Ukrainian Weather and Nature

Hello to everyone everywhere! I've never thought that one day I will be writing a geography-lesson-like post about weather and nature. But, living for a couple of years in a subtropical climate and talking to people that haven't traveled much to other parts of the country I've come to a conclusion that maybe it's not such a bad idea to write about something boring. And who knows, maybe my "boring" will be "interesting" for somebody. So, after having to answer such weird questions like: Don't you have alligators in Ukraine? Or, How does it feel to have enough snow to build a snowman? here I am, writing about weather and nature!
Ukraine has a temperate continental climate. What the heck is that??? Ha ha ha. I didn't know myself until I moved to a thin strip of land in between two big bodies of water. Yes, yes, I did study it at school but in child's head "a temperate continental climate" makes not that much sense. Now I am old and smart and I can easily explain to you what it stands for: Ukraine is located pretty far away into the mainland from our biggest weather influencer in the region - the Arctic Ocean and all other cold waters like the Baltic Sea or the North Sea. So the cold air from above those cold water still does reach us but doesn't define our weather 100%. We do have cold and snowy winters but with occasional snow breaks. Our winter usually starts at the end of November and lasts till the beginning of March. We can have some snow earlier into November, or it can occasionally snow in April, but a major amount of snow we receive in December, January, and February. Our summers are warm and nice, June can be rainy and chilly which is a bit disappointing since our May can be warm and sunny. July and August usually are definitely warm in a summer way. The recent tendency is to have a lot of very high-temperature days in August, I mean more than 100F. However, we don't have very high humidity and very often after a hot summer day comes a very comfortable warm night with some breeze. Springs and falls are pretty enjoyable with some amount of chilly and gloomy days. However, if we didn't have some grey days, would we really cherish the sunny ones? Since our climate is a moderate one, don't expect to see some very exotic plants in Ukraine. But then again, it all depends on what you call "exotic". As for me, for instance, it was always pretty unusual to see magnolias and yuccas blooming next to the entrance to my University every spring. For some reason, I thought that those plants don't like countries with "chilly" winters like Ukraine. The most exotic plants are growing in Crimea. They have some kind of palms unlike any other southern region of Ukraine.
The nature of Ukraine is awesome! We are not as big as the USA, for example, but you can still find a great variety of landscapes: rivers, lakes, ponds, forests, a desert, mountains, hills of different sizes, shapes and structure, canyons, quarries (I know they are not natural formations, but when they get filled with crystal clear water it looks marvelous), sand beaches, pebble beaches, rocks, rapids, caves and estuaries. The Carpathian mountains are a very cool place to visit any season. And if you are really into nature, I would definitely recommend you to hike there, whether it's winter or summer. My personal must-see list for the nearest future consists of such places:
- Stokhid river, a unique place in the north of Ukraine, a river that is considered to be a Ukrainian Amazon (I mean the river, not the company run by a bold guy) because it has so many arms that you can travel along on a canoe or kayak.
- The mountain Pip Ivan, the third tallest peak of the Ukrainian Carpathians. There are ruins of a meteorological and astronomical observatory called the White Elephant on top of it, and the views that open from its height are extraordinary.
- Buky canyon, an incredibly cool looking place with steep rocks forming a path for a river. It's not the Grand Canyon, of course, but as I've mentioned before the territory of Ukraine is much smaller than that of the USA (16 times smaller), so our natural wonders are like a smaller version of world-famous landmarks though they are still extremely beautiful and exciting.

So whether you are a city-person or a nature-person, or, maybe, a mix of both, you will be able to find something that will soothe your eye and give rest to your mind when you visit Ukraine or stay there for an extended period of time. As we say in Ukraine: the weather can be one's mother or one's stepmother, it all depends on your mindset!

Try to enjoy your every day and behave no matter where you are on this globe.

Sincerely yours!

All the photos except one are taken by me. All right reserved.

Zakarpattia, a region behind the Carpathian mountains bordering with Hungary and Slovakia

Zakarpattia, June

The Carpathian Mountains, winter 2019. This photo was taken by my friend and teacher Yaroslav Hrynyshyn

Winter in fall, unexpected snow in October.

Sunset near the river Desna

Golden fall, Kyiv

Fall

Yellow leaves in the snow.

