20 years since Chernobyl

Yesterday marked the 20 year anniversary of the Chernobyl nuclear disaster, which took place in Ukraine in 1986. Much has been written recently in the media, and rememberance services have been held in Kiev and in the towns surrounding Chernobyl (north of Kiev). The photo shows the abandoned town of Pripyat, completely evacuated after the disaster, with the nuclear power station visible in the background. For more about Chernobyl, BBC News has an in-depth look at the tragedy.

Photo courtesy of BBC News

Easter weekend

Today is “Easter Monday” in Ukraine, following the Eastern Orthodox church calendar. Following are a few Ukrainian Easter celebration traditions. The majority of people in Ukraine are Ukrainian or Russian Orthodox. Protestants make up a small minority, and it’s interesting to see how the different traditions of celebration intermingle.

Chisti Chetvirg – “Clean Thursday.” In Ukraine, the Thursday before Easter weekend is a day of cleaning. Orthodox tradition says that you should get up before the sun rises, and thoroughly wash yourself. Then you’re supposed to clean your apartment and get ready for the holiday, since no one should once Easter weekend has begun. Cleaning apartments and washing yourself probably stems from spiritual cleansing that also takes place in preparation for Easter. Some people fast on this day as well. Even though lots of people aren’t religious, the cleaning habits have infiltrated the culture enough that on Thursday, people everywhere could be seen washing windows, sweeping sidewalks and streets, and painting. In the Baptist tradition (the church we attend is Baptist-affiliated), churches have communion services on Thursday evening.

Easter – There are two times a year when the Orthodox church has all night services – Christmas Eve, and Easter Eve. People gather Saturday night and don’t leave until Sunday morning. (And they stand all night – no benches in Orthodox churches!) They bring with them wicker baskets of food – bread, sausage, cheese, even vodka – to be blessed with holy water by the priest. Sunday morning we saw many basket-toting churchgoers, heading home for an Easter feast of “holy” food. Protestant churches have a regular Sunday morning service (maybe a bit longer than usual) and everyone greets each other, saying, “Christ is Risen” “He is risen indeed.”

Paska – This is Easter Bread, and also the translation of “Easter.” It is a sweet raisin bread, baked in a can, so it’s tall and skinny with a round top. The top of the loaf is frosted with white icing and colored sprinkles. About every store/kiosk that sells food has paska for sale on Easter weekend. Some say the top of the loaf symbolizes the cupolas of Orthodox churches (though I don't think the Protestants would say that), others say paska bread originated with ancient Slavic pagans. Wherever it came from, it's tasty.

People also decorate eggs, but more popular than colored dye are little plastic sheaths with colorful designs of flowers, birds and Orthodox churches that mimic real decorated Ukrainian eggs.

Laura

Greenhouse planting

Twelve days ago we were able to plant around 740 cucumber plants. We are using this year as a sort of experiment and therefore have no real heating system in place. The temperatures have not been ideal causing the plants to lose a bit of their bright green color, but they are growing. Most had 2-4 soft leaves when we planted them and now have 5-8 leaves. They are planted in 8 rows 3-4 ft. apart with 10 in. between plants.

We hung strings from the ceiling for the plants to climb and we are training them to go up the strings. We monitor the temperatures, and open the windows if the temp goes above 30C (anytime the sun is out) and close them when the temp goes below 20C. It is amazing how much warmer it is inside during daylight hours. When it gets a bit warmer we have some ceiling fans we are going to install vertically in the two front windows to help with cooling.

For watering, we have sprinklers hung from the ceiling and drip tape in each row. The well (that was installed last fall) is directly outside and is used to fill an old 3000 liter tank in which we mix fertilizer with the water before watering. It seems to work well to use gravity to water (with the drip system), but we may install a pump to speed up the process.

We hope to have fresh cucumbers in a couple weeks.

