Mysterious Places of Ukraine

Hello World! I have a story! Do you like spooky stories? Do you watch horror movies late at night and then you get scared to walk from your bedroom to the bathroom? Well, that's me! Sometimes I stay up and watch something scary and then I would jump in bed and wake my husband up ))
When I was a little girl we didn't have horror movies on TV, neither did we celebrate Halloween. When I tell somebody in the States that Halloween is a very recent thing for Ukraine they look at me with big eyes. In western Ukraine on the 1st of November, we have a commemoration of all departed which is called in Catholic church All Saints Day. There is no costumes, vampires or trick-or-treats on this day. But it doesn't mean that Ukrainians don't have scary stories or mysterious places with grim legends. My grandmother used to tell me a blood-chilling story that happened nearby the village she lived with her parents. During midnight Easter service in the church, the whole building with parishioners and priest fell underground. Nobody got saved. A couple of days later people found golden incense burner from that church in the stream that was coming out of local hills. Near the hole that formed on the place of the church, people could hear distant voices of prayers and church singing. But nobody was ever found. I remembered this story for my entire life and if the village where all this story took place was an easy trip to make I would definitely do it. Unfortunately, today this place is on the territory of Poland and most of the people that could remember that story or know where the church stood were resettled a long time ago. My grandma as a real teacher explained to me that most likely there was nothing superstitious about the church collapse. She believed that it simply stood in the place with very active underground waters and that in some point during the spring flood period they got very high and washed out too much soil underneath the building. She also thought that people were adding lies to their stories and most likely the church was empty. Otherwise, that would be too big of a tragedy for surrounding villages and there would definitely be more uproar. True or not this story is something I will always remember.
Since I used to travel a bit all around Ukraine and lived in a couple of different places, I always tried to learn more about their history. And believe me, each place had some interesting spooky stories. When I studied and lived in Chernivtsi I was mesmerized by a church not far from my apartment.

The official name of the church is St. Nicholas Church, but due to its twisted towers it has a nickname A Drunk Church. My mom told me that according to the legend the architect that built it walled up his disobedient daughters into the towers and while the mortar was still fresh, they were trying to release themselves and that's how the towers got twisted like that. Of course, it's just a legend and according to my father, who happens to be an architect, the towers are built "normally" and the twist is just an optical illusion. But the story is pretty cool as well as the church itself.

Another place that I always admired and almost believed the legends about it is a medieval castle not far from Chernivtsi, located in a small town Khotyn.

The fortress itself is simply amazing. It has a gorgeous inside yard, underground passages and back in the times it was under reconstruction I was lucky to get into a couple of towers. The views are breathtaking. But every time I would come to the fortress, whether it was in summer, spring or fall I would see one and the same thing on the side of it.

This big wet spot is always there. It never dried out no matter what season it is. During one of the excursions, I heard a legend from the guide that explained its origin. Guess what! Another crazy architect walled up his disobedient daughter that fell in love with some peasant with no money or name and wanter to marry him. So instead of a wedding, she ended up being walled up and keeps crying till today making one of the walls wet. Don't start thinking that Ukraine is someplace of unhappy women that at any occasion get walled up! It's not true!!! I promise! However, strangely enough, the archaeologists couldn't figure out the reason why that wall is constantly wet. They had a theory about an underground spring but never could find it or were afraid to damage the fortress walls in the search of the answer.

Another stop we will make in Kyiv. I lived in this city for over 5 years and I can tell you it has a lot of interesting and mysterious places. Like any old city that went through a lot of turmoil, it collected everything it could from each epoch. Unfortunately, you will not find a big gorgeous castle in Kyiv. I believe many fortifications built there at different times were mostly wooden and therefore didn't survive till nowadays. However, in the 17th century when Ukraine, unfortunately, was part of the Russian Empire, it was decided to construct a gigantic fortress in Kyiv. By "gigantic" I mean huge, humongous, gigantesque!!!! And... they succeeded! If I'm not mistaken it still remains the biggest earth-and-rock fortress in Europe. 

