Learning to Fly

 September 25th, 2021

A fatal attraction is holding me fast
How can I escape this irresistible grasp?

Can't keep my eyes from the circling sky
Tongue-tied and twisted, just an earth-bound misfit, I

                                                                           -Pink Floyd, Learning to Fly

I can’t stop thinking about jumping out of Oleg’s 10^th story apartment window.

I am obsessed with the thought of it. What would it feel like to freefall ten stories down to the ground? Would I remain conscious, or would I black out before I hit? Would I feel the concrete as my body splattered all over it, and what would my last thought be (oh, fuck!?)

I can’t stop imagining it, every time I peer out the window and down to the city’s cold, hard, concrete surfaces. Would anyone else even see it, maybe someone peering out a similar window, thinking about doing the same thing?

Don’t get me wrong, I’m not going to jump out of my window. I am not suicidal. I am not angry, sad or depressed. In fact, I feel more alive than ever being here in Ukraine, in the city of Kyiv, amongst all these other apartment buildings. It’s so very different from where I come from, and what I’m used to. It’s such an unusual experience that I find it exhilarating, absolutely fascinating, and I am soaking up every second of it. I feel newly alive and refreshed, every day upon waking up (and I’ve never written so much in my life)!

But I still can’t stop thinking about what it would feel like to jump out of this window. To be clear, I’m not thinking about what it would be like to die by jumping, really. My obsessive thoughts come from the wonder of it all, not about the consequences. So, I have no desire to end my life, quite the opposite, but I still find myself wondering what it would be like if I just leaned a little further out. 

You have to understand that I’ve grown up in the country, quite literally with both feet planted firmly on the ground, and have spent all my life on ground floors, in a house, maybe with a second story bedroom or office. But never in my life have I lived for any extended period of time at 10 stories, which is like, what, about 150 feet? So now that I’ve awakened every morning for well over a month now, at this height, you would think the amazement of looking outside to a sea of apartment buildings as tall and high as mine would have gone thin by now. But it hasn’t. Every day, I sit here on this closed balcony, in lotus position, and watch the sun slowly rise at about 5:30-6 a.m. each morning. I let my thoughts drift in meditation while doing a bit of stretch yoga and breathing exercises (I call this “Ronnie-yama”, since it was my mom that introduced me to meditation and yoga at an early age). It’s an invigorating way to start the day, highly recommended!)

And yet those thoughts always seem to drift out the window. I mean, just look at the apartment building directly across from my window on Oleg’s 10^th floor. Count up to the 10^th and that’s level with me here, both buildings being about 20 stories tall (so I’m halfway up).

 

Oleg’s windows, two in the back bedroom where we sleep and four in the front balcony (closed in) are about 4ft x 2ft and two or three of them swing open to the left, like a door, and the lower rail of the window ledge is about waist high, so leaning outward even just a little gives you just a little bit of the willies. When you lean out just a tad to see the ground below, you feel gravity’s weight, like one of those toy action figures we used to play with as kids. My Spiderman doll, for instance, was top heavy like me, the chest and arms exaggerated and much larger than his skinny little legs, so these dolls always topped over with the slightest counter shake or floor vibration, remember? And since my adult body is similarly top heavy and leg skinny, I often feel out of balance in this way, ready to topple over with the slightest push. I feel this awkward balance in my legs every time I even glance out Oleg’s windows, and especially when my upper body is fully outside of it, looking down at the ground.

In a different environment – the rocky mountains of the West – I’ve felt this exact same sensation. I’m not afraid of heights (but not in love with them either), so my spidey-senses start tingling every time I’m on a rocky ledge on an overlook high above everything. There’s nothing more exhilarating that being on a mountain top ledge that’s at or above the cloud line, even while just skiing at this elevation. it’s dream-like. I can imagine it now and it feels like I’m standing there at this moment. I have just slid off the chairlift. I pause to look over the landscape below, seeing my line and the trees I will need to avoid. Now I’m ready to drop into my first turns, feeling the initial heart-racing jitters, and adrenaline rush, quickly followed by a cold calmness as I imagine laying virgin tracks and perfect S-turns in fresh, wispy, champagne powder. Imagine it. If you ski, you know the feeling.