Ukrainian Sense of Humour

Hey guys! How are things? Are you ready for spring? Enjoying your day? I hope you do, it's Sunday anyway. It took me a while to figure out what I want to write about next. There are so many things that are worth attention, sometimes I have a feeling that there are even too many things that I would like to tell you about. So today I made my choice and will tell you about the sense of humor! As Mr. Hawking, the famous physicist that spent most of life in a wheelchairб used to say: Keeping an active mind has been vital to my survival, as has been maintaining a sense of humor. What's so special about this human quality? In Ukraine, we like to say that the sense of humor is something that helps us survive. Just think about it, let's take only the 20th century: 1914 - World War I, 1917 - Revolution and we became the part of Soviet Union, 1939-1945 - World War II, I will omit artificial famines and other calamities created by soviet government during its almost 75-year existence, 1991 - the soviet union collapsed and we became independent, but I mean completely independent, which meant the state authorities had to figure out a lot of things about management of the country. While they were doing it we had literally nothing anywhere, I mean empty stores, no salaries, at some point we had no running water in homes and the electricity was switched off every day for a couple of hours, especially in winter. So it was really "fun" stuff. And yet I can't say that "these were the most horrible years in my life" because they weren't. And partially because we had each other and could laugh at some things making our days brighter. 
I can tell you for sure that Ukrainian sense of humor is somewhat different from let's say American sense of humor. The main and the biggest difference is jokes: Ukrainians like to tell anecdotes. You will often see people telling anecdotes to each other at a dinner or party or during a coffee break at work. You will say: Ha! Americans tell each other jokes too! Yes, they do. We have a guy at work that would walk in the door and say to me: Do you know that six is afraid because seven ate nine? And of course, it will take me a while to figure out what he means and not because I'm dumb, but because it's 4 o'clock in the morning, I haven't had my coffee yet and in addition to everything my native language is not English. So, yeah, it's funny of course, but not at once. At the same time if one of my ex-colleagues would enter the office in the morning (in Ukraine, I mean) most likely they would tell me something like this: An airplane crashed in the middle of a desert and only one guy survived. So he is walking through the desert in hope to find some people and suddenly sees a bottle laying around. He picks up the bottle, opens it with the hope that there is some water in it. But instead of water a djinn gets out of the bottle and says: You wish is my command, my lord! And the guy says: I want to go home! The Djinn takes him by the hand and starts walking with him in some direction. The guy is puzzled and speaks to him again: You didn't understand me correctly, Djinn, I want to go home and do it quickly! The Djinn still holds him by the hand and says: Well, then we will have to run! Are you laughing there??? I hope you do! It's a funny little anecdote, isn't it? We have much longer ones and sometimes they are so funny that it's even hard to keep the poker face while telling them. My mom and I have a couple of favorite ones that are very long and when we were telling them each other for the first time we were laughing to tears. Now we just use separate phrases from them to cheer up each other. Ukrainian anecdotes very often reflect our traditions, but they also reflect modern problems: Ukrainians like to joke about politics and politicians, other public and famous people, show-biz people and other "funny" guys. Some of our jokes are definitely bitter and some are pretty self-critical. We even have a city in Ukraine that is considered as the capital of humor. The city is Odesa, in the south of Ukraine, on the Black Sea shore. Every year they hold a big festival of humor and a great number of stand-up artists come to perform on this day. 
The 1st of April is also a pretty popular entertainment day in Ukraine. This is mostly a day of different hoaxes and now with the development of the Internet people just get online on social networks and make jokes and hoaxes. In my childhood, it was more entertaining since there was no Facebook or Twitter. Even my parents liked to hoax me. Once they tied a banana to my pot growing liana while I was taking my dog for a walk. When I was back both my parents looked very serious and told me that something pretty unusual had happened to my plant. I didn't believe them since I was aware that it was the 1st of April and I was sure that nothing could happen to my liana. But when I walked into my room a perfect yellow banana was hanging from my liana. For a moment I was speechless and puzzled until I noticed a vivid red thread holding banana on the liana stem. They were very proud of themselves! ))
Though the real festival of hoaxes is the St. Andrew's Day, which Ukrainians celebrate in December. Main traditions on this day are connected with fortune telling: young girls try to figure out the name of their future husband in many weird and funny ways, while young men go out late in the evening and do different naughty things. The most popular naughtiness is to take off the gates or wickets and hide them somewhere around the corner, to pile something or lean something against the house entrance door, to hide a yard bench or some other yard decorations. Once we found a broken metal bucket tied to the bumper of our car: good that my father walked around the car first thing in the morning, otherwise we would produce a lot of noise ))) The most ballsy hoaxers used to mount a wooden cart or wooden sled on top of a barn back in old times. The main condition for all those hoaxes is that they can be done only to homes of the families who have daughters that are not married yet. Otherwise, it's not legit! It was pretty funny the next day to go to school and to listen to all the stories about how the guys were almost caught by someone's father or how they were running away from a not very happy dog. Of course, this tradition is not very popular in big cities (I guess people would just call the police), but in a small town like the one I grew up in where people know each other, it's still a quite popular thing. 
And to finish my blog today and make you smile one more time (I hope) I will leave here one more anecdote:
A young man and an elderly woman are sitting next to each other on a train. The man is very hungry and when the woman opens her bag and takes out a big tasty looking sandwich he gets even more hungry and dares to ask her for a favor: Can you please give me a piece of your sandwich, ma'am? She looks at him and responds: Here is a two-liter bottle of water. Drink it first and then I will give you a piece of my sandwich. When he finished the water, she looks at him and asks: Are you ready for the sandwich? No, he replies, my stomach is full of water! You see, she says, you were not hungry! You were thirsty! 

