Kyiv Days, April 1999

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Kyiv Days

June 2, 1999

Dear Friends,

Last weekend was a big deal here. Well, it was a big deal for here. The annual Kyiv Days took over the town along with the last days of mayoral elections and an important religious celebration thrown in on Sunday as well. I'm not sure we have a complete story in pictures but we do have some.

Kyiv Days started in 1992, shortly after the collapse of the USSR. The Kyiv mayor sponsored an art fair on Alexander Street ( called Alexander "Spuce" in Russian and Alexander "Val" in Ukrainian. Spuce means a way up and Val means a way down. Different interpretations for the same road which led from the oldest part of town down by the river bank up onto the old town site on top of the hill. Or led down from the town site to the river bank &endash; it all depends on your viewpoint.) The celebration was supposed to celebrate the new found artistic freedom after the USSR &endash; and sell a few art works to feed the starving artists. Apparently the celebration gets bigger every year and this year we had three or four days of celebrations on Alexander Spuce as well as on Kryschatik, our main drag.

The election is also pretty important since the mayor of Kyiv has a heads tart for becoming the next president. Marianne had a personal connection in that the incumbent mayor is the grandfather of one of the kids at school. He was the favorite and was eventually announced as the winner.

The religious Sunday honored The Trinity and was called the third most holy day of the year in the Orthodox calendar &endash; after Easter and Christmas. Religious events here are celebrated even though only a fraction of the Ukrainians are actively religious. But the holy-day did generate a Monday holiday so even the atheists joined in the celebration. (By the way, I only found out that Monday was a holiday when I showed up for work and the doors were padlocked. It's amazingly hard to determine what's going to be a holiday here.)

Anyway, on to our diary.

Friday night, we went out for dinner with school friends. It was fun and we went to one of our favorite non-Western restaurants &endash; "Panatgruel" (I think this means "lots of different gruel" &endash; or something like that.) Afterwards, we had coffees in a lovely outdoor cafe-bar and ran into some of my work friends. It's great when that happens because we feel like this isn't such a big, impersonal city. After that, we walked down to Kryschatik and got there just in time to be washed out of the street &endash; literally. It seems there had been some sort of impromptu parting going on in the main street and the police were just breaking it up when we arrived. The led a half-dozen street washing trucks down the street at 20 miles and hour and just sprayed the place clean. Not as dramatic as water canons but just as effective.

Saturday morning we got up early &endash; 5 am or so. We were greeted by this wonderful view of 1,000-year-old St. Sophie's just as we are every day. It's a wonderful start, particularly on a bright, sunny day like we had. Our plan was to walk to an early breakfast and then explore The Spuce for art and craft treasures. Our walk led us past St Michael's'. This church has just recently been rebuilt. It had been leveled by the Soviets but the Ukrainian president has made a point of rebuilding many of the famous historical churches and this was one of his favorites. That's real gold on the domes by the way. Something like 20 kg was enough to cover all the domes and spires. The morning sun was beautiful on the gold.

Later in the day we would walk past St. Andrews church. Another gem but this one had been left standing during the Soviet period so it's now a bit tarnished. But it's still impressive. Toward the end of our walk, we snapped a picture of the church next to Steve and Marilyn's house. I don't even know the name of the church. But then again, "Steve" is the U.S. Ambassador and I'm sure he doesn't know our name either. Our only connection is that they have a darling little girl at Marianne's

school so they show up at school functions &endash; pretty much like any other parents.

Eventually, we did make it to breakfast at Arizona Bar B Q. A regular standby and the only place we've found for breakfast. I know we're supposed to be rugged adventurers but it's very nice just walking in here and getting real 'merican food. Our normal life is adventure enough.

Fortified with sausage and eggs, we headed up into the crowds It was only about 9:30 in the morning but there were people everywhere even this early. This was as festive an environment as we have seen since we got here. On Sunday, "festive" took on a religious flavor as the local priests led the procession into St Andrew's. Just to make sure the non-religious didn't feel left out, at least one mayoral candidate led his procession on the same street ( can you guess which one was &endash; and is &endash; the Kyiv Mayor?)

But we weren't in this for the churches or parades. No siree. We were here for shopping. Here is Marianne looking at some typical needlework. No linen purchases this day but the selection was impressive nonetheless. Not that we went home empty handed. As our friends will attest, we like hand-made rugs. On Saturday, we saw this "store" on the Spuce. It took us a day to get the price down but on Sunday we purchased the Azerbaijani rug just behind Marianne in the picture. The merchant spoke no English and only limited Russian. But he had an interesting collection of relatively old rugs which he said he bought directly in his trips through old rug centers of the Soviet Union. He promised to give us a call when he returned from his next trip. I'm not sure the rug is authentic &endash; but I believe it is and that's all that counts after all. And it will make a nice addition to our bedroom wall.

I also bought several cameras this week end. That's right, "several". Well, four. Two probably function, one might and one does not. Here I am getting instructions from one dealer. He was pretty funny. I had looked at this camera, called a "Kyiv 60" because it had a good-looking, (East) German lens and because I wanted to try a "medium format" camera again for some detailed pictures. The Kyiv 60 looks like a 35-mm camera on steroids. It uses 120-roll film, just like everybody's grandpa used in his camera and makes a negative about four times the area of a 35-mm camera. Anyway, I said I wanted the camera and the dealer decides he needs to show me the regular lens as well. He's been selling camera stuff (a little ) and drinking beer (not so little) all day and when he popped the small lens loose from the camera it bounced out of his hand, off the table and down onto the cobblestone street. And then rolled 15 feet. He laughed and said, I think, "No problem. This is a Soviet camera and that will be no problem". He was right. I picked up the lens and could not see a crack or dent or even a scratch on it.

So that's one camera. Here's the whole spread. There's another Kyiv 60 (spare parts?). And a Kyiv 88 which is the Soviet imitation of a Hassalblad camera. That's the one that may or may not work. Finally, that big one in the middle is a very old German camera from pre-film days. The box is simple enough but I can not even imagine how complex the process of taking pictures on glass plates must have been. I think I prefer digital but with a 10 inch by 12 inch "negative", I'll bet there were some wonderful scenes shot with this veteran. By the way, the total price for all four cameras, plus a macro/close-up kit for the Kyiv 60/80 cameras, was about what I had paid for the little digital camera &endash; and it was a bargain. Boys and their toys.

And that's it. A fun weekend. Of course Monday was the holiday I didn't know about &endash;and it was NOT a holiday for Marianne so it was a wasted one for me in any event. Now we are counting the days until the next weekend and the next Kyiv Days

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Originally sent May 30, 1999. Re-formatted June 4, 2001.

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