      

(yes, that’s me standing there, Grand Canyon, north rim)

At one point, about 2 weeks in to my Kyivian immersion, I became obsessed with the thought of hanging a bird feeder on the balcony window, to attract the hooded crows that often fly past it at eye level. To do this, however, would require a small hole drilled into the tin overhang that protrudes out of the floor above (to catch debris and water that sometimes drips down from above). So, realizing that I would have to stand on a chair to drill this hole where I would then tie a string to hold the feeder, and that my body would be more outside the window than inside, I thought twice. And even though it is a closed balcony with plenty of places to grip tightly with one hand while I drill, after consulting others, I realized it wasn’t worth attempting it. Shit, the gazillion rock pigeons that fly around the city would probably just raid it every day anyway! Don’t get me wrong, I spent days and days contemplating safe ways to do this, because the thought of attracting these crows every morning with my food scraps from the day before just seems like an exciting and cool thing to do. I still want to do it. But the thought of accidentally falling to my doom compels me not to. How stupid would I look if I fell out of the window accidentally, just trying to see a fucking crow! I’m not going out that way, dude. Not a chance. I’ll be lucky enough to survive the elevator!

I did find one useful way to exploit my newfound heights. After noticing that others up here have a tradition of painting messages to loved ones on the sidewalks below, I decided to try it for Tetyana’s birthday. So, I snuck out at 4:30 in the morning (in the pitch black elevator) and, using some children’s chalk, I drew this outside of our bedroom window. Don’t laugh at the fact that I forgot the “H”, it was dark! Tanya loved it!

Let’s jump ahead.

I think my obsessed thoughts of heights has something to do with always thinking about my new environment, and that includes other aspects of the physical environment and things I can’t help but notice about the country of Ukraine, not all of it good. For example, I see a LOT of trash and pollution here.

As I continue to notice a fair amount of trash strewn about the city of Kyiv, I can’t help but reflect on its “footprint” of carbon and pollution, but also on recycling and renewable energy. So, I did the classic, inexhaustive, distracted, cursory Googling research to find out and, from what I gathered, it would appear that Ukraine’s footprint is more like a toe-tap compared to larger and more consumerist countries like China and the U.S.

For example, I saw that Ukraine consumed 3,632,194,307,000 BTU (3.63 quadrillion BTU) of energy in 2017. This represents 0.62% of global energy consumption. https://www.worldometers.info/energy/ukraine-energy/

And from the U.S. Energy Information Administration…

Analysis - Energy Sector Highlights

·        Ukraine is an important transit country for supplies of oil and natural gas from Russia to countries throughout Europe.

·        The Dnieper-Donetsk region accounts for 90% of natural gas production. The remaining 10% of natural gas production originates in the Carpathian and Black Sea-Sea of Azov regions.

·        Ukraine produces coal, natural gas, petroleum and other liquids, nuclear, and renewables. However, energy demand exceeds domestic energy supply; imports cover an energy gap of about 35%.

·        Natural gas represents nearly one-third of Ukraine’s primary energy consumption, followed by coal at 30% and nuclear at 21%. Petroleum and other liquids and renewable energy sources together account for the remaining 18% of primary energy consumption.

·        Even before the COVID-19 pandemic, Ukraine’s economy faced significant challenges, including excessive sovereign debt. The pandemic only increased these challenges, as both energy demand and production decreased, affecting Ukraine’s ability to repay debt.

But this doesn’t come anywhere close the U.S. annual energy use:

In 2020, total U.S. primary energy consumption was equal to about 92,943,042,000,000,000 Btu, or about 93 quadrillion Btu. May 14, 2021   https://www.eia.gov/energyexplained/us-energy-facts/

So we can safely say that, like other countries, Ukraine has its challenges; however, it’s footprint globally is relatively miniscule. So there’s that.

