Chapter 23 – Crimea

The Black Sea. Second home to Kharkovites. First home to jellyfish. After finishing my last class in Kharkov, I finally got ready for hopefully one week of seaside and mountains. We all met at the train station, about 40 students and only half a dozen teachers. After an eight hour train journey to Simferopol, we took a three hour suburban train to Sevastopol, from there we hired minibuses to convey us to our seaside campsite. Eventually, thirteen hours later, we arrived. Well kind of.

We had arrived at the top of the hill and our camp was another 10 minute drive (or 20 minutes walking) along the scary, ultra windy, decrepit rocks and dirt (no pavement in sight) which was the road leading down the side of the mountain. Most of the students started off to camp, while the teachers waited for the ‘car’ to come pick up all the baggage we brought. One car load later and our transportation was broken. From there on out it was the beginning of one long suffering nightmare that turns rosy colored in hindsight.

I and three lads, one teacher and two young students, carried the last lot of luggage down the windy road, up the little hill, clambering over rocks and falling in to massive pot holes until at long last we got to ‘camp’. It was a nice little campsite with the requisite outhouse, picnic tables as cafeteria and old-school heavy cloth tents on wooden planks with stinky wafer-thin mattresses. All in all it looked cobbled together, like some old army regiment ran away and left all their equipment behind but it was brightened up by the blue and yellow (color of Ukraine’s flag) plastic tarp over each tent and the ‘canteen’.

– Speaking of hindsight – Now would be an appropriate time to relate that it was much nicer than I make out. It was simple, efficient (except for when the unusually heavy rain set it and one of the cloth tents was soaked for a day or two) but overall Ukrainian. Being from a well off neighborhood in a typical suburban city in one of the richest countries in the world, I’m rather spoiled (to say the very least) and therefore imagined a flatish landscape dotted with the latest in poly-fibre-ethymol-lokdjoewqae tents. Not having camped all that often in my mollycoddled life I didn’t really have a clear idea what to expect, and thus my imagination ran wild with images of American camping movies. And this is where the disillusionment from above comes from. In reality it was a rocky and uneven site with treacherous boulder-rocks poking into the paths all around (I guess you would call that nature…?), but well organized into little groups of tents and felt like little neighborhoods in different parts of camp.
“Where are you at?”
“Oh, we’re seaside view. And you?”
“We have the mountain (and outhouse) in our backyard.”
“I’ve heard there are good schools in that area.”
Although I give more credit now to the setup of camp, I must say in no uncertain terms that under any circumstances do I enjoy the smell or experience of an outhouse. – End of hindsight – continuation of narration…

The days themselves passed in strictish fashion, beginning with breakfast at 7:30 which usually consisted of a strange mix of overly cooked and buttered pasta, super overly buttered bread (one slice per one person!) and if lucky some sort of meat like food. The drink was a nice tea or compote juice. After breakfast we had the choice of going to the beach, which most people did most days, or our own free time. Then about 10:30 anyone who really wanted to learn could return to camp for our 2 hour English lessons. They were themed lessons centering around celebrities, holidays, English traditions, cards and card tricks, and random things that we could come up with on the spot. Each lesson had a lecture part – the nitty gritty of language learning, a project – building little arts and crafts in groups hopefully using English to communicate, and finally learning a song that usually had some connection to the theme. For instance, I taught “The Shape of My Heart” by Sting on the day that we did cards, after I learned the words for myself for the first time that morning! (I also taught a little about tarot as well that day which everyone seemed to enjoy.)

Moving along, after lessons was another strange meal, which luckily sort of, wasn’t just strange to me, but the students also found the concoctions given us by the camp leaders a bit odd. Also luckily, there was a mini general store on the camp site so you could buy essentials like instant coffee, chocolate, chips and alcohol of course. After filling ourselves up again we had yet more free time lasting from about 2:30pm to 7pm when dinner was served. Some people used the free time to return to the beach, I often took naps or tried to read or write in my journal but wasn’t too successful. After such a strenuous afternoon, we had to revitalize again. Dinner usually had a soup to start and then a meat based entrée with tea. If we could capture enough people after dinner we would do a ‘Team Challenge’, a sort of team building, mini English lesson usually more active than the lessons of the day. It would last for about an hour or so before we finally let everyone off for the night to do what they wished… drink, go to the beach and skinny dip, play cards, make a mini disco, what have you.