Dave

Stuff, Part 2

A popular topic of conversation among foreigners living here is how to get by without things we’re used to, specifically food items that aren’t available here – how to make maple syrup and brown sugar, where to get flatbread to make tortilla chips, what vegetable makes a good substitute for celery. I am forever scouring the market and grocery store aisles for hard-to-find things, hoping that they’ll appear. I dream about supermarkets at home, full of powdered sugar, black beans and beef bullion. At first, not having things from home seemed like a hardship, then a challenge, now more of a reality of everyday life. And I should note that it has fun to try new foods that aren’t available at home. Recently several conversations I’ve had have made me appreciate the variety of products available in Ukraine. Growing up in a capitalist, materialistic country means that there’s lots of stuff for you to buy, so you get used to that. I’ve been spoiled, without even knowing it. But my friend Oksana grew up in the Soviet Union, and several times she’s described to me the lack of goods in the stores. In clothing stores, dresses, shirts and slacks were all the same style and color, just in different sizes. Shoes, too. Markets sold fruits and vegetables grown within the USSR. Once as a child, Oksana visited Moscow and saw bananas for the first time. She marveled at this strange, exotic fruit and wondered what it tasted like. After the fall of the Soviet Union, new, imported goods began to appear from Turkey. And now she can buy bananas for $.36 per pound at any corner store, brought to her halfway around the world from Ecuador.

After those conversations, my searches for rare ingredients seemed less important, and I’m more aware of the new things that appear on the store shelves. I now appreciate the occasional appearance of dried rosemary and sage, parmesan cheese and peanut butter much more.

Laura

Greenhouse Prep

Stuff, Part 1

Living in a different country and a different culture makes you think about your stuff. The lines between categories of material possessions become more defined – what things you need to live, what things you need to be happy, what things you can do without. Whether it’s good or bad, we spend more time here thinking about what we have and don’t have, what we need and don’t need, what we’d like to have but just can’t find, and what we’d like to have, but can do without. We’ve developed these thought patterns mostly because our friends and colleagues here have less material things than our friends and colleagues in the States. It’s become more obvious to me in the last year that what you think you need to live depends a lot on those around you. For example, during the 16 months that we’ve been in Ukraine, I’ve purchased a total of one item of clothing. A sweater. Dave bought two: two pairs of long johns. It’s not because we don’t have money to buy clothes, it’s just that the clothes we have are enough. The people I spend time with here rarely buy new clothes, let alone new clothes for every season, so I don’t either. If I did, I would stick out. When we went home in August, I rooted through my boxes to find some summer clothes (which I hadn’t brought with me when we came) and brought back a big stack to Ukraine. Soon after we arrived, I realized that I should’ve brought about half as much as I did. Wearing a different new outfit every day for a couple weeks made me feel strange, overdressed. This topic came to my mind a few weeks ago as temps rose to around freezing and I decided that it was warm enough to wear something else than my three warmest sweaters (which I’ve worn all winter). Although it feels good to not be so influenced by the need for a frequently updated wardrobe, I’ll admit that I am ready for some more variety.

Laura

Parliamentary Elections

On Sunday, March 26 parliamentary elections were held in Ukraine. Much excitement had built up to the day – apparently there were 45 parties or “bloks” on the ballot, but we saw maybe about 10-15 advertised in the weeks before the election. What a choice. The main square in Donetsk was filled with colorful tents, flags and brochure-distributing campaigners. In the end, the pro-Russia Party of Regions, supported by central and eastern Ukraine (where Donetsk is located) won by a small margin, followed by two of the more western-leaning parties – the former prime minister’s party was a close second, and the current president’s party (orchestrators of the 2004 “Orange Revolution”) was a distant third. The rest of the votes were taken by smaller parties, including the Socialists and Communists. Since no one won a majority, coalition talks have now begun, and it seems to be anybody’s guess who will form a coalition with whom, even though the parties all seem to have quite differing agendas. This election is quite important, as it will determine who has the majority of seats in parliament. The leading party will also select the prime minister, who will have more power than the president.

There was a lot of concern among Ukrainians about the economic (and political) stability in Ukraine after the elections. So far things seem quite calm, as they did on election day.

Laura