According to Swiss scientists laughing eases stress, lowers blood pressure and can boost your immune system! Let's keep laughing and smiling, maybe one day this world will turn into a better place due to our positive attitude!

Have a great time of the day and behave!

Truly yours!

Give me one more smile!Aren't those piglets funny? I took this photo some time ago. I call it Curiosity. All rights reserved.

ONUKA - Misto (Official Music Video)

One of my favorite Ukrainian music bands. ONUKA. 

My personal fairy tale

Today I'm going to tell you a fairy tale. I mean it! Once upon a time, there lived a beautiful young lady. She had beautiful dark eyes and gorgeous long hair. He skin was the color of ivory and when she smiled two dimples appeared on her cheeks. She liked reading books and talking to her grandmother. One day her parents went to visit their friends in a town not far away, but that town was in the neighboring country. When they came back they brought with them a vinyl record but it was not for their daughter. The record belonged to a young man, that was the nephew of their friends. He forgot it at his aunt and uncle's house and when the young lady's parents came to visit them, they asked to grab the record and bring it to their home so that the nephew could come and pick it since the towns where lived the young lady's family and young man's family were not very far apart. One day the young man showed up on the threshold of the house to pick his record. The door opened the young lady. When he saw her, he understood that he had never seen anyone more beautiful and that his heart would never again belong to him. They fell in love, got married and lived happily ever since! And then I was born ))) The END )) No, not so quick! I have more to tell!
So, as you've guessed today's post will be dedicated to my parents. On the 16th of February, many years ago they got married and with this story, I want to congratulate them and to tell them how much I LOVE THEM and appreciate everything they've done and keep doing for me.
Many years ago they met precisely the way I described in the first paragraph, but there is a very cool prequel to their story. The thing is that the friends that my grandparents visited in a neighboring country (that is Poland) were not just family friends. That's where the story gets even more tangled up. My great grandmother, when she was a young lady had an admirer, who happened to live in a small town that now is located on the territory of Poland. He was very much in love with her, but she had met my great grandfather and had to reject the Polish guy. Despite being rejected, Andrew (that was the admirer's name) didn't give up on my great grandmother for good but became a good friend of the family. After some time he got married and had kids just like my great-grandparents. Both couples' kids became friends and when they grew up they still would visit each other when it was possible. Where's the tangled up part, you would ask? Well, here it is: Andrew and his children are my relatives from my father's side: Andrew's children and my grandmother (my father's mother) are second cousins, Andrew's grandchildren and my father are third cousins. So think for a moment: if Andrew hadn't been my great-grandmother's admirer, or they hadn't become good friends, or if my great-grandmother would marry him and not my great-grandfather I wouldn't be sitting on this sofa writing this story to share with you! Have you ever thought what chain of events led to your birth? How many people before you had to meet so that you would be able to sit on your sofa right now and read my story? Nuts! Isn't it?
Back to my parents. I definitely want to tell you a couple more things about these beautiful and magnificent people (I know my mom will read this line and roll her eyes), but they really are a very beautiful couple. To prove that I will attach a couple of photos at the end of today's story. To prove their magnificence I will have to tell you a bit about them as personalities.
My dad is an architect, a very good one. He has a great imagination and any complicated task makes him excited. On the other hand, he has some fine arts talents: he creates watercolors and takes great photos. He has also carpentry skills which helped him furnish our apartment in the times when there was no furniture available in the stores. He is also a great fairy tale reader. When I was little he would read to me to put me to sleep. Our favorite books were The Hobbit and Ronia the robber's daughter. It happened quite often that he would fall asleep while reading to me. When my mom would peep into my room to check on us I would whisper to her: Mom, I've already put dad to sleep. When I started going to school he would often walk me there and teach me the multiplication table, explain to me how the airplanes fly and how works hydro electro station. Later on, when I started going to music school he would sit in the car and wait for me from my lessons listening to the radio in any weather.
My mom is a teacher of English. She was my teacher just for a couple of years, then I changed my school. Everyone thought that if she taught me she would boost my grades. Well... (and my mom will smile now) she would give me Cs and Ds for homework and then I would come home and complain to my dad about that )) BUT! She is a terrific teacher and a lot of her students come back to tell her how much she helped them. While she worked at school she never taught only English, she was always trying to teach more and show her students that critical thinking is crucial. She is a great cook and a real creator of coziness. Our apartment is a place everyone wants to come back to. She makes the best marble cake which we call Babka-Latsiatka. She knows old family recipes from my great grandmother and from her aunt. She always helped me out with essays at school and would sit next to me while I practiced my piano lessons. She has a perfect taste for dresses and has the manners of a princess. She also keeps the whole family history in her head and likes watching good movies and then retell them to me.
Growing up in the 80s and 90s was not fun at all: the soviet union was about to collapse, the stores were empty, my parents were often not paid at work and it was not very clear what was waiting for us ahead. Despite all that I had a happy childhood: I had a lot of books, I had some cool toys and board games, and my parents tried to show me other places. We traveled to fortresses and castles, mountains and waterfalls, we had fun with friends. We even traveled to other countries which was not that easy to accomplish.
So I want to thank my parents again for bringing me up the way I am and for letting me be who I am. We are different but still we share a lot in common, we don't have to agree on everything but that would be boring if we did! They were always there for me and I hope I will be able to be there for them. LOVE YOU, MOM AND DAD! YOU ARE IN MY HEART! Have a great day today!

With all this said and done, I wish everyone a nice day and behave!

P.S. I also want to say HAPPY BIRTHDAY to my friend Mrs. Ellen and to wish her a lot of health and patience!


Oh, and here are the photos.

Family photo )) I finished the first grade!!!

One of my father's watercolors, he gave it to me for one of my birthdays. A view from my window. 

My mom and their doggy exchanging loving glances

My dad setting up his camera.