This is a computer reconstruction of the fortress I found on the boundless Internet prairies. From my personal experience, the buildings of the old fortress are scattered all over Kyiv. And if you don't know much about its history you might just walk past them and not pay much attention. I was lucky to be shown the Fortress by my good friend that was gracious enough not to laugh at my face when I said that Kyiv is boring and doesn't even have a castle or a fortress. So he walked me through some labyrinths of streets and eventually we ended up next to mighty walls of the fortress. That's what I saw. 

(photo was taken from https://rest.guru.ua/ua/kiev/places/447-kievskaya_krepost_/) 

Of course, it doesn't look as impressive as the Khotyn Fortress but there are definitely very interesting things to learn about it. For instance, the Fortress stretches all way to the Dnipro river and to stabilize its steep hills, there were built tall walls and tunnels that allegedly lead up to the main buildings of the Fortress. Of course, with time the tunnels got ruined and in some places, they are simply blocked. But it doesn't mean that there are no dark, creepy legends about them. One of the places I want to dwell on nowadays is called Green Theatre. On this photo taken at the beginning of the 20th century, you can see a big wall in the hill.

In Soviet times that wall was used to build an open-air theatre. Here is its photo.

However, the theatre didn't operate for a long time because of the devastating fire that broke out there after a lightning stroke it. They say there were a couple of attempts to restore that place but every time something would happen and it would stay closed for a long time. At some point, a legend started circulating the city that a tall man in a long dark coat with a hood on his head was seen on the half-ruined stage of the Green Theatre. People started calling him the Master believing that it was the Devil himself. If you didn't want to get into any trouble walking the slopes of Dnipro near the Green Theatre you were supposed to say to yourself "I greet you, Master". You can believe it or not, but once my friend and I went for a walk down those slopes. It was pretty late and very dark, we didn't have any pocket light or even a box of matches. At some point on one of the serpent-like paths, we bumped into a big wooden cross standing in between the trees. I don't know who put it there or why, but it was quite a spooky find. At some point, a guy on a bicycle went past us. Now when I think back I find it very strange because it was pitch dark and I don't quite understand how he navigated in the darkness with no light on him. After walking downwards for a while we reached a big round area which turned out to be a dead-end. So we had to turn around and head back. The funny thing is that back then I knew nothing about the Master legend or any other story about the Dnipro slopes that hosted an old cemetery of suiciders and stillborn babies, or a legend about a nunnery that got cursed. I learned all these spooky stories later on and now I wouldn't agree for a walk like that in the middle of the night )) 

There are a lot more places that carry the memory of strange and sometimes tragic events, but they will be a subject of my other stories. Right now I will finish writing and will go to watch something spooky since I can hear a storm coming and watching something scary to the sounds of a thunder is the best thing!

Have a great time of the day and BEHAVE!

Sincerely yours!

What do Ukrainians pickle and what do they marinade?

Let it be an International Cuisine Day today and not just Wednesday, ok? Do you agree? In case you agree (and it's not like you have much choice) I will tell you about preserves, the jars with some tasty stuff inside. Amazingly, countries can differ in so many ways, sometimes it's even mindblowing. You live in your country a lifetime, do things a certain way, do your shopping a certain way, celebrate Christmas and Easter a certain way, cook things a certain way. And then one day - BOOM! You come to a different country and understand that you understand nothing! I don't mean language-wise, but rather everyday-life-wise. Even such simple things as shopping (easy as long as you have money) can turn into a quest before you will get used to a different type of goods and even the layout of the stores. For some time you will be occupied by learning all those things and when you finally do it, you will start looking for goods that you used to buy back at home. It's great if you are lucky to find some of the substitutes. However, a lot of things you still will be missing. I'm pretty serious about it, I mean if you moved to a different country for an extended time as a kid it's not such a big thing, because kids adapt much faster than adults. But if you did it as an adult, it gets more complicated, because, unfortunately, nobody figured out how to fight homesickness completely and your eating habits are a pretty big part of it. I can't say for everyone 100% but it did occur to me. The other day I understood that the department with canned food and preserves I don't see jars with pickled tomatoes! There are all kinds of cucumbers, relishes, peppers, olives, garlic, onions and some other things I've never tried or even heard of, but not a single jar of TOMATOES!!!! By the way, have you ever had pickled tomatoes??? Well, in Ukraine we say that if you can't buy something, you can make it. That's my approach in life almost in all cases unless it requires much time and resources. So I bought two boxes of Campari tomatoes, you know those small ones, but not the smallest ones, found a quick recipe for pickling and did it. Here's my result: 

