Chapter 11 – Kharkov: Denver with a metro

One of the teachers here told me once that Kharkovites are the proudest city inhabitants in Ukraine, meaning that they above all others are most patriotic to their city. From what I’ve seen and experienced I believe this to be true. For instance when I accidentally offended the students of one class when I said Kharkov is a nice little city. “Little!” they all gasped. How could I dare to call the second largest city in the Ukraine a ‘little city’? However I was neither talking about the geographical size nor the population that made it seem like a quaint city. Kharkov has a population of about 2 million people much the same as Denver, the largest city in Colorado. The biggest difference between my hometown and my new adopted town is the public transportation. Having elaborated on the metro above I’d just like to add that it is this feature that makes Kharkov feel smaller than it really is.

One of the first weeks I was here, the day that a Julia and I walked around the city, I ran into one of the students from the school on the street. Not so strange considering Julia and I were in the central part of the city, however a few weeks after that I ran into the same Julia with one of her students in the metro and not just on the platform but in the same carriage. Again a couple weeks later I ran into the husband of a different Julia as we were in the same carriage. I’ve seen this phenomenon happen with many other people on the metro. Friends see each other from across the train car and then are reunited. In London this rarely if ever happens. I attribute this to the fact that Soviet built metropolitans are very simplistic, so much so that you can stand in the same spot everyday and get onto the same carriage, exit from the same turnstile, and so on. Therefore everyone has their own particular place on the platform and when you are given directions they usually include the phrase “Get on the last carriage and exit immediately to your left,” or something similar.

Another reason for the small town feel is the fact that when you’re not riding the metro then you’re walking down the main streets with everyone and their mother (quite literally as babushki here make up a large majority of the pedestrians). So you see pretty much the same people each day, either in the metro or on Sumskaya Street (the main thoroughfare here) or in Svboda Ploschad (Freedom Square). I’m thoroughly convinced that if more Denverites were forced into taking our sad little version of a tram system (a.k.a. Light Rail) rather than our usual gas guzzling SUVs or walking around Downtown (they do so now but still not quite as much as here) then more people would meet by chance and it would create of sense of community that seems to be more pronounced in cities like Kharkov with frequently used public transport. At the very least it will help to reduce pollution and thus Denver’s Brown Cloud as well as the inescapable rush hours and road rage. Having utterly exhausted my soapbox and thus proclaimed my support of all public transport initiatives in Denver, it is now time for me to charge up the ol’ water boiler (another story for another time!) and attempt to shower and do my laundry.

Chapter 10 – Easter in Prison

Easter in the Catholic calendar, I spent in Cornwall and Easter in the Orthodox calendar I spent in prison… ok, well not Really a prison, it was in fact a hospital but you could hardly tell the difference. Until this year I never even realized that they were two different dates for this one holiday. This year Orthodox Easter also coincided with International Labor Day so there was even more reason to celebrate (not that they need more reasons here). But back to the prison/hospital. You may be wondering why I was there? I wasn’t ill, thank God, but actually visiting the other American native speaker here, John.

When I first arrived in Kharkov I was thrown in the deep end, having to take over one class from another teacher who was leaving and then substituting John who had contracted hepatitis. (Yes, it’s alive and thriving here in Ukraine. DON’T DRINK THE WATER!) Refusing to go to a hospital for the first few weeks, he finally succumbed to peer pressure and the fact that he was as yellow as a sunflower. So John was in one of the better hospitals in Kharkov and some of his students were going to visit him on Easter weekend to cheer him up and make sure he was all right. N.B. John doesn’t speak more than 10 words of Russian and he doesn’t intend to learn now. Therefore communicating with hospital staff must have been quite interesting.

I met with…Julia (!) from his class that I was substituting and her mom at a metro station from where we then had to take a trolleybus up to the hospital. Now picture this – a broad street with little traffic (and no lines on the road, they don’t believe in road rules here). One side of the street has tall 10-12 storey apartment buildings in true Soviet fashion (grey, imposing, depressing) with shops on the first floor of every building – food stores, pharmacists, etc. and kiosks selling everything else you could need in front of them. On the opposite side of the road there it stands – the hospital. A series of 4-5 storey buildings looking rather worn-down and abandoned, positioned a little ways back from the road. Between the sidewalk and the hospital is an old school wire fence, probably as old as my father – not to name names here (or ages rather) we’ll say dating from post WWII.