Ukrainian hospitality and the rule of three days

Hello to the World! How is everyone doing? Is it warm/cold/humid/dry/sunny/windy/rainy/foggy in your part of the world? Human nature is always demanding something we don't have, do you agree? When it's cold we want warmth, when it warm we want it to be a bit cooler and so on. It can be an endless list. Today I was asked by an acquaintance of mine where did I like to be the best. Frankly speaking, this question puzzled me for a moment and I understood that while traveling we try to absorb so many things around us and of course we enjoy everything we see or experience. But how deep goes this "enjoyment"? How long does it stay with us? At this point, I came up to a conclusion that we are able to understand whether we liked some place only afterward and not just in a form of longing to come back there but in a more rational and profound way: we need time for all emotions to calm down and all thoughts to settle down. Has it ever happened to you that you didn't like some place and then after some time passed you actually started liking it and wished to come back there? Well, I can guarantee you that it will never happen to you if you visit Ukraine! You will like everything and at once )) Of course, I am kidding )) Though I am more than sure you will be conquered by Ukrainian hospitality! I cannot promise that you will experience it right in the airport since people that work in such places are usually not the most cheerful ones, but if you happen to stay with a family of Ukrainian friends, you will definitely feel like a family member from the very beginning of your visit. So you might think: "Why has she decided to write about something that can be put into one sentence "you will feel like a family member when visiting Ukrainian friends"? Because there is more to it than just "family member experience", in addition, do you know what it means to be treated like a family member in Ukraine? Exactly! That's a matter to be studied in a more detailed way! To intrigue you even more I will keep an explanation of the "three days rule" for later into today's story.
So, let's begin. In order to be a happy guest, you will need to know a couple of things about Ukrainian ........ TA DAAAH! TRADITIONS! Of course if you stay in a hotel you will miss all the fun in the world! Just think about it, if you were invited by a Ukrainian family to stay in their home, most likely they started preparing for your visit way ahead of your actual arrival. The cleaning starts at least a week before, it's in case they haven't started some kind of repair so that a house or an apartment looks great. Your room, most likely, will be cleaned at least to times, then I will be locked and nobody will be allowed to enter it until your arrival. All the bed sheets and towels will be carefully selected for you, thoroughly washed and ironed. The menu will be composed for each day of your stay, of course with some variations on the way, but if your friends already know what your preferences are they will definitely try to include them in the menu. Nuts, right? I told you! We take guests very seriously! I cannot guarantee you that all families are the same, people are hospitable in different ways but you will definitely be surrounded by attention and warmth. So where are the traditions you might wonder? Here they are! The first traditional and definitely unusual thing for any foreigner is taking off your shoes when you cross the home's threshold. I don't know where it comes from, I know that in the States people walk in their homes in whatever shoes they walk outside. When you enter a Ukrainian home you will notice "outside" footwear sitting somewhere near the door, inside, of course. I always wondered whether it's something we borrowed from Japanese )) On the other hand, you will notice that most homes have some pretty fancy carpets on the floors, so I guess it's the way to keep them clean. So when you will be offered slippers don't be surprised, we walk in them in our homes. We also have what we call "a guest pair of slippers", they are not used by anyone but guests. 