So should I be concerned that there are some, but not many, recycling stations around Kyiv? It’s growing here, to be sure, but most people continue to toss their plastic, glass and cardboard in the trash, and I’ve seen some sketchy industrial liquids/chemicals tossed in the trash around my apartment too!

So, like much of Ukrainian culture, it’s a mixed bag. There is an environmental ethic here. You have to pay for your plastic bags at the grocery store, so many people re-use them or bring their own. Out of necessity, people mostly walk everywhere, to the store and to work. Parents take their kids outdoors to play in the many ad hoc playgrounds that are scattered between apartment buildings, so kids learn to enjoy the outdoors (imagine that!). The tap water is contaminated, so just about everyone re-uses large plastic jugs to get their drinking water from water stations around the neighborhood. And babushkas leave milk and scraps out for the (many) stray cats and dogs that roam the streets (as well as the gazillion pigeons), and many people have pets that are well cared for and loved, so there’s some appreciation for non-human life. Camping, which here is mostly day picnics by the river cooking up shashlik (shish-kabobs) over an open fire, is something that families do often on warm, sunny days.

But when you walk around outside, either by the river or just around town, you often see piles of trash that have been hastily disposed of, and sometimes those piles are immensely huge – they are unofficial dump sites that people use, either out of desperation (no landfill in sight) or out of laziness, not unlike the piles I’ve documented in the U.S. in a paper I wrote back in 2006 called, “The Dump”

(PPTpresentation here)

Full paper here: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1a6H0jj-PfnavSuERTZZVycJ6vUe5Hg3w/view?usp=sharing

And I’ve already documented the overpopulation problem that results in a traffic and transportation infrastructure problem that is notorious around the world. Kyiv, in fact, ranks 9^th in the world for traffic congestion, so you have to be prepared for a very crowded and chaotic drive to downtown. It takes about an hour to drive from here to here, for example (12 KM). 

And although Kyiv has good public transportation, including a clean and easy subway system, rail, city busses, Uber and other ride share services, and the ever-present marshukas (like buses but not really), there are still far too many cars on the road and nowhere to park. So parking requires novel solutions.

Which is why you’ll see people finding novel ways to park, to put it mildly!

Now, I consider myself to be an aggressive but safe driver in the city, like in Chicago where I typically drive. I’ve never been in an accident and have managed some pretty hairy situations in heavy traffic. So, I planned to drive here on this third trip, thinking I was ready. But I’m not. Sitting in the front seat with Oleg driving, I had to reconsider.

Driving in Kyiv is crazy. Insane, actually. The rules are different here. You can cut in front of anyone as long as you are even slightly ahead of another car, and they will brake and allow you in, and you can expect that others will similarly cut you off at any moment (lots on honking everywhere, but whatever). And you can pass anyone, on any side, in any lane, at any time. You can even drive on sidewalks (technically illegal but no politzia will stop you)! When I asked Oleg about this, he explained that drivers have had to adapt to the fact that there are so many more cars on the road today, and that the infrastructure (roads and sidewalks in particular) cannot accommodate them all, so politzia look the other way and drivers just have to compete/cooperate with one another as best they can. It’s not rudeness that compels them to cut in front of each other so dangerously, it’s out of necessity.

One thing I DO like about driving in Ukraine is that YOU DON’T HAVE TO WEAR A SEATBELT. Not many people do, and I love that because, I hate to say it, I usually don’t wear a seatbelt in the U.S. either. I might strap in for a 90 mph drive up to Chicago, but rarely anywhere else and certainly not around town. You have to remember, I grew up in the 70s when we didn’t even have seatbelts, really, so I never really picked up the habit, so I’m very comfortable driving around Kyiv without my seatbelt. I haven’t worn one since I’ve been here, including on that ride you watched before. That’s just me, though.