The three of us make our way past the “guard post” watched over by stray dogs and a random babushka (told you they’re everywhere, the former as well as the latter). After quite a bit of confusion as to which building and entrance to go into – many buildings here have separate entrances and stairwells, called podyezd, so that if you enter into podyezd 1 you can’t make your way through to the section of building in podyezd 2 – eventually we found John’s ward. Walking cautiously through the large steal door, Julia and I then walk briskly past the open door of the nurse’s lounge. The nurses, or medsistryi (medical sisters), were in all white traditional looking candy-striper uniforms, including fun little hat. They were not the friendly sort of hospital staff however, as they yelled at us in Russian for not announcing our presence. I let Julia handle this conversation as of course my Russian isn’t quite up to par for confrontational situations and frankly – the nurses scared me. We walk down a deserted corridor, lit only by the barred windows in the small ‘lounge’ area. The hall is all white with doors lining both sides, mostly closed at this time. There is a silence so deep and intense I feel like I’m in a Steven King novel, and am waiting for the next big bad to come and do its business. However nothing untoward happens, we find the one door that is open and hear a small voice calling from inside. “Hello, in here.” In English.

Finally we had made it to John! N.B. John is from Wisconsin so already has the misfortune of not speaking properly accented English (sorry Stacy and all of my other Wisconsonian readers). Added to this he has a speech impediment of some sort as well. A lisp or a misplaced crown, as one of my students who is a dentist proposes, either way he’s hard to understand even for another native speaker! Plus, the way he speaks, words and phrases is very colloquial and sometimes I don’t get it, no scratch that, most times. Luckily he had managed to get a private room, with a bed again dating from the liberation of Ukraine from German forces in 194?, and a small bathroom with tub and toilet. Everything in the hospital fells like an old black and white film, possibly the set of some prison ward or insane asylum. Well after a few minutes of unintelligible chit-chat, Julia and I went to buy him some more food from the market across the street. We bring it back, chat some more and then leave John to his medsistryi and laptop computer, the one modern convenience.

Julia, mama and I take another trolley to a different metro station and they point me the way home, first leaving me with some homemade Easter cake called paska. It’s very much like Easter bread back home, but with the added joy of sugar frosting and sprinkles on top. Saying our farewells with the traditional «Христос Воскрес!» (“Christ has risen!”), we part company and I head back to Babushka’s where I met another friend, this time named Masha for a nice change-up, and we watched all four glorious hours of Lord of the Rings: Return of the King, Extended Edition.

Chapter 9 – Communing with nature – or – Insect air stream

The next day I once again experienced the pleasure of a picnic in the woods, this time a little closer to home. The second invitation from the day before was carried over into Sunday so that on the 2nd day of May I went with one of the thousand Julias here to a patch of forest a 20 minute walk from her home. We were joined by her husband, Slava and two of his friends. The forest here was not hilly but flat with super tall skinny trees. Again we found a place and built a fire that would burn for two hours before we ever even think about cooking anything on it. This time all the food was home-prepared, salad, vegetables, sashlik. It was definitely more delicious than the day before for this reason but lacking in the vital ingredient of booze. This particular Julia and her husband are the two non-drinkers I’ve found in Ukraine, but what they lack in alcoholism, they more than make up for in generosity.

After enjoying another feast and more songs and good times I had to cut out early as I had scheduled an appointment to meet with a different Julia to go play pool. I found my way out of the forest with the help of Slava and as I made my way to the metro I felt totally contented and happy with life and my experiences and generally reveling in the wonderful spring weather and attitude. I should have known then… Having contracted a bit of a cold from the erratic weather I couldn’t breathe properly through my nose, thus I was walking merrily along with my mouth slightly ajar when all of a sudden – AACCCCKKKK!!! F#&K!! What the hell was that??!?!?!?!??! I felt something slam against the back of my throat and before I could even think my gag reflexes reacted. As I heaved (hacked) and choked on the mystery invader of my oral cavity I noticed a gang of “oh too cool” Ukrainian boys next to me. They had watched as I transformed from an average pedestrian to a freak with a hairball issue.

Since the bug, as to my dismay I realized the unexplained object was, had collided with such force into my throat there was no turning back, I had to swallow! Gathering all my courage and pushing all thoughts of Fear Factor out of my mind, I managed the biggest gulp I could muster and tried to help my misfortunate friend down my esophagus into my stomach cavity. Thus accomplished I went casually (trying to regain any composure I had left) to the nearest kiosk and immediately bought some gum to wipe away the memory and taste of bug al a carte. This incident, besides ruining my pleasant mood for that day, proves what I had hitherto believed about the plight of my height. My head lays in an air stream very popular with bugs of all sorts, as I constantly have been attacked by one kind or another, ramming into my face, my nose and now – holy of all holies – my mouth! I hopped on to the metro and tried to no avail to remember how pleasant the picnic I had just left was.