Hopefully, the taste will be just the way I like it. I plan to check them this weekend so fingers crossed. 
So what else do Ukrainians pickle or marinade? And what's the difference between pickling and marinading? 
Firstly about the difference. In Ukraine when we pickle it means that we put some vegetable into extremely salty water or add a lot of salt and keep the vegetable like that for a long time. For example, I bet you do know the sour kraut. So sour krout is made with the help of salt that you add to shredded cabbage and keep that cabbage in a jar for some time till juice starts to appear. With other veggies that usually are not shredded, we use very salty cooked water. For instance, this way we make pickled cucumbers. They differ taste-wise from the cucumbers you usually buy for sandwiches. They are crunchier and saltier and never sweet. The perfect match for a pickled cucumber is mashed or fried potatoes. Jars with pickled veggies are usually sealed for winter in a special way that involves boiling water processing of the jars with their contents. Marinading presupposes adding vinegar to the pickle-water. We usually marinade veggies and mushrooms that we plan to eat very soon. If we want to eat them later on in winter then they also have to go through boiling water processing and have a special air-tight lid. You can believe it or not but every Ukrainian knows all this technique and gets those skills on genetic level ))) The thing is that food shortage during soviet times made us thrifty and every summer we would get ready for the winter making jars and jars of different preserves. So what else do we pickle or marinade? We pickle cauliflower, cucumbers, tomatoes, bell peppers, green tomatoes, aubergines, eggplants, mushrooms, and the craziest of us pickle watermelons. Don't ask me what's the taste of pickled watermelon is, there is no way to make me try it. It's simply sick. But some people like it. 
Of course, according to all the doctors in the world eating a lot of pickled food is not good because of the high contents of sodium. But I can tell you that once in a while a crunchy cucumber will not kill you. And if you had a chance to try my mom's marinaded Romanian pepper you would dream about it for the rest of your life! 
With all the above said and written I will leave you to ponder about the menu for your dinner! 
Bon appetite! Eat healthily and behave!

Sincerely yours!

The shelves with preserves in Ukrainian supermarkets. Photos taken from the Internet. 

Shopping in Ukraine

Hello-hello! How is your Friday going? Hope you are ready for the weekend! I've noticed that in the States shopping is a very popular leisure activity during the weekend. As early as 6-7 am. on Saturday morning I can see people rushing to the parking lots in front of the stores. Sundays are a bit quieter but closer to the noon I see a lot of cars on the roads again. You might think that I'm weird talking about shopping. Shopping is shopping. Nothing to talk about. Don't people shop all over the world the same way??? What if I told you that there are some differences in shopping habits and that you take certain things as for shopping for granted.
Since I was born at the beginning of the 80s a lot of things have changed in shopping style in Ukraine. When I was a little kid shopping looked like this:

