Touring in March 1999.

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March Travelogue

Saturday, March 27, 1999

Dear Friends,

We've not sent out a general "Diary" in over a month so today's the day. However, when I went to look at the pictures, I first selected 62 of my favorites. Ouch! It's very hard for people to receive such volume and everyone but my mother would be asleep before half of them were done. So here's the plan: Two Diaries, this one that's mostly National Geographic-type tourist details and a second one that blends people and places.

MARCH TRAVEL

Photographically, our month became divided by family (the other e-mail), buildings (mostly churches), winter scenes and a wonderful day at the "Architectural Museum".

WINTER SCENES

This month has been difficult. Early in the month, the sun came out and the temperature warmed up to several degrees (Celsius -- 30's F). The snow mostly melted. The young ladies shifted from winter covering to short skirts. This was a most welcome harbinger of Spring at just the point where we thought it would never come. And then it snowed. And snowed again. And some wind came up. (That's unusual here - cold yes, wind no.)

Picture "W1" shows the view down the cable car that runs up from the lower Podil district. I thought it reasonably captured the feeling of cold as we looked out on the Dniper river. At this location, the river isn't frozen but much of it has been a sheet of ice, complete with ice fishermen. Why do people do that? It's cold. Wet. Dangerous. And all you win is a small smelly fish.

The most discouraging storm was March 21 (6 days ago) Pictures W2 and W3 show our neighborhood streets. It was quite pretty but I have to admit the time for enjoying this stuff had passed. It snowed for over a day but, by week's end, almost everything was clean. And today is WONDERFUL - sunny, warm. Later we'll go out in the streets (and I have permission to look at short skirts).

CHURCHES

Son Geoff visited for a week and when he arrived he said he felt he had seen mostly churches from our picture shows. That's probably true but it's because the churches really are photogenic so here's another bunch. In the early March gap in the snow, I went out for a walk and ran across a good puddle. A puddle of water instead of a patch of ice so I figured that was real progress. Picture C1 shows St. Michael's church reflected in the water.

Picture C2 is yet one more picture from our window. I think this makes a zillion pictures of The Sophia Cathedral but the sunrise colors on this one were quite spectacular.

When Gabby was here, we went up to the city of Chernihiv (or Chornigiv depending on Russian vs. Ukrainian spelling). It's almost as old as Kyiv but much smaller. The churches there seemed to be less museums and more religious. We went in one (no pictures -- it IS a church after all) and the service going on was just as we imagined would occur 400 years ago. No pews. Lots of incense. The altar screened off from the people. Lots of bowing and crossing ("backwards"). Beggars at the church door. Quite inspiring actually.

Picture C3 shows a cannon from the last century aimed past an even older church to guard the river around Chernihiv. This bluff was the original fortress of the area and still has a number of old churches, monasteries and museums. Elsewhere in the town were several monasteries, including this one in picture C4.

Back in Kyiv, we've had our tours this month as both Geoff and Gabby paid visits - at different times. Each got a dose of churches since that's what tourists do here. When I was out with Geoff, I took picture C5 in the Lavra, an area which has dozens of churches and religious buildings. Most of the churches are more spectacular than this one but it seemed inviting.

Finally, C6 is a blend of a winter scene, a non-church scene - and, if you look on the top of the medieval gate, a church placed on top. This is the Golden Gate which served as one of three entrances into the walled city 900 years ago. This Gate and the church on top were rebuilt several years ago but the other gates were covered over decades ago.

ARCHITECTURAL MUSEUM

Another trip I took with Geoff was to a park called The Architectural and People's Museum. Marianne and I had been there when we first came but now it's winter and not really the season for outdoor walks. Nevertheless, on this particular day it was warm, sunny and we had a great time.

Of course, we have to start with a picture M1, a shot of a church transplanted from the Carpathian mountains (western border of Ukraine). The three-steeple church seemed like a small ship steaming out of the forest. This is now a working church after decades as a museum. Inside, it was intimate and rustically medieval. The same altar arrangement with original icon screen from almost 200 years ago. We lit candles and prayed a bit (including a prayer for Marianne who was home sick with some stomach problem. Such things happen out here and she recovered in a couple days.)

Not all was churches however. Does anyone know what picture M2 is? Not the person standing there, I know what that is. The tree trunk. ... It's a beehive. The two slots hold honeycombs and there are passages drilled in for the bees to fly in an out. Of course there's even a roof to keep the little fella's dry.

We probably went in 8 or 10 houses during our two hour tour. Each one had been snatched from some different region of Ukraine when the villages were all collectivized by the Soviets. In all these houses, the layout was basically the same. A door in the middle (picture M3) that leads to a dirt-floored room in the middle of the house. It was easy to imagine this as "the mud room" in every sense. On the left would be a room which we called "the kids room" because it was relatively small and not much more than space for beds and some shelves. Some of the houses had fireplaces in here but not all did. To the right of the mud room is the Great Room -- if "Great" applies to a room only six and a half feet high and about 15 or 20 feet on a side. Picture M4 shows one such room. Clockwise from the left are the kitchen, bedroom, dining room, desk/storage shelf. Maybe life wasn't so good back in the Good Old Days.

I hope you've enjoyed our little travelogue. It's fun making them. Remember, comments and just plain mail are welcome.

John and Marianne

ps: Wednesday, we leave for a quick trip to Turkey. More pictures on our return.