Hello the world and everyone! Today I'm going to finish what I've started and tell you about life in a small town and a village. When I look back on my childhood I tend to think that it was a happy one. As I've mentioned before I was born in Volodymyr-Volynskyi, however, I grew up in a different town. My father is an architect and during soviet union times you could be transferred to work to any town, city, republic (there were 15 of them). He was pretty lucky with the places he was assigned to and when I was about three years old he was sent to be a regional architect (it meant he was assigned to work in city hall and be responsible for the whole region) to a small town of Zalishchyky, in western Ukraine. Zalishchyky is actually a very beautiful small town due to its location on the bank of the river Dnister, the second biggest river in Ukraine. The population is around 10 000 people. Isn't it wonderful? Only 10 thousand people!!!! The only problem I always had with growing in a small town like that is that everyone knows everything about everyone!!!!! Literally!!!! On the one hand, it's good because people tend to behave more consciously since the fear of "What the people will say?" is pretty intimidating. Though there are always those unique ones that behave like jerks and worry about nothing. On the other hand, if you are a kid and you misbehave get ready that your parents will learn about it pretty quickly. I had tiny chances to behave badly since my mom is a teacher and it automatically put me under microscope-like surveillance of all teachers that taught me. If she wanted she could know about my school day before I even got home from school, but I have to confess that she never used it against me. At the same time living in a small town like that puts you into a network of 10 thousand people and in case you need to solve some issue within a couple days you will find somebody who can help you out. Though once we had a weird and somewhat funny situation when we came back from summer holidays and our neighbors (we lived in a block of apartments) looked at us with very big eyes. As it turned out somebody spread a rumor that we moved out of our apartment and sold it. The rumor was extremely detailed: it said where we moved to, what jobs my parents got, according to it I entered a university even (though I had to study in school one more year). My mom and I literally ran up the third floor to check if we still can use our key to open the apartment door ))) That's what happens if you live in a small town and happen to leave for two months. However, the quantity of cool things about the small town life is endless: it is clean and green, it is safe, you can easily get fresh and clean food from local people that come to the farmer's market, you can go hiking or biking, mushroom picking, star gazing, leaves collecting and lots of other fun outdoor activities. Zalishchyky is located in an extremely beautiful area where the Dnister river forms a horseshoe and the town is sitting on a half-island. The view that opens from the opposite bank on the town is breathtaking. In case you get tired of calmness of a small town you can always take a trip to bigger towns of Chernivtsi, Ivano-Frankivsk or Ternopil. My personal favorite is Chernivtsi: it's just one hour away, it has gorgeous architecture, a big number of cafes, coffee shops and restaurants, and it's the place where my university is located. If you are looking for some more extreme getaway experience, well, the Ukrainian Carpathians are just 2.5 hours away.
Some other features of a small town that have to be taken into consideration are mostly culture related. Ukraine is a pretty traditional country, but you won't feel it profoundly until you come to a small community. People in Zalishchyky are mostly very religious: you will see crowds of people on Sunday mornings heading to a church. You will also notice the agility with which people prepare to big religious holidays like Easter and Christmas, not to mention a whole number of other celebrations that are of great importance. You will also notice that people work a lot in their gardens and kitchen gardens as well as on small fields outside the town. As I've mentioned before, people in Ukraine are quite self-reliant, we had to go through many bad times and therefore we prefer to grow what we eat and to eat what we grow )) You would wonder how people get around? Out of all public transport that you can find in a big city, small towns have not a big variety: there is a bus that mostly cruises along the main road a couple of times a day, mostly in the morning when kids go to school and in the afternoon when the school day is over. The majority of people walk or use own cars. Yes, in small towns and villages you will do a lot of walking and it will happen in any weather. For instance, across the road from the building where live my parents there is a great park. It was part of my route to school for 11 years: we walked through the park alley that would merge into one of the side streets with old houses. My dad and I had our special side street route that would go along the hill that mounts over the canyon with the river at the bottom. The distance to my school is about 1.8 miles. I covered that distance two times a day. That's where I spent over 11 years of my life: a lot of nature, quiet, fresh air, no worries, and almost no problems.
I have never spent a lot of time in a village. My father's mother moved to a village after she retired. My grandfather inherited a house after his parents in a village Skomorokhy, not far from a town Sokal in Lviv region. I used to spend there a couple of weeks each year. The population equals 893 people, and I can confidently state that half the village are my relatives! I dream to come there one day with a drone and take a couple of shots from the bird's eye view to catch the colorful blanket of patched fields all over the village. People mostly are involved in farming. My grandmother used to have goats, pigs, rabbits, turkeys, chickens, ducks, and geese. She also cultivated a quite sizable field and had a great garden with dense bushes of raspberry. I really enjoyed taking goats to grease to the bank of the river. They are very funny and sociable animals. Every morning my breakfast consisted of a quart of goat milk that was still warm. Since farm animals are really well taken care of, we don't pasteurize milk produced by them, unless we buy it from other homesteads. In such a case, we boil it before consuming it. The village has a very simple infrastructure: a shop, a library, a church, a school (there also used to be a kindergarten, but I don't know if it still exists), a doctor's office, a cemetery, and a village administration. The main road is paved, most of the side roads are dirt ones. The church is the center of village life and the priest is the most respected person. Children still go to sing carols on Christmas and when you are asked your family name get ready to hear at least half of your family tree and the description where stands your house (mind, not the address, but where your house stands, who your neighbors are and what color your gate is). Such villages are peace and harmony: no loud music, no noises, only cackling of geese and mooing of cows. You won't find a lot of entertainment, but this calmness is entertaining enough. In order to get to a town nearby, you will have to learn a schedule of buses that cruise between villages. It's a bit complicated but doable.