Any kind of shopping presupposed standing in lines or if there was no line it meant that the store either was empty or goods in it were completely useless. So you would wonder how is it possible that all those people on the photos are not naked at least, right? Well, you could buy clothing pretty much without any problems, but the quality and colour palette were simply horrible. If you wanted to get something better quality you were supposed to know somebody who worked in the sales. Those people usually had access to better stuff. If to talk about food, our grocery stores usually carried bread (2-3 kinds), butter, sour cream, milk, cottage cheese, sparkling water, apple and grape juice, several kinds of pasta, some preserves (pickled cucumbers and tomatoes), some cookies and caramel candies. Some stores had a liquor department. Other types of food you would either get in stores with a wider range of goods if there was such store in your area or go to what is called in the States as Farmers' Market. Our Farmers' Markets were the real saviour and remain to be and here is why. Ukraine is a very agricultural country and if you read my previous stories you know that if a Ukrainian lives in a private house most likely there will be a kitchen garden next to the house and a small farm consisting at least of a couple of chickens. Many people also have ducks, goats and even bigger animals, especially those who live in villages. So very often a surplus of harvest and farming will be sold at the local Farmers' Market. For example, if my grandfather has a bountiful harvest of apricots he will take them to the market and his friend who works there would sell them for him. The same thing happens with the surplus of eggs, cucumbers or walnuts. Personally, I like shopping at the Farmers' Market for a couple of reasons. In the town where live my parents the market is not just a shopping place but also an important place for socialising and catching up with the latest news, meeting friends and acquaintances. Secondly, my mom has a network of salespeople that she buys groceries from; on the one hand, you can get a better price, on the other hand, you can be sure that the quality is always great. Of course, when you are in a new town you won't be able to get all these pros at once. When I lived in Kyiv I didn't shop too often at the Farmers' Markets simple because they were too far from me and I was pretty satisfied with the quality and product range in my supermarket. In addition, my apartment was literally surrounded by good shopping. On top of that, I had an Armenian couple selling fruits and vegetables next to my home from a small stall. 

So how about other kinds of shopping? If you live in s big city all kinds of gorgeous shopping malls are at your service. When I say gorgeous I really mean it. They are packed with all possible kind of entertainment and shopping. You see, Amazon and eBay are not that popular in my country yet, so people go to physical stores especially if they have kids because, as I've mentioned, our shopping malls are packed with entertainment: movie theatres, restaurants, food courts, playgrounds, aquariums, water parks, bowling, billiards, skating rinks, rollerblade halls, even go-cart racing and sky diving. 

So what do people do if they don't live in a big city? Walk naked? Nope, they go to markets! Not the Farmers' Markets but merchandise markets. If you have travelled to Turkey or Marocco you must have seen those vivid and agile places with clothing, shoes, souvenirs, local food and many other traditional things. Our merchandise markets don't look that authentic unless you go to ones that sell our national crafts. But you will be surprised by the range of goods you can buy there from AAA batteries to wedding dresses.

The 7th Kilometre Market, Odesa

Kalynivskyi Market, Chernivtsi

I know they look weird but the variety of merchandise and prices can be really interesting. Of course, it can turn into a boring activity since you keep walking an aisle after an aisle and try to find what you are looking for (it's if you know what you are looking for). Another thing you have to remember that whether it's freezing winter or scorching summer you still will do a lot of walking and in some cases, you might have a very unforgettable experience of trying something on. A lot of people still are fond of places like that because they believe that they can find a really good bargain there since in regular stores prices are higher because of rent and salary expenses. As a lazy shopper, I gave up on visiting places like this and do it only occasionally when I visit my grandfather or my parents. The markets in small towns are much smaller and it takes me 20 minutes to walk through them and see what they have to offer. 

As you can tell shopping in Ukraine is definitely different from shopping in the US for example. However, it can turn into a really cool experience for a foreigner. My friends from Germany adore shopping at the Farmers' Market in the town where my parents live. My friends from the US were literally shocked (I mean in a good way) when they tried fruits and vegetables from my local market. At first, I couldn't understand why my friend Chris was eating a tomato and there were tears in his eyes. Well, now after a couple of years in the States I think about home-grown tomatoes with the tears in my eyes, or the cottage cheese that my mom buys, or strawberries, or apricots...... I will stop here because I will really start crying! 

