RC#50: Land snatch #634

published in Eastern Economist #435, June 4, 2002

Now that the goodwill boys have had their say about beautiful downtown Kyiv [see RC #48]], I want to talk about a couple of not-so-high-profile projects that are going up in my neighborhood. It may be egotistical but, as they say, good works start at home.

            Last November, an unpublished letter was addressed to the executive council or RayVykonKom of the Zaliznychniy District by the director of a company called TOV Okean. (TOV means “limited liability company” in Ukrainian.) Okean requested the lot at the corner of vul. Urytskoho and Kudriashova to be handed over to it for development.

            Now this lot happens to be spitting distance from the spanking new southern train station in Kyiv and the nicely revamped original Vokzal. On that same side, a block away, is a large renovated wholesale market, a traveller’s chapel, and UkrPoshta’s fancy new headquarters.

            On the other side of this lot, one of the Kyiv supermarket chains has apparently bought out the Kruhla Birzha, a one-time circular grain exchange that has seen better days. In the last 5-6 years, this round, glass building has been full of a variety of nondescript businesses.

            Said fenced-in lot also happens to be where I and nearly 300 other local drivers park our cars.

            Apparently there is a comprehensive plan to develop the Solomianka area. KyivMiskBud is the general contractor on the residential projects and Arkada Bank is providing financing in the form of advance payments from buyers [see RC #15]. Of course, none of the residents in the area know anything about this comprehensive plot...er, plan.

            A hop and a skip up the street from the exchange building, a 17-story high-rise apartment building is going up on a ripped-up hillside park. This building was the first developer “snatch” in the neighborhood.

            Let me just remind readers of the story of this particular project. The hill it’s being built on is known as Batiyeva Hora. It’s where Batu Khan supposedly fought one of his deciding battles with the Slavs in Kyiv back in the 13th century. It is – or was – also the only park in a neighborhood of apartment blocks filled mostly with poorer families with small children and pensioners.

            Yet, Valeriy Tytarchuk, the municipal administrator responsible for land use approvals, described this park to EE last fall as “overgrown with bushes that local residents had turned into a garbage dump.”

            In fact, the hill was mostly open parkland. A nice spot to walk the dog, toss a ball with the kids, or hang out with the baby on a summer morning. A few oaks flanked the edges, with a small woods at the far end. A neighbor buried her favorite cat in those woods. “I didn’t see any trash coming or going,” she vouches. “Otherwise, I’d never have buried Mourko there.”

            Without warning, in March last year, the park was torn up and a few days later, a fence went up. Residents were stunned, but apathetic. There had been no notice at all, let alone debate or hearings on the project.

            Since then, the high-rise has been being built. Night and day. In the 15 months that have passed, the project has been going very slowly. Possibly because of the physical obstacles that this unfortunate site presents. It’s a steep, sandy hill destabilized by an underground stream. They only began putting in the framework of the lower floors in the last month.

            Not only has the neighborhood had nowhere to play. With pneumatic hammers are going day and night, it’s also had no peace.

            And now it looks like our neighborhood will have no place to park, either.

            On Mar. 29, the City, by Resolution Nº634, agreed to let TOV Okean start working on a project to develop this parcel of land. In addition to being one of only two car parks in a high-density neighborhood, this particular piece of land apparently is the crossroads for all kinds of cables and conduits for water, heating, electricity, sewage and other utilities. One of the reasons it wasn’t developed earlier.

            But the prospect of making some big bucks is clearly irresistible.

            The resolution, which is intended to “accelerate the construction of a commercial and office center,” allows Okean to start a feasibility study. It also acknowledges that issues of ownership are unresolved.

            At the same time, the document tells Okean to hire a general contractor and start construction while the project documents are still being prepared!

            On Apr. 19, the district passed Resolution Nº480 to implement the City’s decision. Now, the plot of land is described as containing a “temporary open carpark” and the resolution contains an “appeal” to the Vse-Ukrainska Spilka Automobilistiv, its rightful user, to free the land.

            The manager of this lot, Natalia Martysheva, is no slouch. She immediately posted a notice explaining the situation. The drivers all got together just before Easter and volunteered a helpful lawyer.

            The result was a petition to the City and District to oblige the developer to prepare another spot, about 1/4 kilometer further away, as an alternative parking lot. A couple of thousand bucks would probably do it. The land is there, officially allocated and ready to clear.

            So far, since submitting the petition May 7, there’s been no response from either office.

