Ukraine and Ukrainians: March 2019

Hello to the World! The planet Earth is speaking )) I've always admired airplanes and space crafts, therefore, the recent launches inspired me to write about all this awesomeness that is going in the world of engines and launching pads.
When I was little my grandparents (my father's parents) used to make dumplings with meat. Funny, right? I started with rockets and now I'm writing about dumplings )) So, here is why: as a little girl I used to call dumplings with meat "cosmonauts" (I still don't know why the whole world calls space travelers "astronauts" and in soviet union we called them "cosmonauts", I guess it had something to do with the soviet ideology opposing that capitalism, as always). Back to my fantasies from childhood: imagine meat dumplings that you buy from Chinese places, then imagine that before they are cooked you take one of its tips and connect it with the other tip, in result you will get something round shaped. That's exactly what I called the "cosmonauts" and when my grandparents would ask me what I wanted to have for lunch or dinner I would say "cosmonauts". The first time they had heard it from me they were completely puzzled and had no idea what I was talking about. They even had to call my parents and ask them what they were supposed to cook! Now when I look back I still try to understand why on earth was I calling those dumplings (which are called by russians "pelmeni") as "cosmonauts". I can see the resemblance with the UFO saucer but back then as a little kid I knew nothing about the UFO or aliens, nor there was the slightest chance that I heard about it from the TV since the soviet television never had TV shows mentioning such things. So my cosmonaut dumplings remain a complete mystery even to myself. But what I am definitely sure of is my fascination with the astronomy and how things work in our universe. I cannot say that I pay attention to everything that's going on in the aerospace industry or that I have extended knowledge of astronomy, however, I believe that out of all achievements of humanity the exploration of the space is the most impressive and definitely speaks about us in a favorable way.

Unfortunately, I was not lucky to have a good teacher of astronomy at school. The lady that taught us managed to make this subject extremely boring. The only time that I had fun during her lessons was the presentation of my report about radiolocation systems. It was fun because I wrote this report together with my father who used to serve in soviet army at a radar station in Kazakhstan at the end of 1970s. So he knew the matter from inside out and helped me to wrap my head around all the endless technical details. Only once at school, I learned something related to the space exploration that I remembered for the rest of my life. It was the name of Kostiantyn Tsiolkovskyi. I bet you haven't heard his name and if to look him up in the Wikipedia I just want to sit and cry because he is represented there as a russian and soviet scientist. I can agree with the last statement, he did live in the times of soviet union and even was rewarded some kind of scholarship from the government, but he never in his lifetime considered himself to be russian. He was a very proud Ukrainian descending from a very old Ukrainian family that went with its roots to the times of famous Ukrainian Cossacks. The significance of his figure to modern science can't be overstated: together with the French Robert Esnault-Pelterie, the German-Romanian Hermann Oberth and the American Robert H. Goddard he is considered to be one of the founding fathers of modern rocket building and astronautics. As early as in 1896 he started working on his fundamental book "The exploration of the outer space with the help of a jet engine". So that you could embrace the scale of his work the first jet engine patent was registered only in 1930 and the first launch didn't take place till 1941. In addition to all the greatness of Tsialkovskyi genius, you have to remember that back in his time there were not aeronautic schools or centers where you could study at least some basics of this field. So everything he wrote in his book came from his great mind and imagination. He was really living proof of what Einstein would say decades later: "Imagination is more important than knowledge. For knowledge is limited, whereas imagination embraces the entire world, stimulating progress, giving birth to evolution." Of course, Tsialkovskyi's works were not solely based on his imagination, they were the result of profound intelligence and ability to think way further than the boundaries set by the times he lived in. Just like the genius Leonardo da Vinci or Nicolaus Copernicus. Unfortunately, the name of Kostiantyn Tsialkovskyi was not very often mentioned in the school textbooks as you would assume it should, and his name I've heard from my physics teacher who tried to promote Ukrainian scientists to us, young citizens of independent Ukraine. I went to school in the times that were on the edge between our soviet past and our Ukrainian future. All the textbooks were re-published versions from soviet times when everything and everyone was "collective" property of the "great" soviet state. Individuality and personal achievements were not to be mentioned or praised.