Now that you have the general idea of camp life, I’m going to reminisce some more by reliving those glorious days and take a wee bit of a nap (‘kip’ in BE, British English). Next time look forward to details of the excursions taken in Crimea (in brief) and life in Abingdon (including pictures). Until then next time folks!

P.S. Here are some pics to stave you off until then…

The mountain I climbed... more than once

Chilling on the beach with Bogdan

My roommate...

Crimean mountains

Three Black Sea Mermaids

Me and Sergei Ivanovich

Our piece of beach

Chapter 22 – Ukrainian Woodstock

Keeping up on my promise there is one last story of Kharkov before I went to the Black Sea and beyond that should be told and that is the story of my first ever music festival!

Picture it: Late July in the western Ukrainian plains. A large stage back dropped by a lake and the forest behind. Before the stage a large hill that soon would be filled to the brim with enthusiasts, novices (like myself) and music lovers in general, all gathering at this place in one moment to share in the beauty of nature and experience the energy and power that is music. I was invited to this annual festival by Sergei Ivanovich, a true lover of music. He left early in the morning in order to not miss a drop of fun. I had to work in the morning teaching two conversation groups. After I finished imparting my bit of knowledge into my eager students, I went home to change and get myself ready for good times!

The moment I stepped in the door of my flat the rain came and came hard. I was grounded for a while as I had neither heavy coat nor umbrella. Thus I missed out on much of the event including the portion when the Prime Minister herself made an appearance at the celebrated event. Finally the ran had let up enough that I was able to run from my flat to the metro station without looking too much like a drowned rat upon arrival. There was a bus station in the far Southeast part of Kharkov (I lived in the more western part) so it took about a half hour or so just to reach the bus station with the special buses that would take awaiting fans to Pechenivsky Pole (the venue). At long last I had arrived and managed to find what I thought to be the correct bus.

It took me and 5 others outside Kharkov, farther and farther a field than I had been before (especially alone). One by one the other passengers left the bus in random places sometimes near towns, at others times in the middle of nowhere. I was beginning to think that I had gotten on the wrong bus and I was headed to Russia or Poland. Eventually there were 4 fairlyinebriatedd blokes who got on board at one of these random stops and they, in their drunken drawls, were talking about the music festival I was trying to reach. I was calmed a little but now distraught at the sketchiness.

After about one hour we arrived. There was nothing resembling a stage where the bus dropped us off but there were miles and miles of cars and masses of people moving in the same general direction. I decided it would be best to follow them. After a nice little hike I climbed over a small hill and saw it - my very first music festival! It was a combination of regular festival, with stalls of food and other non-essential items but at the far end of the field next to a large steep hill there was the stagerepletet with gigantic screens on either side. It was great!

I managed to find Sergei Ivanovich who kindly bought me some food and then we went and staked out some places close to the top of the hill. We listened to Moldavan and Romanian guest bands and then watched some cute acts ofgymnasticss by Ukrainian girls and then we got into the really good stuff. Traditional and modern Ukrainian fare. My new favorite band - VV (can't remember what it stands for) but the lead singer was awesome, energetic, fun, enthusiastic, and most impressive of all was that he played about 5 different instruments includingaccordionn and ta da - Violin!!

After that the fireworks started. They had them over the lake, there was a bit of delay as they had to clear the road bridge before they could let off the fireworks but they finally made it and it was cool. I had my 4th of July after all - a few weeks late. Then they had a few more good but not overly remarkable acts and that's when the rains returned this time harder than before. Luckily Sergei Ivanovich was prepared and had an extra umbrella for me. We started to make our way back to the buses and waited for one that would take us to Kharkov, the only hitch was, none were going there! So we eventually pushed and shoved our way onto a bus going to Cheguyev... close but not quite. From there Sergei negotiated a taxi for us and we rode the extra half hour in a bouncy Lada.

By the time we got back it was three in the morning and the metro was closed. Taking a taxi back to my place from the very south side (where we were dropped off) would have cost an arm and a leg so Sergei kindly invited me to crash at his place. I watched a bit of cable on his tv, played with hispsychoticallyy energetic cat and then passed out asleep. In the morning around 10, he made us breakfast of pelmeni (like ravioli) and sandwiches. Then he walked me to the metro station and off I was back home. All in all it was a great time and a good first experience at a music festival. I hope to go to more and since Darren is beyond obsessed with music (as evidenced by his 400+ cds, which I organized and alphabetized!!) I'm sure we'll be going to many a concert and festival.