            Meanwhile, Mr. Tytarchuk has been bumped upstairs in the City Administration. No one would answer our questions when we called, except to say he was on two weeks’ vacation. In FSU-speak, that means he’s moving to a new post. Congratulations on a job well done, Mr. T!

            I wonder what kind of car he’ll be driving to his new office… •

–from the notebooks of Pan O.

RC#49: Speakerodeon

published in Eastern Economist #434, May 28, 2002

For anyone who thought marathon dancing was a slow form of torture of poor Depression-era people, there’s a political marathon in the Verkhovna Rada these last two weeks, unwinding like a bad movie from the early years of talkies. You even have lots of funny-looking men running around like a 1920’s actor searching for his bow-lipped mistress in a hallway lined with identical doors.

            After fighting to get back the right to observe their lawmakers in action on radio and television, Ukrainians might be forgiven if they are less than thrilled to watch those programs now.

            Not three months ago, Ukrainians very cleverly eliminated 16 of the 22 “parties” balloting for spots in their legislature. They managed to off such wearing folks as the Progressive Socialists led by Ms. Natalia “The Witch” Vitrenko and the Greens under Mr. Vitaliy “Steelworks” Kononov. Not to mention a dozen shiny new clubs filled with friends of Mr. Kuchma.

            Given that last time, in 1998, the VR wasted two entire months s/electing its leadership, it seemed smart to reduce the number of different interest groups, so that the horse-trading might go a bit faster.

            So far, though, two weeks are stretching into three, with very little serious trading and no Speaker in sight.

            The most surprising – and disappointing – aspect of this bad movie is the performance of Viktor Yushchenko. Some of what’s happening could be deliberate efforts to discredit him. But too much of it is his own doing.

            Here’s the man most people in Ukraine, locals and foreigners alike, see as the Great White Hope against a sea of Red Directors.

            Here’s the man who took over the National Bank of Ukraine in spring 1993 and gradually transformed it into a reasonably respectable central bank. He pulled the country through hyperiniflation by choking off massive currency emissions in 1994-5. He oversaw the introduction of a new national currency in 1996. And he helped the country pull through a major financial shock in 1998 that slaughtered the Russian rouble.

            Now Mr. Yushchenko can’t seem to get his priorities straight at all.

            He knew, when the count was in on April 1, that he had, at best, a moral mandate. But he had one.

            He knew who his likely bedfellows would be. If not ZaYedU, all he was left with were the Communists. There was no other group that could give him and his two closest supporters a majority. So he had to put together a deal his rank and file would accept.

            He also must have known that the longer the Speaker selection process went on, the more likely that independents would drift over to his opponents. So he had to put together a deal that would go through with very few hitches.

            In other words, Mr. Yushchenko had his work cut out for him.

            But that’s what he had to expect, as the leader of the first post-independence political organization that is not tied to the past or to the president. And even more so if he has any presidential aspirations.

            So what are all these wretched propositions that he keeps dragging out like half-shorn sheep to the slaughter?

            First Mr. Yushchenko talks about voting for Mr. Lytvyn as Speaker. Then he talks about voting for Communist Adam Martyniuk as Speaker. “Over my dead body,” says 82-year-old Mrs. Slava Stetsko, whose husband fought the communists with Stepan Bandera.

            Then Mr. Yushchenko says, “Since we can’t get consensus on three candidates, let’s try to put together a slate with 53 different posts at the same time. And for good measure, let’s amend the Constitution.”

            Next there’s a vote and nearly 100 ballots disappear and Mr. Yushchenko and his strange bedfellows are suddenly pointing fingers at each other and crying foul.

            What funny mushrooms has Mr. Yushchenko been served for breakfast?

            Meanwhile, Mr. Lytvyn is getting ruder. Mr. Medvedchuk is getting ruder. Mr. Zadorozhniy is getting ruder. They’re just smoking cigarettes and watching Mr. Yushchenko trip over his own shoelaces.

            The only things on Mr. Yushchenko’s side right now are democratic process and a big chunk of the Ukrainian population. But if he fails to use the former effectively and boldly, he will rapidly lose the latter.

            If Mr. Yushchenko thought Mr. Medvedchuk was a vengeful sort [see “A site to behold” RC #415)], then, in the person of Volodymyr Lytvyn, we are talking about a fish of a much smellier sort.

            Mr. Lytvyn is a nebbish. Moreover, everybody knows it. But he’s also got the personality of a pit bull, and he won’t let go of the Speaker position until a tank runs over him. (Don’t anybody get any ideas, there!)