Eventually I found Julia #2 and we headed to the billiard hall. It doubles as a bowling alley and is rather expensive. During the prime time on the weekends it costs about 120 gryvnias per hour to bowl, meaning $24 and they are strict about the time limit, if you don’t finish the game(s) in an hour you still get cut off. Luckily we weren’t there to bowl but to play pool. We therefore spent 17 gryvnias for one hour of pool table time, in which we were able to play just two games, which I may add I won. Finishing that we walked back to the metro along the ‘river’ an even sadder version of the Platte in Denver, what would never pass as a river according to some of my friends. I forwent the pleasure of another day of chanting at the Buddhist center and headed straight back to Babushka’s where I crashed, exhausted from the weekend of BBQs and looking forward to the next day, that I would actually have off and I intended to do nothing – which I accomplished by the way.

Chapter 8 – May Day Picnic and Buddha

I was invited to a picnic by my girl friend from South Africa, Carien and her students from another English Language school. On Saturday morning we convened at one of the many monuments in the city. (This one dedicated to Ukrainians who fought for the communist revolution here, I believe. Also known as “those who protect the refrigerator”*, due to the manner in which the figures are sculpted from one huge chunk of stone, they do look rather frozen. ) After gathering our full numbers and purchasing the necessary food and drink items from the local store we boarded a minibus (mashrutka) and headed out of the city. After a journey of 30 minutes or so we came to the edge of a forest. This was my first time in the Ukrainian forest and it was a sight to be seen indeed.

Rolling little hills (what passes for ski slopes here in the winter) which was mostly covered in birches with some aspens and evergreens sprinkled here and there for as far as the eye could see. The Slavic people are very much in tune with and enjoy nature and therefore everyone was out on this fine first day of spring. After a while we managed to find a nice shady spot and the men set out searching for twigs to start the fire with while the womenfolk chatted and prepared some salad and cold dishes for munching.

This would be a good time to note that I was in fact invited to two ‘picnics’ this day. I figured I could easily make it to both as in my naïve little mind, a picnic lasts for about 2-3 hours. However that is not so here. Nothing is very quick in this culture. From picnics to getting visas and travel tickets there is always a queue, either physical or metaphorical.

It was quite an honor to be witness to the traditional forest picnic. Picture it – 15 people, some old friends, some new and some strangers. All gathered on a beautiful sunny day in the midst of a birch forest in Ukraine. The men without shirts stoke the bon fire and drink beer with the occasional toast of vodka. They tell anecdotes as they tend to the fire. The women gossip happily, chopping vegetables, doing impromptu hair cutting sessions, and building flower chains from the multitude of dandelions around them. After about an hour or two of building an enormous fire and letting it die down to just ashes we finally begin to cook the shashlik (shish-ka-bobs). [Obviously at this point I gave up the idea of a second picnic.]

Again the men take charge as they create a make-shift grill with stones, which they found lying around our campsite and metal rods brought with us. The first round of meat is cooked and like ravenous dogs we dig in. The wine/beer/vodka is flowing and the noise grows louder. Yes! I admit it! I sampled a bit of the indispensable liquid and had three shots of vodka. However, I managed to cut myself off after the third one by remembering all those horrifically embarrassing nights in Petersburg when I didn’t know how to say no to $1 drinks.

After the second round of food we sat down to digest the feast. In between little bursts of rain, we (they) sang songs in Russian. And some people took little strolls through the forest, myself included, feeling a bit like Little Red Riding Hood just waiting to find my wolf. (Found it by the way – another story for another time, perhaps after the vodka flows again.) Then we all played a bit of charades. Finally we packed everything up and made our trek back through the forest to where the mashrutki awaited us to bring us back into the city. And thus ended the first picnic in the forest that signaled the beginning of Spring!

The day before this picnic I was invited to a Buddhist Center here in Kharkov. Strange to hear I know, but it’s true. So after the picnic I had promised one student (who could in fact be a teacher that’s how advanced he is) that I would return for another night of meditation and lecture. It was very interesting and calming. I enjoyed the atmosphere of the place and people I met there. Though I can’t say I’ve converted just yet as the mass chanting in Russian with spurts of Sanskrit kind of put me off, as in I had to try very hard to control my fits of laughter. That and I’m not quite prepared to throw off supposedly following one religious figure (the Pope) for another leader (the 27th incarnation of this sects lama). All in all it was a great day filled with good memories.

