So I finally got some time at the computer and here are the first two of five interesting stories from the past week:
-My friend Olya, who lives in Kyiv but is from Zhytomyr, was in town for the weekend. We met to hang out, and I was told that we had to go see her grandmother, because Olya had promised to see her, and this killed two birds with one stone. It was already 9:30 PM, but with long summer days to match the short winter nights, meant there was still some light out. Still, it wasn’t until I got on the marshrutka with Olya that I was told her grandmother didn’t live in the city, but in a village outside of it.
It was full dark by the time we got there, which is how I found myself feeling my way across a creaking bridge of cobbled together metal plates to cross the Teatriv and get to this tiny village. Her grandmother, who lived in a two-room tiny house that was more than a century old, was really cool: youthful for her age and full of energy. While Olya’s eight year-old cousin attacked her in a hug and began jabbering about the birthday party she had had the previous weekend, the grandmother stuffed me full of dyruni (fried potato pancakes) topped with sour cream and told me in breakneck Russian about this guy she knew named Ded Kolia.
“Ded” means grandfather, but Kolia wasn’t so named because of his age but because of his actions during World War II. I don’t know why she thought a story from the war would be one to tell me unbidden. Maybe it’s because World War II was one of those few times that Americans and Soviets were on the same side. In any case, she was right, because I like to hear any kind of interesting story and those from World War II almost always seem to be interesting.
Only one generation out of Germany and able to speak German, Ded Kolia was named the administrator of her village by the Nazis after their war machine rolled through. Rather than being loyal to his German roots though, Ded Kolia used this new clout to forge papers for people who were being sent to the death camps. Instead of going to the camps, these Ukrainians lives were saved by being sent to Korestichiv, a town just north of Zhytomyr where, her grandmother told me, they would then join the large partisan resistance that was brewing there.
Then the story gets sadly ironic. Although he retreated with the Germans, Ded Kolia and his two sons were allowed to come back to Ukraine after the war ended. Despite saving so many people during the war, Kolia, possibly do to voicing anti-Soviet opinions, was sent to a gulag in Siberia, where he died.
Ded Kolia’s house was pointed out to me in the dark, on the way back to the bus stop to get me back to Zhytomyr. Olya and her grandmother tried to get me to stay the night, but I had to teach in the morning (yes, on a Saturday morning!). Olya wanted to walk me back to the bus stop (and I probably would have gotten lost if she hadn’t), but her grandmother didn’t want her returning alone, so all three girls: Olya, her grandmother and the young cousin, walked me to the stop.
Because it was so dark, Olya took one of my hands and her grandmother took my other and Olya’ cousin held her grandmother’s hand. So in this way these three Ukrainian girls walked the poor, lost American down the dirt road to the bus stop. It was a sweet moment.
Her grandmother invited me back to see the village in the daytime, because she says it’s beautiful and she wants to show me the apple orchids. I promised to return.
***
The next evening I was again walked by girls, this time Marina and Anya. It was after a long day of climbing with my class of boys, browbeating them up a route none of them thought they could do but two of them managed to complete. Anya called and asked if I wanted to get ice cream with her and Marina. This is what Ukrainians do.
When it’s warm, the most popular thing to do in Ukraine is to buy alcohol, ice cream or both and walk. The Russian and Ukrainian languages even have a verb for this: “Gouliat” and “Houliate”, respectively. There are other verbs for walking, but this verb particularly means leisurely strolling around the town, almost always with a beer in one hand and ice cream in the other, talking with your friends.
I’m an American. I’m not used to all this walking. Still, the weather was gorgeous, the chestnut trees were blooming and we gouliat-ed down Old Boulevard, the park and fountain lined avenue that stretches from a statue of Pushkin to a massive (but condemned) bridge that crosses the Teatriv River. Gouliat-ing on Old Boulevard is the equivalent of going to a club in America. Everyone is decked to the nines, girls baring stomachs, cleavage and thighs and guys in shined shoes and button down shirts (the two buttons generally undone and exposing gold chains), almost everyone sipping on beers and eyeing each other from their same-sex clusters. Both the girls had dressed up, hair done and wearing makeup (which I’m not used to seeing them in) and I stood out considerably because I was still in my climbing clothes, hair under a bandanna.
There actually was a club near Old Boulevard, in an old Soviet concrete amphitheatre, its walls topped with barbed wire. Inside, Russian pop boomed from speakers, DJed by a guy sitting in front of a computer under a large Coke-a-Cola umbrella. The price for this open-air impromptu club was 4 hrivna (80 cents for those playing the home game), a fifth less than any other club and for obvious reasons: they didn’t serve alcohol and they closed at 11 PM (when, invariably, everyone would be going to places that DID serve alcohol). For that price and with pumping music, I was down for a little daytime dancing. The weather was warm, the sun was setting and it seemed perfect, but the girls were too embarrassed to dance any place that didn’t have bad lighting.
So then I suggested we just sit in the grass and listen to the music. We don’t have any alcohol, they said. If you’re going to sit on the grass, they said, you have to eat and drink vodka or beer.
This is a rule?
No, it’s a tradition.
So we can’t just sit and listen to the music?
No.
I didn’t understand why they didn’t want to sit, relax, enjoy the sunset and listen to the music. They didn’t understand why I didn’t want to walk.
Because this is what Ukrainians do. They gouliat.