            The best way to deal with Mr. Lytvyn is to put him in, with two very smart, strong and savvy people as his deputies. And to vote non-confidence in him as soon as possible. “Out, damned silver-haired slimeball!”

            Mr. Yushchenko, get yourself some good advisors. No, let me rephrase that. Get yourself one good advisor, preferrably not your old Rukh buddies, not your charming wife, not some sleazy businessman, not a politician – if at all possible.

            Someone outside the whole mess. Someone really sharp who really cares about this country.

            Then, listen to him or her.

            Really listen.

            And do what is necessary to keep the faith of those who voted for you on Mar. 31. •

–from the notebooks of Pan O.

RC#48: The goodwill boys

published in Eastern Economist #433, May 21, 2002

“Kyiv is an exceptionally eclectic city architecturally. This allows it to embrace almost any architectural form. But too many architects have taken advantage this eclecticism and abused it.”

        This sums up a hot debate I watched Thurs­day night on Studio 1+1’s talk show, “Ya tak du­mayu” – “That’s what I think.” The topic was the development of downtown Kyiv, with Serhiy Babushkin, the city’s chief architect and the guy who’s John Hancock you need if you want to put up so much as a dog house in Kyiv, in the hot seat.

        With Mr. Babushkin was a white-haired gen­tleman by the name of Oleksandr Komarovskiy, the architect responsible for the Maidan Nezalezhnosti project.

       Being a true product of the soviet privileged class known as the nomenklatura, the suave Mr. Babushkin was highly disinclined to listen much to his fellow guests or to answer directly any questions from the presenter.

        “We’ve done more to build up the central parts of Kyiv in the last six years than in the last 20,” said Mr. Babushkin. “I don’t need any referen­dum. The happy faces I see on the Maidan, people climbing into the fountains, taking each other’s pictures – that’s the best vote for me and every Monday I go to work happy that I’ve seen that.”

       Being of a soviet generation that thought any speech under 57 minutes was just an interrupted anecdote, Mr. Komarovskiy was disinclined to stop ranting once he got started.

       “You can’t compare the present Maidan with the old fountains and what was build in another epoch. Time has come for the Maidan to become a favorite place for a new generation. You’ll see what it looks like when the fountains are working and everything else. It’s all on a European level of qual­ity.” Etc, etc.

        Given the fact that the statue of Ukraina is al­ready listing forward, less than a year after installa­tion, I’m not sure what Europe Mr. Komarovskiy has in mind.

       There’s another European concept that I have questions about. It’s called town planning and vision.

        Now, I’ll be the first to agree that you can’t build by committee. Yet when a city plans, it ought to be thinking about what that development will mean over many years. It’s not just building a sin­gle house for a particular family. It’s building an environment for tens or hundreds of thousands – even millions – of people. It’s building something more than one administration will have to deal with.

        Build a bad road and you have to rebuild it a year or two or five later. If you’re into laundering money or buying tiles from your son’s factory, fine. At least try to fix up a new location each time, rather than redoing what was badly made the first time around!

        One woman on the show put it beautifully. “A city is a living, evolving thing. It continues to grow and change forever. There’s never a moment when it is complete or perfect, so every moment it must be the best that it can be for its residents in the first instance.”

        Whatever today’s administration plans now will affect what can be planned in the future. Even if it’s an authoritarian regime that simply tears ev­erything down arbitrarily only to put something else up in its place equally arbitrarily.

        “The residents are affected by any city con­struction,” said one of the talk-show guests. “It af­fects their daily lives and their world view. It affects them continually, every day that they use the city and its infrastructure.”

        And these people should be heard – even if, in the end, they are not entirely listened to, for le­gitimate reasons. It’s called building goodwill. A thoroughly European concept.

        But what’s going on in Kyiv is looking worse than building by committee. It’s building without planning, consultation, debate or taste.

         Take the remnants of the original gates which were found under the Maidan.

        Olha Petrova, an art and architectural critic on the show, said, “What a travesty this whole pro­cess has been! When any normal country uncovers a Pompei – which is what was found under the Maidan – these things are preserved. Why were they not preserved in Ukraine?”

        To which Mr. Komarovskiy replied: “Our ar­chaelogical group did what they could to preserve and they fulfilled their program. Of course, there were some difficult situations and things were lost, but I challenge anyone to do better in the circum­stances we were working in.” Etc, etc.

