Malbork Fortifications

IF YOU WANT TO SUPPORT ME

I would appreciate your help, dear reader. I have opened a small store with my photographs put on different merchandise. 30% of my royalties go to different funds and volunteers to support the Ukrainian Army that is working hard on liberating my motherland. Here are some examples of the things you will find in my store

All merchandise can be sent internationally. I would really appreciate your help! Here’s the link to my store https://wall31.com/en/authors/kwetlorien/show/products

Welcome to my university, Chernivtsi National University

Hello everyone everywhere! Yesterday despite the cloudy dreary weather we took a quick trip to Chernivtsi, the place where I spent 5 years of my life as a student. I wanted to show my husband my University and a little bit of old town which carries features of old Austrian style pretty much in every building of the old center. And, of course, I wanted to boast with the magnificent building of my University that was constructed under the supervision of Czech architect Josef Hlavka, who eventually became the richest Czech person in entire Austro Hungarian Empire and also is famous for working on another jewel of European architecture - Vienna Opera House. So here it is

Chernivtsi National University is the part of the UNESCO Heritage List. It is former Residence of Bukovyna and Dalmatia Metropolitans and was the centre of the Bukovyna Orthodox Metropolis in the times of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. It consists of three monumental buildings that you can see on the photos — the metropolitan’s building, the seminary and the monastery — and an arboretum. The metropolitan’s building once used to be the living quarters, as well as administrative premises and assembly rooms. It represents a remarkable combination of classical architectural styles as well as the art of local ethnic groups that the Bukovyna region is famous for. In order to construct this architectural jewel, the city had to create the whole infrastructure for it - two brick factories, one ceramic workshop and a great number of other facilities that employed craftsmen from all over the region. Chernivtsi has a lot of other wonderful things to surprise you with. So if you decide to go on a trip to Ukraine don't forget to include Chernivtsi to your itinerary - you won't regret it! Stay safe and have a great day!

Welcome to my University, Chernivtsi National University.

Hello everyone everywhere! Yesterday despite the cloudy dreary weather we took a quick trip to Chernivtsi, the place where I spent 5 years of my life as a student. I wanted to show my husband my University and a little bit of old town which carries features of old Austrian style pretty much in every building of the old center. And, of course, I wanted to boast with the magnificent building of my University that was constructed under the supervision of Czech architect Josef Hlavka, who eventually became the richest Czech person in entire Austro Hungarian Empire and also is famous for working on another jewel of European architecture - Vienna Opera House. So here it is

Chernivtsi National University is the part of the UNESCO Heritage List. It is former Residence of Bukovyna and Dalmatia Metropolitans and was the centre of the Bukovyna Orthodox Metropolis in the times of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. It consists of three monumental buildings that you can see on the photos — the metropolitan’s building, the seminary and the monastery — and an arboretum. The metropolitan’s building once used to be the living quarters, as well as administrative premises and assembly rooms. It represents a remarkable combination of classical architectural styles as well as the art of local ethnic groups that the Bukovyna region is famous for. In order to construct this architectural jewel, the city had to create the whole infrastructure for it - two brick factories, one ceramic workshop and a great number of other facilities that employed craftsmen from all over the region. Chernivtsi has a lot of other wonderful things to surprise you with. So if you decide to go on a trip to Ukraine don't forget to include Chernivtsi to your itinerary - you won't regret it! Stay safe and have a great day!