Of course, my mom doesn't buy all the groceries at the market, they have a very nice small grocery store right next to their apartment building. So usually bread, water, sweets, cheese, beer, butter or coffee are purchased there, especially if she forgot to buy something at the market. But most provision for the week is bought at the farmers' market. One more important thing about markets in small communities - they don't work every day. In my parents' town, the market works only on Wednesday and Saturday. In my grandfather's town, the market works all days except Monday. And of course, the markets don't work during the holidays: Christmas, Easter, New Year or any other big holiday.

So enjoy your shopping, be frugal and remember that even shopping can be an unusual experience!

Behave!

Sincerely yours!

Growing up in the USSR

Hello World! Hope you are still doing fine, spinning and floating in the endless Universe. Here, on the planet Earth, humans are temporary settlers. But despite this fact, we behave very arrogantly and feel more like the kings of the Universe, which we are not. I don't want to go into the environmental issues that we cause our planet but take a look at the things related to the way we organize ourselves in what we call counties. Civilizations come and go but we still are not able to learn anything and to live in peace with each other. I was born in a country that no longer exists. Not many people can say it about their place of birth. Usually, people simply move from one place to another, or from one country to another. In my case, I was born in the USSR and ten years later I already lived in Ukraine, an independent state, without moving anywhere. Not many people can say something like that, right?

When people learn that I'm from Ukraine, they try to remember something about my country. And it turns out not so easy and eventually they start talking about Russia and Soviet Union. Somehow people all over the world know a lot about the Soviet Union and associate it with a weird set of things: some name Perestroyka, some remember Gorbachev, but what they definitely remember is Cold War and Carribean crisis and the communist party, of course. But not many people realize that the Soviet Union was a socialist state. Everyone talks about commies and red villains, but when you tell them that communism was never implemented in the USSR people don't believe me. That's why it's very hard for me to hear socialist slogans in the modern societies all over the world and see how young people gladly support those ideas without even trying to figure out what they are offered.

So let me tell you how it felt to live in a socialist country and how all the slogans you hear from everywhere nowadays are just slogans and nothing more.

Utopia is going to be a core word for today's story. Utopia stands for an ideally perfect place, especially in its social, political, and moral aspects. That's exactly how I would describe the USSR (Union of Soviet Socialist Republics). I will not go into theory and history how did USSR appear but rather focus on my experience of living in it. 

I was born in 1981. It's pretty amazing because the only leader of the communist party that I remember clearly was Mr. Gorbachev, who headed the party in 1985. Between 1981 and 1985 we had three General Secretaries (that's how they were called): Brezhniev "ruled" till he died in 1982, next one was Yuri Andropov till he died in 1984, then we had Chernenko who died in 1985 and his successor was Gorbachev. Quite a carousel, right? I don't remember all of them, as I've mentioned already, but I do remember that people were complaining and jocking at the same time that they were sick and tired of the Swan Lake ballet on the one and only main TV channel since mourning for a deceased party leader was a state thing and all union was supposed to mourn together. Yes, you understood it correctly "one TV channel". It was called soviet central television channel or shortened CT-1. Later on we had one more channel CT-2 but it's signal was pretty weak and it didn't work that great. How many channels did you have in 1981 or 1982? Of course, the main concept of the channel was to inform about the progress of the soviet government and to entertain the citizens but in a highly moral and controlled way. So when somebody appeals to my memory saying: Do you remember those cartoons about Bugsbunny from the 80s or starts throwing at me names of some other tv shows for children I have to answer that I watched them much much later, in the middle of 90s when we became independent and western movies, tv-shows and movies started coming to our television. What did I watch as a kid? Well, we had a bunch of soviet cartoons and movies for children. Some of them were a copycat of western production but I learn about it much later as an adult. 