         Take Mr. Babushkin’s notion that the happy faces on the Maidan are a vote for his project.

         In what sense are they? Why should people let his bad planning spoil their happy day in the sun? They’re used to hanging out on the Maidan every weekend. They’ll just learn to ignore the mish-mash of unrelated sculptures and the obstruc­tive conservatory roofs.

        “Nobody is being driven underground,” is Mr. Babushkin’s response. “If it doesn’t appeal to you, don’t go there.”

        Maybe Mr. Babushkin should ask how many people are worried that the roadway could collapse onto the underground mall with time. Or that a well-placed rock will shatter the glass in the mall skylights. Ask how many have tripped walking down the halls of Metrograd with its barely visible half-steps.

        The fact that people adapt is not a sign of approval. In fact, during a telephone poll during the show, 88% of callers said they wanted some say in future developments in Kyiv.

        Goodwill boys, take heed. •

–from the notebooks of Pan O.

RC#47: The return of Ernestine’s cousins

published in Eastern Economist #432, May 14, 2002

Back in early February [RC#24], I was pleased to report that Ernestine’s Ukrainian cousins, obstructionist local bureaucrats, seemed on their way to retirement. I’ve had to reconsider that assessment.

            On Mar. 20, I got a little e-mail from a friend in Edinburgh whom I hadn’t seen in a long time. After years of talking about it, she had made up her mind to come to Ukraine to visit me.

            I immediately picked the last week in May as the best of the three times she proposed. “The weather should be ideal,” I wrote back, “and it’s Kyiv Days, which is a wonderful feast here. Zillions of concerts, shows, artists, etc etc.”

            March 22: “Great! I looked up a travel site and return flights are £190-585. Ouch! We’re spoiled here with flights to Venice at £30 each way. For a while, flights to Dublin were free – you only had to pay £10 in taxes. I guess Eastern Europe is ripe for Ryanair or Easyjet. Love, Rach”

            March 25: “Have booked our tickets. I will now get on with visas.... Rachel”

            March 30: “You shouldn’t need anything from me for a visa – they dropped the invitation requirement some time ago – but you never know,” I replied.

            April 12: “Because we’re staying with you and because of our nationalities, John only needs a letter confirming he’s staying with you but as a New Zealander I need (quote) “a letter of invitation” plus confirmation that I’m staying with you. We need ‘private’ visas, but the girl on the phone couldn’t tell me what that really meant. Good news is that there’s a consulate in Edinburgh so I won’t have to pay a private courier to London and back. The Embassy won’t send visas in the post; they have to be handed direct to someone with an official receipt! I can only assume old soviet bureaucracy is still rife in all this! Rachel”

            April 13: “Send me all your passport stats and then I’ll be off and running. Also, a fax number where I can send the letters.”

            April 18: “Did you get the faxes I sent this morning?”

            April 26: “The consulate says John’s stuff is OK, but my invitation needs to be stamped by the police in Ukraine. The consulate bloke wrote BBIP/VVIR on top. I guess you know what that means. A faxed copy will be fine (he says). They’re having some sort of a holiday (May Day, I guess) all next week. Rachel”

            April 26: “I thought all those requirements were dropped long time ago. I’ve never gotten such a stamp and I’ve no idea what they’re looking for. Can you somehow find out? We’re still working Apr. 29-30, and so should the consulate.”

            April 26: “The consulate and embassy only take calls between 09:30 and 12:30. I’ll try faxing today but don’t hold out much hope. Rach”

            April 26: “Hurrah! I faxed them and the consul just phoned me. As an NZer, I still need a police stamp. R.”

            April 29: “Am working on it.”

            April 29: “They say it takes three days to process but I don’t trust them. I may get it and then they’ll say I need something else (that’s been my experience of these things). They’re open again the 7th. R.”

            April 29-30, we spent much of the morning on the phone with the Central VVIR in Kyiv. Finally, we went down to talk to them directly. They refused to explain what the procedure was, or its cost, and sent us to the district VVIR where I live.

            The trouble is, I’m not registered with the VVIR. As a foreign journalist, I’m registered with the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

            So I called my contact there, but Viktoria had no idea what I was talking about. “Call this guy at the Visa Policy Department,” and she gave me a number and name.

            When we called, XXX knew nothing about it. “We don’t deal with that kind of thing,” he said and suggested we go to the Central VVIR.

