snow.  All Ukraine has snow.  A great deal of snow.  Three days worth, at temperatures around 0C.  Heavy, wet, heart-attack type snow.  The news tonight showed Kyiv up to its armpits and Dnipropetrovs'k, too. Traffic bogged down everywhere.

We went to town Friday for groceries and I was in town again on Saturday for printer cartridges but I should have stayed home.  The side roads were either heavy or slippery or both.  The plows and sanders had been on the main streets at least.

Yesterday we stayed put.  A neighbour ditched her Lada right in front of our house and her husband called a truck to tow her out.  Andrei came out in the evening to borrow my car.  The snow was "too deep for a Lexus".  His ride out brought a whole car load of boys "just in case".  They had to push both cars from our place to the corner.  I was young and foolish once myself.  Now I am not young anymore.


I did go out and shovel the walks twice.  Yesterday and again today.  With the help of the dogs who love the snow and were rolling around making doggy snow angels.  I hate shoveling.  My experience has been that if I leave it long enough snow usually disappears...Tanya gets tired of waiting for me and she shovels it. Guilt makes me do strange things.  Like shovel.

A tractor and blade cleared our road just as I finished shoveling.  Maybe we'll even get garbage pick up tomorrow.  The highlight of every Tuesday  - will the truck come or won't it?  Will the stray dog get he garbage before the truck does?  Heart pounding stuff out here in the village.

We were going to go to Dnipropetrovs'k today but declined the honour.  Good thing too.  The mini-bus from Dnipro took 4 hours to make a 2.5 hour trip.  Next week the roads and the weather will be better.  I hope there is something good at the theatre as we will take a flat ($35) and stay overnight.

One good thing from this wet snow.  Other than slippery, the roads will be heavenly to drive.  ALL the holes are filled in with packed snow and the road is smooth.

Blessing of the Water

Today is Epiphany or Theophany in the Russian and Ukrainian Orthodox Church (January 6th on the Julian Calendar falls on January 19th on the Gregorian Calendar).  Beginning at midnight last night, many believers took plunges into icy water to cleanse their sins of the previous year and experience a sense of renewal.  Cross shaped holes are cut in the ice and the water is blessed by the priests prior to people taking the plunge. Pictures from several countries are HERE and HERE.

Tanya and I went to the local well where the community get their drinking water and pulled out two larges jugs of water which we will use for drinking and cooking over the next little while.  The reason is that many people, Tanya included, believe that all water is blessed or renewed this day. 

The following is lifted straight from Wikipedia;

Russia and Ukraine

The Epiphany, celebrated in Russia and Ukraine on January 19, marks the baptism of Jesus in the Orthodox Church. Believing that on this day water becomes holy and is imbued with special powers, Russians and Ukrainians cut holes in the ice of lakes and rivers, often in the shape of the cross, to bathe in the freezing water.^[76] Participants in the ritual may dip themselves three times under the water, honoring the Holy Trinity, to symbolically wash away their sins from the past year, and to experience a sense of spiritual rebirth. Orthodox priests are on hand to bless the water, and rescuers are on hand to monitor the safety of the swimmers in the ice-cold water. Other less intrepid Russians may limit their participation in the Epiphany rites to those conducted inside churches, where priests perform the Great Blessing of Waters, both on Epiphany Eve and Epiphany (Theophany) proper. The water is then distributed to attendees who may store it to use in times of illness, to bless themselves, family members, and their homes, or to drink. Some Russians and Ukrainians think any water - even from the taps on the kitchen sink - poured or bottled on Epiphany becomes holy water, since all the water in the world is blessed this day. In the more mild climate of the southern city of Sochi meanwhile, where air and water temperatures both hover in the low to mid 10 degree Celsius range in January, thousands of people jump into the Black Sea at midnight each year on Epiphany and begin to swim in celebration of the feast.^[77]

The Haircut

Yes, Virginia, I still have hair.  With a small amount of grey but not enough to notice.  The problem is as my head gets fatter and my hair gets thinner, I don't like anyone looking down on the top of my head.  Like a poor wheat crop, if you look at it from the road it looks not bad, but get out into the crop and you can see not only is the stand poor but there is likely nothing in the head.

When I got back home from visiting my kids, I needed a haircut desperately as it had been well before I went to Kazakhstan since I had my last one.  Tanya had both of us booked in for 9:00 am, two days after I got home.  Yulia has been cutting my hair since we moved to Zhovti Vody.  Since a haircut is only $5, I can tip her the same amount and we both think we have a bargain.

She takes a full 30 minutes and worries and fusses until it is just right. It is a great haircut when once she decides it is to her satisfaction.  The problem is that the style makes me feel like I look like Victor Yanukovich. Put it another way, how would you feel about a haircut that made you look like Stephen Harper or George W Bush.

Our Neighbour Viktor 1940-2011

Our neighbour Viktor was buried today.  It was a beautiful warm fall day.  The service was held at the house, actually outside in the yard.  Tanya and I went to pay our respects.  He was a good man and the neighbourhood will miss him. He had a good heart or доброе сердце as they say.  He always had a cheery hello and would often stop to chat if Tanya was in the flower garden.  My dogs will miss him, too, as he always had a kind word and a pat for each of them whenever he went by.

He was a man "from the village" all his life and worked hard.  He loved his cows and pigs.  When we moved here he had three cows and he and his son spent the summer putting up hay. Every morning at 5:00 all summer long he would pass our door taking the cows to join the others from the village where someone would herd them for the day and then he would go and collect them at night about 8:00. Sometimes the dogs and I would go with him to collect his cows. As the years passed the cow numbers dwindled to two then one.  We bought fresh milk from him the past two years.

Viktor's health was never good.  The doctor said just living to 71 was an accomplishment.  He was small and frail looking though his son and daughter are both quite tall.

We wonder now about his wife.  She is not physically able to look after livestock and cannot afford to keep the house and yard on one pension.  She may go to live with her son and his wife or her daughter and her husband but those are not easy decisions for her or them.

The neighbourhood is a little lonelier.