Traveler, Writer, Aquarius, Peace Corps Volunteer
The evidence
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What you see when you look around my host city of Ukrainka is a twisted braid of scenic countryside and rotting Soviet buildings. It's like a bread made up of separate strands and one has gone stale, but there's no way to eat the fresh without consuming the putrid. You at once savor the sweetness of loaf and can't help but choke down the mold.
It's those two inextricably woven strands, the sanguine and the sickly, that seems to embody both Ukraine and its people. To understand this concept is to look into a pair of Ukrainian eyes -- those crystal azures and overcast greys, burning emeralds and sparkling cyans, deep mahoganies and pale powder blues. I've never seen so much beauty and so much pain and so much hope and so much resignation occupy a single space at the same time.
People here inhabit two worlds: the one that's been forced on them and the one they have domain over. They dwell in their crumbling towns and navigate their pot-holed streets and windowless buildings. They shop at their humble markets, harvest their own vegetables, and make do on a modest living, often living on no more than 200 grivnas a month. That's about $40 dollars.
And then you get invited into a Ukrainian home. You come to the building where they live and walk past the grafitti, the broken glass, the concrete facade and steps. You avoid the stray cats and dogs, the strangers passing in shadows, and ring the bell. When you're greeted, you're greeted warmly. You find that the first steel door opens into another corridor with another door, decorated with a series of locks. This door opens into a foyer, festooned with shoes and coats, always lit.
You take off your shoes and either keep your socks or put on tapochki, slippers, for wearing in the house. Whatever you do, don't shake hands across the threshold. This brings horrible luck. Wait until you're inside. Whatever you do, don't whistle in the house. This means no money will come here. Whatever you do, make sure you've brought a gift. And if that gift is flowers, make sure it's an odd number, because even numbers are for funerals.
Once inside, you see the true nature of the Ukrainians. On the table is a cornucopia of fresh fruits and vegetables, fishes and meats, juices and spirits, pastries and sweets. You'll eat and drink until you can't consume any more. "Vso," you'll say. "Enough." But there is more food and more drink. And then the singing begins. The most beautiful ballads you've ever heard, sung by these heavenly voices. The songs are at once so beautiful and so sad. You don't know whether to clap or cry, and you end up doing both. And you watch them sing. And you see their eyes. Always those eyes. And their smiles, expressing such joy and hiding such sorrow.
There is someone playing piano in the other room. These people have such a tie to the arts. Singing and dancing and music. To know a Ukrainian home is to know a part of life that many people have moved away from. These people are so close to the earth. They're sensuous and vibrant. They love and they feel and they struggle and they suffer.
There was, of course, the continual occupation of their country for centuries, whether it was the Turks or Poles, Mongols or Russians. There was the forced famine of 1932-33, when millions of Ukrainians starved to death as Stalin took their harvests and gave them to the Soviet cities, leaving peasant corpses in his wake. There was World War II, known here as The Great Patriotic War, when the Nazis came into Ukraine and killed eight million Ukrainians in four years. There was Soviet rule for another forty-five years. There was Afghanistan from 1979-89, when hundreds of thousands of Ukrainian men were killed. And since independence in 1991, there has been the suffering and poverty known by so many ex-Soviet countries trying to rebuild their economies and pride.
Come to Ukraine and you will see beauty in abundance. You have never seen such beautiful woman and such striking men. You will see rolling steppes and lazy rivers. And you will see decay and despair. And the seedlings of hope as these people struggle to awake from their long sleep and recognize a future that contains jobs and success and independence. However long it takes to fulfill that promise, one thing is for certain. Ukraine will continue to survive.
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