            Meanwhile, the district VVIR wasn’t answering its phone. When we there in person, we were informed the stamp would cost Hr 80 or US $15. Of course, as a foreigner, they wouldn’t give me any stamp.

            We were back where we had started from. Nowhere. And six days of holidays were upon us.

            On May 7, we tried the Central VVIR again, with the same results. The District VVIR was closed until Saturday.

            

May 7: “Was wondering how things are progressing? I hear the weather’s good in Kyiv. Here it’s the usual 10-12° (a Scottish heatwave) so I’m looking forward to some sun. Rachel”

            May 7: “No luck with the VVIRs but a friend said he’ll try through someone he knows. I should know by six. The weather really is wonderful.”

            May 7: “That’s good news! Rachel”

            May 8: “No luck. I’m just going to fax you another version of the letter. Give it a try today if you can.”

            May 8: “I phoned a travel company in Manchester who deal with these things all the time. They thought Edinburgh was more switched on than London, so this gives real food for thought. He confirmed that you won’t get a stamp because you’re a foreigner. I guess I’m going to have to opt out. R.”

            May 8: “Rach! Don’t give up yet. I just talked to my MFA people again. They said to fax you my Ukrainian visa and MFA registration stamp. (Why they couldn’t have said this a week ago, Lord knows.) Anyway, they will try to get a stamp for you Friday morning (tomorrow’s another holiday) if necessary. Saturday is an official Ukrainian workday.”

            May 10: “The MFA girl knows a guy at your consulate personally, Kyrylo. Is that who you’re dealing with? He should be able to do a visa in three days.”

            May 10: “That’s the guy. He first he said three days was enough, then said no, it would take 10 days. He can’t seem to make up his mind. I have no choice but to opt out. Sorry about all this, but if I don’t cancel immediately, I’m £500 out of pocket. Rach”

            We agreed to try again in September.

            Ernestine would have been proud of them all. •

–from the notebooks of Pan O.

RC#45: Spring fever and the Wormwood star

published in Eastern Economist #429, April 23, 2002

In late April, tourist season isn’t quite upon Ukraine, but it’s warm enough now to get out and drive beyond the city. The trouble is, one of the most interesting places is not ready for rolled down windows.
 

            Some 90 km north of Kyiv lies the mouth of a river called the Prypiat. Weaving gently northward, it meanders across southern Belarus, past the town of Mazyr. After giving a bare little kiss to Pinsk, the Prypiat travels back southward into Ukraine again. North of Kovel, it forks off westward and reaches its source not far from the Polish border, at a small town called Zabuzhzhia or beyond the mouth.

            The countryside the Prypiat wanders through is known as Polissia, the great temperate forestland. Here, myriad edible mushrooms grow in all their glory under tall leafy trees. Lush groundcover and sparkling sunbeams made this the Ur-forest. Local farms once boasted healthy dairy cows, grass-munching goats and yards full of clucking chickens.

            Across the region, this was considered the place for picking the best mushrooms, varieties you could never find in a grocery store or even a market. Fresh as the morning dew, tasty as a fairy tale, which is what many Ukrainians likened the Prypiat area to.

            “You could almost imagine a little elf or a pretty fairy skipping out from behind a tree at any moment,” says one elderly Ukrainian woman. “It was that beautiful, that magical.”

            The inviting green landscape still looks like the perfect spot for a picnic. But the trail of mostly deserted villages along the highway is the first sign that it’s not. Then there’s the wired fence and the guards with machine guns standing at the checkpoint.

            Welcome to Chornobyl.

            Today this area, starting where the Prypiat and Uzh rivers meet the Dnipro, is in the restricted area known as the Chornobyl Zone. The 30-kilometer circle drawn around the atomic energy plant that blew up on April 26, 1986.

            “If anyone still has a hankering to see the ‘real’ Soviet Union,” says Johannes Andersen, a Danish writer living in Ukraine, “the Chornobyl Zone offers the perfect encapsulation of that historical and political phenomenon.”

            Clearly many people do. Charter buses, taxis and private cars regularly bring officials, scientists, journalists, and just plain curious folks to the Chornobyl Atomic Energy Station and its surroundings.

            You can get more information about how to do this through your favorite journalist, a local tour agency, or the Emergency Ministry. The cost for a rickety soviet-era bus to take a group up is around US $30, although the ‘tour’ I went on charged US $45 per person – without lunch. It depends somewhat on who organizes it and how much you actually get to see.