*Not direct translation.

Chapter 7 – Metro vs. Tube – Mind the Gap

It’s now time for some general observations about the differences between Kharkov and London. The most interesting thing (for this particular observer at least) has to do with the differences between the London Underground, a.k.a. the Tube and the Kharkov Metropolitan. Allow me to enumerate them for you now:

1. Barriers – As my recent visitor, Darren pointed out, the barriers to get to the trains are a bit bizarre here. London = barriers are closed and open only when you slide your ticket through the machine or place your Oyster card to the pad. Ukraine = barriers are open, but if you try to pass through them with without using a token or card the invisible hand of big brother pops out of the sides and stops you, usually fairly painfully.
2. Escalators – Probably one of the harder adjustments. London = usually fairly shallow and fast moving. Stand on the right, move on the left is standard procedure. Ukraine = super long (like descending into the seventh layer of hell…) and painfully slow (like a geriatric parade). Stand left, right and everywhere in between. Rarely does anyone try to get ahead of the game by walking up or down. I believe it’s a lesson in the Slavic view of life – why try to get ahead? You’re all going to the same place.
3. Bottlenecking – Another fun example of the Soviet experience of queuing. London = during rush hour all escalators are open for business to try and alleviate congestion and get everyone to where they need to be quickly. Ukraine = anytime day or night, one escalator up and one down. Therefore when a train arrives, everyone and their mother (quite literally) moves in a mass mob to the one functioning escalator and creates a fun bottleneck experience. I call it the daily shuffle, as you have to shuffle your feet for about 5 minutes in order to get on the escalator which will take another 5 minutes to bring you to the surface.
4. Directions on the walls – How do you know where you’re going? London = almost everyone has the inevitable Tube map, very handy for those rare journeys out of central London (Zone 1). On the wall opposite the platform is also an eye-catching vertical diagram of all the stations on that line going the direction the train is heading. Ukraine = no such thing as handy little maps. You must get on and ride until you find yourself or until the end of the line, whichever comes first (usually the end of the line). On the walls there are simple, plain horizontal signs for each station after the station you are at. Luckily you always know from which direction the train will come, as in between these signs little arrows show you (usually to the left, as you stand on the platform).
5. Inside the carriage – Surfing the rails vs. reading the paper. London = Just about everyone in London reads something on the Tube. Either the free Metro daily or a book. This most likely explains the higher literacy rate among the British as compared with their SUV-gas-guzzling-car-loving-anti-public-transport counterparts across the pond. The carriages are smaller and filled with differentiated seats; polls and bars are scattered about to hold on to during the journey. Plus, for added convenience, more maps of that particular line and of all central London tube routes are placed throughout the carriage, every two-three feet apart. Ukraine = two parallel horizontal bars only, placed above the long bucket seats, where big-boned babushki squeeze into place creating nine seats where normally only eight butts should be. No one reads very often, preferring to stare blankly and depressingly at the void between their mind’s eye and life. Having no poles to hang on to, everyone has the ability to free-stand using their knees as shock absorbers and shift their feet so as to not fall over. It is rather like surfing (now that I have that experience under my belt) in that it’s a interesting challenge, especially when there is a newbie driver who hasn’t yet mastered the art of slow starting and stopping. The convenient maps spotted in London do not exist in Ukraine. You may be lucky to find one makeshift printed version of a map just above the doors on the carriage, but first you must sort through the billions and billions (said with Carl Sagan like emphasis) of advertisements.
6. Clocks – “Time is merely an expedient of the mind…” London = being of the Western time-consumed culture that Britons are, the London Underground caters to their need to know when the next train arrives. Having not just clocks with the current time but signs denoting the next train’s arrival and to which station it will eventually end its journey. Ukraine = of course they too have large clocks to inform its patrons of the correct time as well as the times of the trains. However wishing to retain its otherworldly air (neither East nor West), their time keeping of the trains counts backwards – from the time the last train left the station. This way, after taking the 5-minute escalator ride to the platform (making sure not to rush) you can discover by just how many seconds you missed the last train. “What?! Ten seconds ago… shit! Oh well I’m sure the next train will come in about… so many minutes… better practice staring into space now.”
7. Leaving the station – The end is nigh! London = bad point about being one of the biggest cities in Europe is that you have a lot of options in the way of directions to take. “I’ll meet you at the exit of Tottenham Court Road tube station.” “The one next to Borders Books?” “No, next to Virgin Records.” “On Tottenham Court Road?” “Nope, on Charing Cross Road.” “Oh right, see you there! (Maybe.)” Ukraine = I have to say the Communists knew how to simplify things. One entrance/exit to each metro station, two platforms, one for each direction and that’s it. Standardization does sometimes have its perks. “Meet you at Sovietskaya metro.” “Where?” “Right there.” “Ok.”
   