I will start a new paragraph to tell you about food traditions. I've told you before that Ukrainians cook from a scratch and Ukrainian women are really good cooks. I know that some foreigners get overwhelmed when they see a Ukrainian table set for guest welcoming dinner. I promise you that the variety and quantity of dishes will surprise you. BUT! Not all dishes will be familiar to you. All kinds of meat, mashed potatoes, vegetable salads I will omit in my description, but I will focus on things that visually can be perceived as strange or very unusual. I've been asked by my foreign friends not once: I was offered something that looked like jello but had some lumps inside that looked like meat with parsley leaves on top. Well, my dear friends, you are quite right! It really was jellied meat with lumps of meat inside. It is a very traditional and popular dish in Ukraine. I know that in many countries jello is usually a dessert, in Ukraine it can be both. Moreover, we also have jellied fish! I never had it myself but I suppose it can be ok. Together with jellied meat, you will be offered horseradish and beetroot, the go really well together. Another dish that might look strange to you is blood sausage. Here I have to make another confession: I have never ever had it in my life, though it's very very traditional dish. In my family, my mom is the only person eating it. My dad and I stay away from this dish ))) So I can say that it's some kind of genetic imperception that I inherited from my dad ))) You will also notice on the table a couple of salads that are heavily dressed with mayonnaise. At the same time if you are from the States they will not look very strange to you since you have somewhat similar stuff like Potato salad or Macaroni salad. The difference would be the number and variety of ingredients. For instance, there is a salad that is known abroad as Russian salad. It consists of boiled eggs, meat (chicken or ham), boiled potato, pickled cucumber, canned green peas, onion, boiled carrot, some recipes also include grated fresh apple and of course some parsley. We like to joke that this salad is a soviet invention or, if to be accurate, it's a remake of a famous French classy recipe invented by French chef Mr. Olivier and consisted of grouse, veal tongue, caviar, lettuce, crayfish tails, capers, and smoked duck, the original Olivier dressing was a type of mayonnaise, made with French wine vinegar, mustard, and Provençal olive oil. Nothing in common with the version I described, right? Well, most of the ingredients from the original recipe were impossible to buy in soviet stores, so people came up with their substitutes if it would be correct to call them like that. Even in this very simplified version, this salad was still prepared mostly for very big celebrations like New Year dinner or family member birthday since even simplified ingredients were not that accessible in the stores. Nowadays, Russian salad or the way we call it Olivier salad is more common on our tables. I know that it's quite impossible to taste all the dishes you will see in front of you, but make sure that you left some room for a dessert. Here you can't go wrong at all )) So get ready! BUT! (again I'm trying to freak you out a bit) I know it's hard to do but keep in mind it's very important: try not to leave food on your plate. I mean, it's not like you have to swallow even chicken bones. No, no, no! But leaving half a piece of anything, or, what's the worst, not finishing your bread is not good. It's not like anyone will say anything to you, but I'm sure you will notice that most plates will have no food left on them. We went through many rough moments in our history, we went through two artificially created famines and the times when food stores had mostly water and pickled cucumbers on shelves. I guess for a couple of generations ahead it will be at the back of our heads even though today we have everything we can possibly think of in our stores. Bread has a peculiar place in our homes. Even if we have a surplus of it, we will make sure that it utilized this way or another. For instance, it will be dried out and turned into bread crumbs and used for cooking, or you will dry it out and give it to someone who keeps chickens, or you will put those crumbs into a bird feeder in winter. My great-grandmother would collect the crumbs from the table after lunch or dinner and make sure we give it to our chickens. I've heard from my peers that their grandparents would teach them that throwing bread away is a sin and it all comes from the experience of having nothing to eat during war times. I think that our hospitality reaches back to the times we had nothing at all but being always ready to share with others whatever we had. 