            Once we get to the Chornobyl Center, we’re asked to don large cotton coveralls and a white headcover. Our shoes are covered as well with disposable bags. We stash our belongings in lockers for the duration of the tour.

            In contrast to the empty villages as we drove up, here, people walk around as if this were any other normal industrial site. In preparation for an official visit, squads of workers are repairing roads and fixing the landscaping.

            The slogan: SAFETY, EFFICIENCY, SOCIAL PROGRESS greets visitors in the plant’s main entrance hall. In small letters below are listed the 300,000 ‘liquidators’ of the accident. When we look at photos of the destroyed Nº4 reactor, we understand what an impossible task it must have been, containing the radioactive fire and cleaning up the hot debris in the first weeks after the accident.

            Our group trails out onto a rail bridge over a cooling pond. The brownish water is alive with carp spawning, females with fluorescent red pouches of roe on their left sides. They swim almost in place facing our direction, possibly hoping someone will feed them. Some already show the damage of mating frenzy, their sides battered and torn.

            Among them drifts the occasional 2-meter long som with the flat mouth and whiskers of a bottom-feeder. The bottom, of course, is where all the danger lies in this water.

            Our next stop is the town of Prypiat. It was built in 1970 to house what was considered the Soviet Union’s elite, the workers at the new atomic station at Chornobyl. Today, its 16-story apartment towers stand empty and vandalized. When we go inside we see that they are mostly 4-5 rooms with huge sunny windows and balconies galore. It is eerie to see the detritus of so many lives still there, dusty and still.

            On the town square, a yellow ferris wheel stands, probably just the way it was left in 1986. Weeds have penetrated the concrete walks and roadways and straggly grass grows among the young budding chestnut trees.

            A couple of kilometers beyond Prypiat, a “cemetery” of vehicles greets us: huge floppy-eared helicopters, tanks, trucks, buses and cars. They’re all waiting in tidy rows, like well-behaved children, for owners who will never reclaim them. Their paint jobs are standing up well and no one seems to be touching the tires or windows.

            Once we’re back in the Chornobyl Center, we’re told to wash our hands, strip off the cotton clothes, and collect our belongings. We pass through a radiation detector on the way out and get back on our bus.

            In the land of extremity, eating our late lunch is an almost giddily normal event. •

–from the notebooks of Pan. O

Recommended: The Sky Unwashed, a novel by Chicagoan Irene Zabytko; Raspad, a film about Chornobyl that toured the West in the early 1990s.

RC#46: Rising to the occasion

published in Eastern Economist #430-1, April 30-May 7, 2002

If you’ve never been to Lviv, Easter time is probably the best time to go. Since the Julian calendar often celebrates later than the Gregorian, spring is farther along. With any luck, you’ll have pretty well perfect weather.

            A couple of friends and I left a slightly overcast Kyiv by car on May 1st, the beginning of this year’s holidays. By 15:00, we had rolled into Ivano-Frankivsk, where Mykhailo, our sinfully fast driver left us. Slavko and his five-year-old got off just before 17:00 at the village of Noviy Rozdil. That left me to cruise into L’viv alone, just in time for supper.

            My hostess Olha was in the midst of a cooking frenzy, so the selection was good. Green borshch with a nice dollop of sour cream. Fresh baton and kovbasa. A salad of shredded cabbage, carrots, tomato and onions in horseradish mayonnaise with dill on top.

            For dessert, syrnyky made of farmer’s cheese with cherries, walnuts and raisins mixed in. I smothered mine in sour cream. Olha and her 14-year-old daughter chose home-made black currant jam. We washed it all down with some nice hot tea.

            This was the beginning of the Easter eating pentathlon.

            Olha and Yustina had already made three coffee cakes and were busy on a fourth. One was crisply layered with walnuts, poppyseed and cherries. Another one was spotted like a dairy cow with huge patches of ground poppyseed. A third was filled with cherries. While we yakked, Olha cooked up a chocolate icing.

            The next morning, Holy Thursday, was traditionally a cleaning day. But Olha had some last-minute shopping and I needed a haircut.

            Stariy Rynok, the old market, was doing brisk business in an amazing array of foodstuffs, flowers and Easter goodies. Candles, pastry lambs, pysanky. People had come from the Kosiv region to sell the traditional hand-painted eggs. For 50¢, you could pick from dozens of trays up and down the street. I bought a hollowed egg covered in beadwork for about $2.50.