The key word for any soviet citizen was the word "connections". If you knew somebody who had access to some benefits you could have a bit better lifestyle than others. Unfortunately, it was impossible to go to a store and simply buy things you needed. I really mean it. And I mean any kind of need including food. So that's where "connections" played a crucial role. I was lucky to be born in a family with "connections" )) My grandfather is a dentist, an extremely good one and on top of that, he has a very out-going personality. So when he needed to buy me some winter clothes he would make a couple of phone calls and get me a coat, pants, sweater, boots and an ear-flapped hat. The same way he would get some toys for me, books, some devices for home, necessary medicines (better ones than the ones available in the pharmacy) and other things that were absent from the shelves of our stores. By the way, our stores were often empty or carried some junk that nobody wanted to buy. During the "rule" of Brezhniev the economy entered a stagnation period and never recovered from it. 

"New era" socialists promise everyone free education and medicine. Well, what to tell you. I can understand free medicine only if to talk about a set of medical services that any citizen can get for free whether he or she has medical insurance or not. However, to make all medical services free of charge is impossible. Our "free" clinics and hospitals were the most horrible looking place on the Earth and if you wanted to get decent service and treatment better you had "connections". Otherwise, you would be treated like dirt and made to buy some basic tools for your own medical examination. That's where socialist "free medicine" would quickly turn into "paid medicine". You would need to buy syringes, needles, alcohol, drippers, bandages and what's not. Don't forget to express your gratitude to the doctor, especially if we talk about some kind of surgery. Not a bribe, but "gratitude". You would learn the amount of "gratitude" from the clinic personnel. As I've said before, I was from a family with "connections" and my grandfather, a doctor, knew other doctors and they would help each other in critical situations. 

Free education was also an interesting concept. The chances to study in a good higher education institution were higher if you had "connections" ))) Children of high standing communist party authorities could enter any university or institute even if they were the dumbest students in the whole world. Both my parents were lucky to get a good education but mostly because they are smart and very diligent people. Both of them experienced situations when somebody important's son or daughter would get high grades just because. The same situation was with employment after university/institute. If you knew somebody there were chances you wouldn't be sent to work in the middle of nowhere in Kazakhstan or Siberia. 

One of my friends keeps telling me that I'm a courageous and frugal young woman. She admires my cooking skills or ability to find a good bargain. Well, these are the skills I attained in spite of, not thanks to the circumstances I grew up in. I will never forget the dress my mom made for me when we had a new year's celebration at school. These were times of Independent Ukraine, but our 90s strongly resembled last decade of the soviet union. So my wonderful mother made me a dress out of her old velvet dress and satin shirt. That was the most trendy and unique looking dress. Her skills to turn an old dress into fashionable attire or a one bedroom apartment into a cosy home for three are even more worth admiration than any of my skills. My dad made furniture for our apartment himself since it was very hard to buy furniture in the soviet stores. He didn't have "connections" of my grandfather, but he has two golden hands and great designer skills.  

I have allergies to socialism and anything connected with it. I don't think that capitalism is the best form of social structure, but it's much better than the "free cheese in the mousetrap". My country was in that mousetrap for over 70 years and we still feel the consequences of making everyone equal both in their needs and abilities. Just remember, socialism will not just give things but it will also take all possible resources from you so that they can distribute them equally among everyone, both those who were laying on the sofa all day long and those who worked hard 24/7.

Value what you have and strive for better. Try to make the world a better place, but don't get fooled but those, whose work is only to throw attractive slogans at you and who has hardly worked a single day doing something real and physically demanding.
Behave!

Sincerely yours )))

Just a couple of photos from the Internet that depicts all the "fun" of socialist well-being

Soviet dolls, as you can tell none of them resembles Barbie )) 

Typical soviet furniture for the living room. 

Soviet car "Lada". Still produced by Russia.

Soviet cassette player. 

Soviet version of "Gameboy"))) Had one game and it was pretty hard to buy it. One needed "connections" ))

Hospital room. Of course, some hospitals were in much better shape, but you could never know what kind of accommodations you would have to deal with.

Home gown, typical attire for many women and not just at home. 

Soviet-style shopping.

A line to the shoe shop. It was very hard to buy good quality footware. 

Soviet version of playstation

Typical soviet bathroom.