Well, they just took down the big tree in the middle of the main square (the one with the statue of Lenin in it). The tree has been the site of excessive partying since December 31st. During the day, there are things for children to do in the square: horse rides, horse-drawn wagon rides, a colorful little people mover thingy that loads up a dozen kids at a time, two each to a car. Multiple Santa Clauses walked around so people can take their pictures with them. At night, the demographics of the crowd shift, and teenagers and people in their 20s drink and sing very bad kareoke, crackling speakers blasting drunken Ukrainian to the other end of the square.
There’s a stage in the square, for what purpose I’m not entirely sure because I’ve never seen someone perform on it. It’s the impromptu place to sit. At night, teenage boys with one arm over their girls, bottle gripped in the hand of the other, sit on it and sing along to the kareoke, legs swinging over the pavement. By the end of the night, the stage is covered with empty bottles.
The first half of January is a big deal for Ukrainians. They not only celebrate New Year’s on January 1, but also Orthodox Christmas on January 7 and the old New Year’s day on January 13. There is also a less celebrated holiday on January 22 called vodo krashne. It literally translates as “beautiful water” but the way my host mother describes it, a better translation would be “holy water”. Since all these holidays are close together, Ukrainians pretty much consider the first two weeks of January one big holiday.
It's over now, and the kids just went back to school today. I had my first English Club meeting today (it went well) and I also spent the afternoon at the Institute writing Olympiad Questions. It seems that my vacation is officially over as well, and it's time to get to work.
One thing I'll miss about the holidays being over is the fireworks. The fireworks had been going off nonstop every night. Fireworks that would be illegal in the states are available here, the big ones that launch from mortars and put huge explosions of colored sparks into the sky. You can buy them, a set of ten, for 200 hrivnas at the bazaar. All the mortars are glued together, and you light one fuse that sets them off in quick succession, lighting up the night sky. The stall that you can buy the fireworks from is the same one where you can buy AK-47s. Seriously. I couldn’t afford the mortar fireworks, so I paid 5 hrivna for the mother of all bottle rockets, the size and shape of a bottle for contact lens solution.
Back at my house that evening, my entire family gathered in the snow. I put the stick the rocket was attached to into some packed snow and lit the fuse. The fuse burned into the rocket, and then nothing happened. I thought it was a dud. Two seconds later, with a whistling scream, it launched into the air and exploded seconds later into an expanding ball of red sparks. It was pretty damn cool.