            Olha began Holy Saturday morning dyeing eggs a rich onion skin color. By afternoon, it was time to prepare two baskets for the Easter blessing. I scraped some horseradish roots while Olha laid out kovbasa, smoked ham, salt, cheese, butter, and two Paskas, Easter breads.

            Her husband brought in decorative barvinok and samshyt – periwinkles and box tree greens – from the garden, as well as six vintage pysanky. We carefully packed each basket and covered it with embroidered cloth.

            It was time to join the thousands headed for L’viv’s main park, Shevchenkivskiy Hai – pronounced “high.” Every family carried baskets to the dale, where the Easter ritual had started in the churchyard at 15:00. By the time we had paid respects to the ploshchanytsia, the glass painting of Christ in his tomb, the fourth round of blessings was just beginning.

            Placing our baskets on the grass in the gathering circle, Yustina lit four candles. The wind kept putting them out.

            Young couples held their babies while grandparents snapped pictures. Girls in pinafores and boys in new suits chased around the grass. Behind us, voices sang Easter verses. Dressed in a black hat and short cape with a dramatic green and yellow checked chasuble underneath, the black-bearded abbot finally began his round. Sprinkling holy water on baskets and owners alike, he intoned the Easter blessing.

            As soon as we got back to the house, Yustina wailed, “I haven’t eaten since last night.” That was all the excuse we needed to break out the blessed food right then and there. Late that evening, Olha stuffed some sconces with mocha cream. Dessert Nº5.

            Easter Day was the most glorious food moment of all. Everything that had been so painstakingly prepared the previous three days was now hauled out, laid out on good china, and set on the dining room table. There was a tray of freshly cut Paska bread; a platter of sliced smoked pork shank and olives; a plate of egg halves sprinkled with fresh horseradish; a platter of cod-liver salad on lettuce; a plate of sliced kovbasa and ham; a bowl of apple and egg salad; another with shredded cabbage, greens, tomatoes, and peas in mayonnaise dressing; a plate of garnished carp slices; chicken in aspic; a small bowl of egg and horseradish spread; another of beet and horseradish.

            We toasted with home-made wine and Carpathian cognac while the sun rose and the day grew warmer. By dessert-and-coffee time, I was feeling somewhat incapacitated.

            “Time to work off those calories,” said Roman. We headed back to Shevchenkivskiy Hai to join in the spring rituals known as haïvky.

            It seemed half of L’viv had come out. Particularly the half under 20. A cluster of nuns and postulants in embroidered blouses and black tunics sang songs as we queued at the gate.

            We toured the preserved houses, barns, bee keeps, stables, churches and schools. Near us, a dozen young recruits in camouflage did likewise, guided by an elderly nun. In every open area, people were playing and singing.

            In the main meadow, young people and children had formed circles and were performing rounds. Oy vesno, vesno, Podolianochka, Viyu vinets. Teams of girls challenged teams of boys. Tugs-o-war. Maypoles. I couldn’t remember when I’d last seen a crowd of teenagers playing around like kids.

            Many girls wore embroidered blouses over top ordinary jeans and mini-skirts. So many shapes, colors and designs. There were no two alike in the entire crowd. Tiny little Halychanky wandered around proudly decked out in headband, blouse, vest, waistband and long reddish-brown skirt. But not many boys or men had gone native.

            There was one down side this beautiful afternoon.

            If you wanted a taste of Ukraine – some Dobra voda or Zhyvchyk to quench your thirst or a slice of makivnyk or yabluneviy pyrih to stave off dinner – there was nothing. Not even a bag of chips. Just a pump of well-water where you could fill your own bottle – if you had one.

            If you wanted a souvenir of Lviv, a memento of the Hai, an embroidered towel or shirt to take away, there was nothing.

            At Shevchenkivskiy Hai, Christ may have risen, but commerce is very much dead. •

–from the notebooks of Pan O.

RC#44: Getting Potty

published in Eastern Economist #428, April 16, 2002
The invitation came to me in a plain white envelope with a swirling script that said “Pan O.” When I opened it up, there was a card that twinkled a little around the edges.

            “You are invited to meet with Master Harry Potter at exactly 23:59 and 3/4 on April the 13th. You may bring one very nice friend along.”

            I’d read the first of the Books, so the significance of 9 and 3/4 did not escape me. We would meet at the crossroads between normal time and place and the world of Hogwarts.

            I called around to see who else I knew had been invited.

            Sure enough, a lot of people had never heard of it.

            “Harry who?” they asked indifferently. And promptly began explaining that they were too busy on the weekend to meet new people.

