Life in Kiev...

The weekend started with torrential rains! We had one massive thunderstorm from 12:30-9:30 on Saturday. Thankfully we live on a hill.



Sunday was much nicer. Cool and sunny. We took advantage of the great weather and took a walk. Here is some of what we saw.

A memorial to the genocide victims of 1932-1933

A local musician

Church tops at St Michael's

He is still around....

St. Michael's

St. Andrew's

Old wooden church

The gates of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs...hmm..something isn't right there!

Summer Day

We took advantage of the gorgeous weather we are having and went for a walk. We returned to a place we frequented when we lived here before. The monastery you see was right behind our former house, now the Marine House, and next to Landon's office.

Chernobyl Museum

The town of Chernobyl no longer exists

The people in the 74 towns and villages were evacuated on May 3, 1986. The people were told to take food and clothes for three days as well as documents. The were told they would return home in three days, so only take the essentials. More than 22 years later, the people still haven't returned home.

Many people grabbed photographs as they were evacuating their homes. The museum has a large collection of photos found on the ground.

Walking through the museum was pretty amazing. In the west we got so little of the information that is now in the museum. It still amazes me that the leaders did not understand the impact of their lack of action on the citizens of the world.



The museum is full of pictures of people who were out walking around, going to school on April 26 and 27 as if nothing happened. Because the people were not scientists they were not aware of the dangers of the Chernobyl plant. They trusted their leaders. The saddest thing I saw was a video of children playing on a playground in the town of Chernobyl and you could see the plant in the background. Those children were exposed to radiation unnecessarily.

Cat face!

Ever wonder what teachers do when they are bored? Well, wonder no more! Today, Yanina, my assistant teacher, came in and started playing with my erasers. She asked me, "I wonder what it would be like if these erasers covered the whole table?" I encouraged her to find out! Here is what she ended up creating.

Mama

There are a lot of stray animals in Ukraine. It breaks my heart to see so many animals wandering the streets--being abused and feeling hungry. This dog isn't really a stray. She "belongs" to the building behind us. I tried for over a year and a half to get her to come to me. Finally about six months ago she came to me and let me love on her. She is a sweet dog with the softest ears. I call her Mama because she is always having puppies. If I could bring her home, I would!

Dang Birds!

As you can see from the picture, our car is parked next to the trash cans for the building. Normally there is no problem with them being so close to the car. Well, that was until today. The birds decided they needed a plate for their scraps, so they used the roof of our car! Have a look! There are tiny fish bones, a piece of tin foil , a chicken bone, and what looks like a dead fish!

Here they are--caught in the act! They have decided that the top of our car is a nice platter for their food! Over the course of several days there have been bread, meat, fish, and trash scraps on top!

Pereyaslav Khmelnytsky

We decided to take a day trip yesterday because it was such a beautiful day. Today is Orthodox Easter followed by May Day on Thursday, so the city has cleared out! Traffic is non existent and I think it will be for another week.

Pereyaslav Khmelnytsky is about 50 miles east of Kiev. Historically it was an important city in the Kievan Rus. In 1654, Bogdan Khmelnytsky, a Ukrainian Cossack who protected Ukraine from the Poles, signed a treaty in Pereyaslav Khmelnytsky swearing Ukraine's allegiance to Russia. And the rest is history!

While there we visited the town center and later the architectural museum. The town was pretty empty since it is Easter weekend. The museum is smaller than the one in Kiev, but a lot more interesting.

A memorial to soldiers killed in World War II

We returned to Kiev (thankfully we made it alive) a different way than we went. We discovered that we spent the day about 15 miles from Ms. Olga's summer house! We will go out to her summer house in a couple of weeks. The drive back was horrifying. Traffic was pretty steady in heading east and west. I am amazed we didn't see any accidents. The people out driving were passing other cars, trucks and buses without giving too much thought to safety. We did see one accident when we got back on the main highway. Apparently a car was trying to turn into a gas station and took the turn too fast. They ended up crashing into the guard rail. The passengers and driver got out of the car and sat by the side of the car waiting for the insurance person to show up. While they sat, the drank beer and had a good laugh. Makes you wonder if the beer was the cause of the accident.

I followed this guy for a long time--more to protect him from other drivers than anything else. He was a brave man driving on the mail road with no helmet!

I continue to wait for the lilacs to bloom!

A Spring day in Kiev

We decided to take advantage of the sunshine and take some pictures of the blooms! There weren't too many gardens in bloom yet, but we found plenty to photograph. Enjoy!

Standing out in a crowd

She sells balloons, seeds, nuts, and cigarettes

The Rada

A full playground

Magnolia in bloom

Laura Rose (11)

Benjamin (10)