Another great Ukrainian headed the soviet Space Race exploration and was appropriated by soviet union completely. His name is more often mentioned and is definitely more recognizable all over the world - Serhiy Koroliov (or Sergei Korolev as you will find it spelled in the Wikipedia). He was the guy that made sure Yuriy Gagarin would get to the Earth's orbit and would safely make it back. Of course, Gagarin's success outshined the figure of Koroliov who kind of remained in shadow. You would assume that his genius mind served him as a protective shield from all the craziness of the soviet union times and he definitely had a relaxed and prosperous lifestyle. Well, it wasn't so. The promising and extremely successful young scientist was arrested during the wave of political repressions initiated by Stalin and his gang. Koroliov was sent to Kolyma (a region located in the Russian Far East, bounded by the East Siberian Sea and the Arctic Ocean) to work at the gold mines together with other aircraft engineers. Due to people that knew his talent and skills he stayed there for two years only and was returned back to Moscow where together with other fellow-engineers he started to work in an engineering bureau-prison till he was released in 1944. They worked in the bureau for an enormous amount of hours every week and were more slaves than anything else. But they were lucky to be alive. Stalin's repressions took the lives of tens of millions of people from all possible social layers. My great grandmother's brother was shot dead for the fact my great great grandfather was a miller and had in his property a patch of land and a house on it. Due to amazing work capacity and almost fanatic obsession with engineering tasks Koroliov succeeded not just in airplane building but also sending the first satellite to the Earth's orbit, I bet you do remember Sputnik. Then there was the launch of the second satellite and eventually the launch of the first manned rocket.

The rest of the story you know: soviet union and the USA were literally going neck to neck in space exploration race until the USA landed on the Moon. That was definite and undoubtful victory and though I was born in the soviet union I am happy that the US was able to do it first and didn't leave any chances to the USSR. It was a victory of a free and passionate nation that worked together driven by an idea and vision. Both Tsyalkovskyi and Koroliov were driven by the same powers, I am more than sure and if in some parallel universe they were free and independent citizens their results would be even more staggering. But history has a weird sense of humor and a human being is able to survive in unthinkable conditions. I will be always proud of those Ukrainians that dedicated their lives to what they believed would change and shape this world. And their contribution definitely had this impact.

So nowadays, every time I hear that this or that space exploration project has used or is using Ukrainian designed engines or cooperates with Ukrainian engineers just like the Firefly Aerospace I feel extremely proud. I know that even more projects are ahead and my fellow-citizens will have many chances to prove that we are an intelligent and skillful nation that remembers and tries to multiply the achievements of Tsyalkovskyi and Koroliov.

Last year I had an incredible opportunity to visit Cape Canaveral. I can't explain to you what I felt when I walked in the Rocket Garden or when I walked into Appolo Saturn V Center and saw the rocket engines hanging above my head. I can use the whole Thesaurus and write every single synonym to words like "great", "breathtaking", and "unbelievable" but it won't be enough. There are only two people on this whole planet that I really envy, one of them is already unfortunately dead, his name is Neil Armstrong, the other one has brilliant future and amazing opportunities and his name is Elon Musk.

To round it up I have one tiny request to those who did read up to here: Never ever take for the granted achievement of your nation. Whether it's something small (in your opinion) like to open your fridge and grab a cold bottle of water or something great like sitting across the bay and watching a rocket soaring into the skies, all these things are the result of somebody's hard work and a ton of sacrifices.

Have a wonderful day and don't forget to look into the skies whether it's day or night and behave!

Sincerely yours!