As you can see life in Ukraine can be very versatile and enjoyable. Of course, there are positive and negative moments, but it's just like everywhere else. I can definitely tell you from my own experience that the grass is always greener on the other side and we tend to value things when we lose them or have no access to them for a long time. With age, simplicity turns into an asset, and silence turns into a real gem. I value where I am now, but I can definitely tell you that I know where I will be really happy because I've been there before and I've been happy there.
Look around you and try to appreciate what you have here and now! Have a great time of the day and behave!
Truly Yours.
As always a couple of photos. Today's blog photos were all taken by my father. All rights reserved.
Christmas service in the village Skomorokhy
View on Zalishchyky on a foggy morning
View on the Dnister river.
Skomorokhy church in the distance
Rafting on the river Dnister.
Some other features of a small town that have to be taken into consideration are mostly culture related. Ukraine is a pretty traditional country, but you won't feel it profoundly until you come to a small community. People in Zalishchyky are mostly very religious: you will see crowds of people on Sunday mornings heading to a church. You will also notice the agility with which people prepare to big religious holidays like Easter and Christmas, not to mention a whole number of other celebrations that are of great importance. You will also notice that people work a lot in their gardens and kitchen gardens as well as on small fields outside the town. As I've mentioned before, people in Ukraine are quite self-reliant, we had to go through many bad times and therefore we prefer to grow what we eat and to eat what we grow )) You would wonder how people get around? Out of all public transport that you can find in a big city, small towns have not a big variety: there is a bus that mostly cruises along the main road a couple of times a day, mostly in the morning when kids go to school and in the afternoon when the school day is over. The majority of people walk or use own cars. Yes, in small towns and villages you will do a lot of walking and it will happen in any weather. For instance, across the road from the building where live my parents there is a great park. It was part of my route to school for 11 years: we walked through the park alley that would merge into one of the side streets with old houses. My dad and I had our special side street route that would go along the hill that mounts over the canyon with the river at the bottom. The distance to my school is about 1.8 miles. I covered that distance two times a day. That's where I spent over 11 years of my life: a lot of nature, quiet, fresh air, no worries, and almost no problems.
I have never spent a lot of time in a village. My father's mother moved to a village after she retired. My grandfather inherited a house after his parents in a village Skomorokhy, not far from a town Sokal in Lviv region. I used to spend there a couple of weeks each year. The population equals 893 people, and I can confidently state that half the village are my relatives! I dream to come there one day with a drone and take a couple of shots from the bird's eye view to catch the colorful blanket of patched fields all over the village. People mostly are involved in farming. My grandmother used to have goats, pigs, rabbits, turkeys, chickens, ducks, and geese. She also cultivated a quite sizable field and had a great garden with dense bushes of raspberry. I really enjoyed taking goats to grease to the bank of the river. They are very funny and sociable animals. Every morning my breakfast consisted of a quart of goat milk that was still warm. Since farm animals are really well taken care of, we don't pasteurize milk produced by them, unless we buy it from other homesteads. In such a case, we boil it before consuming it. The village has a very simple infrastructure: a shop, a library, a church, a school (there also used to be a kindergarten, but I don't know if it still exists), a doctor's office, a cemetery, and a village administration. The main road is paved, most of the side roads are dirt ones. The church is the center of village life and the priest is the most respected person. Children still go to sing carols on Christmas and when you are asked your family name get ready to hear at least half of your family tree and the description where stands your house (mind, not the address, but where your house stands, who your neighbors are and what color your gate is). Such villages are peace and harmony: no loud music, no noises, only cackling of geese and mooing of cows. You won't find a lot of entertainment, but this calmness is entertaining enough. In order to get to a town nearby, you will have to learn a schedule of buses that cruise between villages. It's a bit complicated but doable.
As you can see life in Ukraine can be very versatile and enjoyable. Of course, there are positive and negative moments, but it's just like everywhere else. I can definitely tell you from my own experience that the grass is always greener on the other side and we tend to value things when we lose them or have no access to them for a long time. With age, simplicity turns into an asset, and silence turns into a real gem. I value where I am now, but I can definitely tell you that I know where I will be really happy because I've been there before and I've been happy there.
Look around you and try to appreciate what you have here and now! Have a great time of the day and behave!
Truly Yours.
As always a couple of photos. Today's blog photos were all taken by my father. All rights reserved.
Christmas service in the village Skomorokhy
View on Zalishchyky on a foggy morning
View on the Dnister river.
Skomorokhy church in the distance
Rafting on the river Dnister. 
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