 I also like the fact that many, if not most, dog owners do NOT leash their pets (maybe half of them do), even on city streets with heavy traffic (note: I’ve been told most dog owners take their dogs to obedience school). And I have yet to see any owner pick up their dog’s poop. They don’t do that here. Some of you will be horrified by that but I personally don’t care. Again, just me. Don’t judge me, or these Ukrainians, though. It’s just their culture, different from ours!

So when it comes to pets and driving, I would fit right in here, probably better than back home!

Moving on to my last cultural observation, and since I’m being a bit of a culture critic this week, I’d like to talk about the music scene in Ukraine. So since I started this post with music lyrics, I want to end on that subject.

Music in Ukraine

In my opinion, when it comes to popular music in Ukraine, I think it sucks. While I’m sure there’s diversity in music here that I just haven’t heard, I’m still searching for a rock venue here, other than 80s metal tribute bands. I love heavy metal, don’t get me wrong, I’m an old school metalhead to be sure, but they don’t seem to have moved beyond 80s metal. And there’s no live music scene to speak of. Maybe I’ll find that scene before I leave, but believe me, I’ve searched and found little to choose from. Not even a blues bar (I did see a Jazz bar once). While I have heard what I would describe as trance or soft house music at a few restaurants, and I even heard Jason Mraz once, and Sting, but not much else, no R&B or anything remotely sounding like it. No funk and no punk.  They seem to be stuck in the disco era. 90% of what I hear on the radio sounds like this, and it all sounds the same to me. Check it out: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iKl52BfOifk

But I’m guessing Ukraine has my music and that I just haven’t found it yet. I did find this interesting homemade documentary about the history of heavy metal in Ukraine, from the Soviet era of the 80s up to today, which if you still like your metal heavy, you’ll enjoy:

 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1aP-KTznbuw

The subject of music, including a revision of Bob Marley’s Three Little Birds into new, “Ukrenglish” lyrics, is forthcoming, along with my list of 10 Things I Miss About the U.S., coming soon!

Gotta fly!

p.s. no new birds these past few weeks ☹

Playing With Words

             The opposite of play is not work. It’s depression

                                     Brian Sutton Smith

 

A writer writes. If you want to be a writer, write.

Regina Brett

 

I know I should be reading/listening to these books right now (which I am but sporadically), and writing my ethnographic fieldnotes from the interviews I’ve conducted recently, or preparing for class,

                                                   

but instead I’m reading this book, simply out of curiosity and interest, but also because it relates to the Deviance class I am teaching right now for the Sociology Dept. at Kyiv Polytechnic University (discussed previously).

Before I launch into my reflections on this book and its relationship to my experiences here in Ukraine thus far, and/or my teaching and scholarship interests, I need to make an ANNOUNCEMENT, which is this: 

I have invited my Deviance class students (20 Ukrainian students from KPI) to read my blog and offer any thoughts they have on my reflections about Ukraine, or about anything my readers might post in response. If you are one of my students this semester, please understand that I am truly interested in learning more about Ukrainian culture and that any thoughts you share with me here are essential to my own learning. While I do think of myself as your teacher/professor, I also think of myself as a learner, just like you, and I know you can teach me a lot about Ukraine and its culture and history. I know my American readers (family, friends and colleagues) will also be grateful for any of your written feedback on this blog. So please, please, if you are my student, contribute to this blog and give us your insights, even if they are not related to what I’ve written.

Now, about this book (Humankind) and how it relates to class.

This new book, Humankind: A Hopeful History by Rutger Bregman is a social scientific look at humanity, pointing out, in a variety of social contexts and in social research, that humans have actually evolved to be more kind and generous toward others than we are competitive and selfish. It is a compelling argument full of scientific evidence that, although the culture has communicated otherwise, human societies are far more successful when cooperating and working toward the common good than when competing for greedy, individual interests. But you don’t have to fall into the shop-worn debates over “socialism vs. capitalism” to appreciate what is presented here. One eye-opener for me was Bregman’s complete annihilation of three classic, taken-for-granted, studies done by social psychologists on obedience and conformity: Sherif’s Robbers Cave study, The Milgram shock experiment, and Zimbardo’s Stanford Prison Study), which were shown to be so fatally flawed in their methodology that we should probably get those studies out of the nearly every sociology and psychology textbook that has ever been written! Why do so many people always assume that people are naturally self-interested, so blindly obedient, and so naturally prone to conflict and violence, when our nature is to be social and cooperative (the very reason why we evolved over other human species like Neanderthal)?