Hello everyone everywhere! How are you doing? Is spring in the air already where you live or it's still windy-snowy landscape outside? I was looking around the other day and a thought nested in my head: we all know that there are four seasons in the year, but do we know what people do during these seasons in other countries? Of course, some of you will right away say: Sure, I do know - Japanese stare at Sakura in spring, or Australians surf all the year round and have winter when all normal people have summer, or Chinese work at their rice fields all the time. Personally for me, it was very surprising to learn that Floridians pick strawberries in March and if you plant anything outside later than February it will most likely burn down in May or will get eaten by bugs and not give any harvest. The only plant that managed to survive in my small kitchen garden through all the summer was basil. After this experiment, I came to the conclusion that things I would do during spring in Ukraine are not very applicable somewhere like Florida, for example. But then the question still remains: will someone from Sweden or Canada or Puerto Rico do the things similar to what we do in Ukraine? And I mean not just gardening, but I mean things on a bigger scale. That is why I decided to write about the variety of things Ukrainians do during spring and believe me - we do A LOT!!!
So first and foremost somewhere from the middle of February, everybody starts to moan in social networks that winter is too long and they start a countdown to spring (just nine months prior to that everyone was moaning when would summer heat kick in, then half a year back everyone was suffering from summer heat and dreaming about the pleasant warmth that fall brings). Human nature is a complex of contradictions and in order to learn patience and endurance, our civilization was "planted" on a planet with four seasons ))) The first week of spring in Ukraine passes by in arguments "to celebrate or not celebrate the 8th of March, International Women's Day". What for to have an argument like that you might wonder? Or maybe you might even think "Wow, there is such day on the calendar?" Well, we have a complicated relationship with this day. At the beginning of the 20th century, this day was suggested to become the symbol of women's fight for their rights and then it was used by first soviet political leaders as a day to celebrate womanhood. Years later it evolved into a bit creepy celebration that was imposed on men in former soviet republics like blackmail from the side of women: Better you give me a good present for the 8th of March or I will make your existence unbearable. My childhood memories about this holiday are mostly connected with my dad coming home with tulips and having festive dinner with our neighbors next door that are our family friends. At school, we were greeting our female teachers and my classmates-boys were giving girls some awkward presents. I liked to have a somewhat provocative lesson with my students the day before the 8th of March where they would have some psychological tests on "Men vs Women types of behavior" just to have a good laugh afterward when the results would show that in some situations there is not much difference between us. The best thing about the 8th of March is that it's a day off and if it falls on Friday then you are lucky to have a long weekend.
After the flower and perfume apocalypse on the 8th of March is over, those who survived it start thinking about Easter! Sometimes there is not too much time between those two dates but the amount of things that have to be squeezed in is incredible. Of course, if you live in an apartment you don't need to worry much: you will just have to scrub clean all the corners of it but in comparison to a small homestead house, believe me, it's nothing. In case you or your family or your parents/grandparents live in a house, get ready for the fun! It is pretty traditional to clean all your house after winter pretty thoroughly: all the windows, all the curtains, all the rugs, and carpets have to be washed and cleaned, all the winter clothing and shoes have to be put away (unless it's still cold outside), the most diligent house owners very often will also refresh paint on window panes, paint the walls and floors, and do a lot of cleaning outside the house in the yard: the fences will be painted and the pavements cleaned, the flower beds deweeded. On top of all the house upkeeping work, this period of spring is very intensive on gardening work. A lot of Ukrainian families that reside in their own houses live off the land next to their home. When the soil gets warm enough a lot of seeds go into it. My grandparents on both sides did a ton of gardening before Easter. I remember long wooden boxes with young plants of tomatoes, bell peppers, cucumbers and cabbage sitting in the veranda of my grandfather's house. As soon as it got warm enough outside all that green treasure was moved to the garden beds and was planted in our kitchen garden in addition to carrots, onions, parsley, dill, beets, peas, lettuce, garlic and potatoes that would go right into the soil. My grandfather and I had a tradition of planting potatoes together. He says that it grows extremely well after my hands )) That's why it is believed that I am the greenest thumb in my family. As you might know, planting all that variety is just the first stage lasting all spring and snowballing a lot of other gardening activities that will last till fall when the harvest will be collected. Very often a lot of those described above things involve some kind of bonus or as I call it "fresh air sham" especially if parents living in a rural area want to lure their urban kids to come and help with gardening. The sham usually involves promises of barbeque and sitting around a fire pit after all the tasks are fulfilled. If this type of bait does not work, the kids are promised a fair share of the harvest in fall and other food supplies during winter time.
So the biggest celebrations throughout the whole spring period are the 8th of March, Easter (with changeable date) and the 1st and 2nd of May, the Labor day - leftovers from the soviet union times. The Labor day is greatly enjoyed because very often it provides an option of small vacation if connected to weekend days. And that's another time when parents try to lure their urban kids to help with different field works.
If the astronauts from the ISS took a careful look on Ukraine during the spring period from the Earth orbit, I am more than sure they would see something like we, regular land walking people, see when looking on an ant hillock: a bunch of very busy looking creatures darting back and forth around their homes and in their gardens.
What are you doing during springtime in your country? How much time do you spend outside and do you enjoy it?

As s my favorite actor Robin Williams used to say: Spring is nature's way of saying: Let's party!
And behave!

Sincerely yours.