            “What’s a Hogwarts?” they muttered suspiciously. And cautioned me about going to strange places by myself on a Saturday night.

            “Why 59 and 3/4?” they queried irritably. And started in about what a terrible week they’d had, counting the bunions on their feet.

            I could only cheer when I got off the phone that they would immediately forget about our conversation as if sprinkled by Dismemorious powder.

            Of course, all the most interesting people knew.

            My friend the curly-haired witch who runs a small shop selling curios. “My dear Pan O, I wouldn’t miss it for the world. I’m going to bring my three spotted cats and orange-faced dog along with me. And my mother-in-law. It will do her good.”

            My neighbor the wizard who can fix anything that rolls. “You’re darn tootin’, I’ll be there! I’m going in my ZAP 2001 with purple handles and double-inflated tires.”

            My other friend the spellbinding singer who has a band that’s out of this world. “My name ain’t Skrypka if the boys and I don’t make it with our bayan, sopilka and boubny.” (Violin, accordion, flute and drums to those of you who don’t know the Slavian language.)

            I invited one little friend who hadn’t got an invitation. She’s named after an ancient Slavian princess and has a long golden braid down her back. Olya squealed with delight when I told her.

            “Mama, can I go, please?” she shouted at the other end of the phone.

            I could hear her braid twitching and her face crinkling in a huge smile when the answer came back.

            “I did all my homework, so Ma says I can go!”

            There was a pause. I could hear her blushing over the phone.

            “Will… Ron be there?”

            “Sure! Maybe he’ll even let you hold his pet rat Scabbers for a bit.”

            At 21:00, I came by her house in my blue ESP 1998 with bead seatcovers and broken side mirror. We were so keen to get a good spot that we only watched half of a scary movie before heading out the door.

            “Make sure you bring Olya back by 01:00,” said her mother sternly.

            We flew down the streets of Kyiv, bumping along the cobbles. There were lots of Muggles wandering around in the dark. Many of them full of beer, many more full of boredom on a Saturday night.

            “Do you think they know?”

            “I doubt it. Harry wouldn’t broadcast this to just anyone, especially a drunken Muggle.”

            It was a little early when we parked my ESP. We wandered down to The Crossing and stopped in front of a dowdy shop called “Mystetstvo.”

            “Ooh,” said Olya. “Look! There are baloons tied to the doorway and windows!”

            Sure enough, in the dark, you could see rows and rows of huge colored baloons. There was a tiny platform hidden in the shadows, with curtains and a poster of Harry chasing a Snitch on his Nimbus 2000. If we squinted just right, we could even see its tiny wings glittering in the dark.

            There was a small crowd gathered, but the Master of Ceremonies, Vasyl the Wolf, said, “Go on inside so you don’t freeze.”

            The store proved much bigger than it looked and thousands of pictures of Harry Potter on his broom gleaming at us from every shelf. “Just for tonight,” explained a tiny woman with a crooked hat, “you can buy Harry’s book for 3/4 of the regular price.”

            The minutes ticked by quickly and before we knew it, the clock said 23:58. We dashed outside to find a huge crowd of people, young and old, big and small, Slavian and otherish. Olya squiggled through to the stage area.

            At exactly 23:59 and 3/4, a stream of odd-shaped lights began playing on the walls around the shop entrance and mysterious music boomed.

            A huge, bearded man in a robe, with hair out to there, wandered onto the stage with a baby bundled in his arms. It’s Hagrid!

            “Harry,” said the giant, slowly unwrapping the cloths around his bundle. “I have brought you here so that you can be taken care of by your friends.” We all held our breaths. Suddenly Hagrid pulled out a huge book with Harry Potter on the cover.

            The crowd roared and cheered.

            “It’s the Sorcerer’s Stone!”

            Before we could blink, Harry himself appeared on the stage, his lightning scar visible to all. “I so happy to be here! I sorry my Slavian not so good! But I learning.”

            The evening went by in a whirl. Ivan Malkovych the publisher of ABABAGALAMAGA, Prof. Dumbledore, Viktor Morozov the translator, Ron, Ihor Slisarenko the television star, Prof. McGonagall, the little Harry Potter look-alike from Ivano-Frankivsk, and Hermione. We couldn’t catch our breaths for gasping and cheering.

            When it was over, we stood there with three Ukrainian copies of The Sorcerer’s Stone in our hands. Signed by Harry himself. It was magic! •

from the star-dusted notebooks of Pan O.