Zalishchyky tragedy. Ukraine's thorny way to independence

Hello everyone everywhere! Today I want to tell you a very serious and tragic story. I don't want my blog to be just entertaining reading but make people think and learn things about the world. My story will tell you about horrible times that my country had to go through on its way to independence. I bet all of you have heard about soviet intelligence service KGB. In all Hollywood action movies, you could see a confrontation between FBI agents and brick-like looking russians with a horrible accent. If there was a villain in a movie most likely he or she was a soviet KGB agent. I can tell you that such a choice was not accidental. The reason behind it was not just the fact of the Cold War. I will try to explain to you why and not bore you too much. To do it I will use a historical event that took place in the town where I have lived for more than 30 years. Soviet KGB was created in 1954, well, not literally created but renamed into KGB. This agency is a successor of such organizations as Cheka (Bolshevik security agency, formed to identify and eradicate counter-revolutionary activity), OGPU (or secret police), NKVD (The People's Commissariat for Internal Affairs, the interior ministry of the soviet union) and MGB (ministry of state affairs). All of the above-mentioned organizations and ministries were created to control behavior of soviet people inside the soviet union and to spy after political leaders in other countries. When I say "to control behavior of soviet citizens" I mean the application of all thinkable and unthinkable methods one can imagine. The thing is that after the revolution of 1917 and the fall of the Russian Empire a lot of countries that were forcibly united under the russian tsardom aspired to become independent and gain back their sovereignty. It comprised of Ukraine, Belarus, Moldova, Finland, the Caucasus (Armenia, Azerbaijan, Georgia), Central Asia (Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan), the Baltic Republics (Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia), and significant parts of Poland and Turkey. All of them dreamt about independence and Ukraine was not an exception. However, the Bolsheviks that overthrown the tsar Nicolas II did not plan to let all these countries go and build their states. On the contrary, they strengthened their grip by creating all these above-mentioned organizations to control and punish those who had different views and beliefs. Ukraine had always fought for its independence, but, unfortunately, either our oppressors were stronger or our allies were cowards and would give up on us. As a result, thousands of Ukrainians ended up in prisons and were either executed or repressed to remote areas of Siberia. One of many tragedies that happened right before World War II flooded the European continent unfolded in the town Zalishchyky. Right before Stalin understood that Hitler was not going to stick to any of their agreements and the soviet-nazi war was about to break out the prisons all over the soviet union were overcrowded with political activists. As of the beginning of June 1941, there were 72 768 prisoners on the premises that were meant for 30 753 detainees. The majority of prisoners in Western Ukraine were people that participated in the movement for liberation and independence and were captured by the red army during raids in the 1939-1940s. Since the soviet authorities were in a rush in June 1941 all prisoners were supposed to be divided into two big groups - those who were supposed to be executed and those who were subject to repressions. 23 236 people were meant to be transported to GULAG camps (the Soviet network of forced labor camps) but the soviets didn't have 778 cargo rail cars and the lightening-fast offensive of the German army turned all this operation into chaos. The "evacuation" of the detainees was fulfilled only in a handful of towns and the majority of prisoners never made it to their destination. The town of Zalishchyky sits on the bank of the river Dnister. Due to the landscape of the canyon both bridges across the river a pretty tall constructions. The railway bridge looks really impressive.

At the beginning of July 1941, this bridge was destroyed by the soviets in fear of quickly approaching German troops. And then to both edges were brought cargo rail cars, 14 on each side with 50-70 prisoners in each of them. They were mostly young people from Bukovyna, Lviv, Ternopil and Ivano-Frankivsk regions. The NKVD officers doused the cars with petrol, set them on fire and pushed them off the ruined bridge ends. Dnister rapids made it impossible for anyone to survive. In Moldovan town of Vadul lui Vodă, miles down the stream, local inhabitants collected bodies of the assassinated whose hands were tied behind with wire. There is a mass grave that commemorates the people and the events of those horrible times. Today, we have our independence back and we can freely talk about the events of the past. People of my town try to remember about those events and crimes of the soviet regime.

A sign pointing in the direction of the commemoration spot for the victims of Zalishchyky tragedy

The cross to commemorate the victims. Every year a special memorial service takes place next to it.

Events like this should always be in human memory because if we remember about them there is chance we will try to prevent them in our future. Stay safe!

How we were making cheese

Hello everyone everywhere! How's your weekend? It's freezing cold here, the temperature dropped to 10.4F and it's windy which makes everything even worse. Days like this are good for sitting at home and cooking something tasty. One of our recent culinary experiments was making cheese! Yes, you read it right - cheese. I don't mean cottage cheese which is relatively easy to make, but that other one )) We decided to start with making string cheese since "soft cheeses" are a bit easier to start with rather than hard cheeses that have to age for a while. As you might know to make any kind of cheese you need to get milk and regular store milk won't work. So on Saturday morning my husband and I went to the local farmer's market and bought 4 liters (1 gallon) of milk and rushed home to pasteurize it and to start the whole process. Prior to it, I ordered a cheese starter culture because without it nothing can be done. Pasteurizing is a very "fun" process. You need to bring milk to 78 degrees Celsius (172F) and then quickly cool it down to 35 C (95F). To not overheat milk we had a kitchen thermometer and followed the temperature on it. Once we did it the next step was to ass the starter and let it the milk sit for 45 minutes. At first, it looked like nothing is happening, but then

That's how you know that you pasteurized the milk the right way because the "cheese body" formed and now you are one step closer to making your own cheese. So the next step was to break the cheese body into cheese grain:

Next we drained our cheese grain and let it cool down in a cheese shaping cup

After 2 hours our "string cheese" was ready for the next stage. In order to shape it into a smooth looking head of cheese, we had to bring water to boil in a pot and put our "rough cheese head" into the hot water and "knead" it with a wooden spoon. When the water cooled down a bit I was able to knead it with my hands. It didn't come out perfect but when the cheese was put back into the cheese forming cup it "finished shaping itself" while cooling down.

We put it into the fridge and the next day went through the final stage - kept cheese head in the salty water for 3 hours. THE END!!! ))) It came out great and the best part is that we made it ourselves! The next stage will be to make feta cheese and then we hope to move to more complicated aged cheeses! Hope you will like my story and it will inspire you to do something you've always wanted to try but hesitated. Till next time! Stay safe!