Bet you didn’t think that one little piece of everyday life, like commuting, could be worth such intense reflection. Perhaps I need to find some more friends… or maybe try riding the bus more often.

Chapter 6 – Toilet Tales

Not to be outdone by Michael’s tales of bathroom disasters, I have decided to give a little insight into the situation here in Ukraine. First lesson is BYOTP, bring your own toilet paper. Never count on it being provided for you. Therefore I have gotten into the habit, since I lived in St. Petersburg, of nicking as many napkins, Kleenex, etc. from every place I can. Go to McDonald’s, get a cheeseburger and about twenty napkins. Rock on! (Not that I frequent McDonald’s here anyway, unless it is to use a fairly clean toilet and to grab the napkins and run.) However, when you do meet with the luxury of Ukrainian TP it is unlike any sort that you’ve seen before. Basically their version is very tightly rolled (leaving no hole in the middle from which to hang it on anything), light brown/tan (like the color of recycled paper), very thin and coarse. My theory is that these rolls are the crepe paper rejects, the pretty dyes and crinkliness not taking effect, they shipped them out to all the country as toilet paper.

Next lesson which was a bit more shocking was the prevalence of the good old Turkish toilet – a.k.a. hole-in-the-ground. Ukrainians are big fans of tea. Sometimes I drink about 20 cups a day while at the office. All well and good until the tea insists on leaving my body again. The office bathroom is not terrible, though it is a bit disconcerting since the seat is not quite attached and shifts around under your bum. Not a big deal, I can deal with that at least. One day however, after my twentieth or so cup of tea, I was at the school (different location than the office) and I needed to run in between my classes to the toilet. After discerning which strange symbol meant “Women” I walked in to not just a Turkish toilet room but a Turkish prison itself! In contrast to the rest of the school the walls of this room were dark grey forbidding stone work. Old, decrepit and not very friendly. Ok, no problem… I just need to be here for a few minutes. Then I walk into the room with the ‘stalls’. Turkish style toilets? I thought I left those in Japan and never had to squat again… oh no… not so. Ok, again no worries, I learned how to squat for just long enough in Japan, I can handle this. WHAT?!!?!? No doors on the stalls? What are they trying to do to me here? That’s right folks, dark grey cement bricks forming a depressing square, with three half-assed (pun intended) partitions. Inside the pseudo-cubicles a hole in the ground flanked on each side by a bit of tracks to place your feet so you won’t slip and fall on your quite exposed posterior.

After swallowing my fear, disgust and surprise and my bladder reminds me how badly I need to relieve it, I assume the position. Which stall in all my genius-ness do I decide to use? The one closest to the door of course. What happens while I’m trying to hang in mid-air, aim and balance myself so as not to touch anything in this tetanus infested room? The accountant of my school comes in to relieve herself and of course has to pass my naked levitating bum to get to the next open stall. Conversation in any language much less in Russian was beyond impossible at this point. “Oh hi, Inna Nikolaevna, how’s it going?” I don’t think so!! Finish faster, wipe your ass with Ronald McDonald’s face and get the hell out! Don’t forget to wash your hands… sure, using water from the grimy river piped through pipes older than the Civil War with no soap to relieve the stench or experience. Run Forest Run! And thus I had to return to my class thoroughly disturbed and feeling gross. Needless to say I took an extra long shower the next day! Beat that, Super Bladder Man!

Home is where the...

I'm back in Kharkov. Darren is back in Epsom. Life continues ("as it has for many an age"... figure it out - hint: LOTR:FOTR). I've moved out of babushka's so don't, repeat DON'T send any packages or letters there. If you have already no worries. I'm now in an even older and sketchier flat. I think it's the equivalent of rent control in Ukraine, but at least I don't have to fuss about with cranky grandmothers. I might in fact move yet again to a newer place with a student but that has yet to be decided. For now, just wanted to inform you all that I had an amazing time last week and stories of Darren's and my adventures are coming. Stay tuned - as always - and take care!