So, as I was covering these 3 studies in my Deviance class at KPI this week, I had to raise the issue, particularly since I’m teaching 22 Ukrainian students who are most familiar with “socialism”, but who I think have a very different experience of, and perspective on issues of authoritarianism and obedience, and its counterpart, deviance. It’s time for me to go to school, me thinks 😊 so I’ll refrain from saying anything further until we get into it, but already I can see that these students don’t think of themselves as either “socialists” or “capitalists” and do not typically frame their attitudes, values and beliefs in this way. In some ways, I think they can more clearly see the pitfalls, perils and promising hope of both. They are just one generation removed from the socioeconomic fallout of the collapse of the Soviet Union, and the corruption and rise of the oligarchs that took control, but they can also see advantages of moving toward Western models of capitalism and the opportunities it presents to Ukraine, both economically and culturally.

At the same time, my heart sinks every time we pass a McDonald’s, KFC, or Domino’s pizza, because I know Ukraine is heading toward the black hole of American overconsumption (if economies allow). This kind of progress – if you can consider it as such – is pulling Ukraine slowly into the abyss of Western hyper-capitalism, where profit prevails over people, and where family and community disintegrate into blind pursuit of consumerism and its distorted values: GET MORE STUFF, MAKE MORE MONEY, AND YOU WILL BE HAPPY. A post-consumer society that sells fantasy not goods. Hopefully, they will be wise enough to hold on to their Ukrainian spirit and remember to prioritize their humanity over the almighty dollar.

It’s a bit disconcerting to see any other country or culture pursuing the most unhealthy food and bad habits that America has to offer, and the addictions, disease and waistlines they create. These Ukrainians don’t know just how beautiful they are! So fit and healthy and hard-working. Kids with parents playing in parks, OUTSIDE with others every day. They do not spend much time on the couch just watching TV or playing video games like so many of us American do, and the benefits to healthy and healthy living are obvious. A model for Americans to emulate. And believe me, so many of these men and women could easily be supermodels in our country, for real!

Families are typically close too, which is another attribute Americans could emulate more. One indication of strong family bonds here is the fact that nobody refers to their cousins as “cousins”. Here, your cousin is your “sister” or “brother” when talking about them and that’s exactly how they see and interact with each other. I envy that, and now, after spending so much time with him, I’ve found myself quite naturally referring to my brother-in-law, Oleg, as “my brother” (no disrespect to Mike!).

             

SCHOOL CHILDREN PERFORMING ON ST. ANDREWS ST.

Even so, Ukraine is no stranger to struggle and the pain and agony that comes with it, which is why when Americans think of Ukraine one of the first things that comes to mind is Chernobyl, which left this region scarred for life in some ways, but also an event that somewhat defined the national character. Being a sociologist (and aspiring writer and naturalist), of course I’ve always been infatuated by the event and it’s (literal) fallout. So I can’t help but reflect on it here, and how I’ve been enlightened about its impact on the people and communities that live here even now.