What else to expect? Well, be ready to get some kind of attention from local people, especially if you came to visit friends in a small town or village. In big cities, people are busier and occupied with their own business. I remember when our friends from Germany came to visit us for the first time, all our neighbors were staring at them from their balconies (we live in a block of apartments as I've mentioned before) while they were unpacking their car. Later on, our friends asked us: Are all those people your relatives? They seemed very interested in us! We had to explain that it's one of the methods of staying informed in a small community: hanging out on your balcony. This way you can keep an eye on your kids playing in the yard, learn all news, enjoy fresh air, learn about prices in the neighborhood store and many other useful things. 

If you were invited to become a part of some big celebration like a wedding, for example, you are double lucky! You might get involved in some pretty cool ceremonies and everyone at the party will know that you are THE foreign friend. I've been to a wedding where the most important guest was some relative from Canada. Everyone was informed about the Canadian guest at the stage of receiving the invitations. I don't really know why, but looked that the bride and the groom were very proud of this fact. 

And now.... drum roll, please!... It's time for the Rule of Three Days! We like to joke that when a family member or a very close friend come to visit you and stay for a while they are treated like guests only first three days. It means that you won't be involved into any kind of chores during this time but when the 72 hour period is over you'd better be ready: doing dishes, vacuuming, shopping, walking the dog, feeding the chickens and whatnots! I hope I just gave you a good idea of exploiting the guests that stay in your house for a long time. You can always tell them that it's a very old tradition you've inherited from unknown Ukrainian ancestors! There is no way they will be able to check that ))) Of course I am kidding!!! Nobody will show up in your room with a mop and dirty dishes on the morning of the fourth day! In my family, we usually joke like that when we visit my grandfather, but in this case, this rule does not work at all and we start doing all the chores from the first minute. All my friends know that when they visit me they can feel free and do whatever they want including cooking, doing dishes, cleaning, and other fun stuff )))) 

Frankly speaking, I had no idea that in English there is a saying about guests and three days: Guests, like fish, begin to smell after three days. Looks like this concept is pretty international )))

When all is said and done, I wish all of you a great time of the day and never smell like a three-day fish )) 

Behave!

P.S. As a bonus for your patience a couple of photos. Ukraine in different seasons. All photos were taken by me. All rights reserved.

Summer in Kyiv.

Autumn, also in Kyiv.

Winter, near Chernivtsi.

Spring, chestnuts in bloom, Kyiv.