 Because the Chernobyl disaster of 1986 happened just a couple hours North of Kyiv (83 miles), I’ve always planned to travel there on one of these trips to Ukraine. So I searched for “Chernobyl tours” and found a couple services/tours of the area, like this one (they are all pretty much the same):

https://www.viator.com/tours/Kiev/Chernobyl-Tour-from-Kiev/d22377-8392P1

But when I pleaded to Tetyana and Oleg to go with me, they flatly refused, expressing absolutely no interest in visiting this site or area (Pripyat). And the more I listened, the more I came to understand that this major historical event meant something entirely different to Tanya and her family. They were here, they lived through it. Tanya was a teen at the time, and Oleg was in a stroller, a baby, but Tanya even remembers the public announcement to take shelter and get into the house, and the ambiguous announcements and disinformation campaign that followed. For Tanya and her family, and for all Ukrainians I imagine, what they remember is the emotions of alarm, nervousness, panic, and a lot of sadness for the illnesses and death that resulted from it. And, I’m guessing here, but probably a good deal of depression. The only thing an American could relate this experience to would be 9-11, but even this doesn’t match the enduring legacy of sickness, pain, sadness and anger that Chernobyl has left behind for Ukraine, and I’m sure right here in Kyiv, the closest major city. 

Now that I understand the situation better, through Ukrainian eyes, and after I looked more closely at those tours and what they offer – a long day of travel, regular radiation checks, and restricted stops at just a few locations like these – I will not be taking the Chernobyl tour, ever. Anyway, I feel like I already took the tour (and saved my $103) by just looking at the EXACT SAME pictures that every other tourists has taken (or is allowed to?). See for yourself (the dome, the signs, and the ferris wheel being the highlights, evidently)!

By the way, Chernobyl is apparently still active (smoldering):

 https://www.science.org/news/2021/05/nuclear-reactions-reawaken-chernobyl-reactor

Let’s talk about another festering observation about Ukrainian society – Race.

Anyone from America who spends any time in Ukraine can’t help but think about race. The utter absence of anyone looking black is stark and very noticeable. In fact, it’s about the first thing you notice when you first get here. Walking around Kyiv, part of a broader region that was, historically, the same region where the word, “Caucasia” comes from (listen up, white folks!), I’ve been thinking about race and racism lately. It turns out the subway ride is a perfect time for philosophical reflections and personal introspection Some of you will laugh at the fact that I didn’t already know that 😊

I think I need to offer a disclaimer of sorts at this point. Since my travels here in 2010-11 and 2013-14, today’s “Kyivites”, as they are called, are noticeably more diverse. I see black people! Almost every day. Not many, but you do see color on the streets (black and brown people of all ethnicities and countries). I even met a Hispanic guy who lives in Odessa who was from San Diego! So frequent are sightings, that I no longer have the urge to rush up to them and give em a big sympathetic hug of solidarity. To them, I just look like another Caucasian in a sea of 7 million others, but I see them and applaud their bravery and willful adaptation to this very, very different culture. I can’t wait to see a Ukrainian city like Kyiv ten years from now!

                                               

                                                           I found peanut butter!

Also, though, I can examine my own cultural lenses better, and have realized something less obvious about Ukrainian diversity, which is, that diversity is not marked by skin tone, but more so in diverse nationalities and ethnicities. Of course, there are ethnic Ukrainians and Russian-Ukrainians, but also Armenians, Georgians, Romanians, Belarusians, Poles and Hungarians, Jews and Germans, Turks and Tatars, all born and raised right here in Ukraine, just to name a few. An American won’t notice much because we are socialized to distinguish race/ethnicity primarily by color. Here, that idea is foreign. There is even a kind of innocence about Ukrainian attitudes toward race (speaking generally here, not individuals). They have their nationalist racists (e.g. right sector) like everyone else, and regional racism elsewhere, but your average Ukrainian has no hatred for the different ethnicities and cultures that exist here, no “immigration crisis”, and they seem puzzled and amused at America’s fascination with skin color as a marker of it.

So my normally salacious and provocative conversation in my Deviance class, where I raise the awkward and offensive emotions that arise when we talk about words like “nigger”, and the changing meaning and symbolic significance over time in our country (as a manifestation of both deviance and conformity), falls of deaf ears when you bring it up with Ukrainian undergrads. They do not fully understand this word and its social impact, so the reaction is more puzzled. They do not fully understand, for example, why it’s okay to refer to black folks as “black” or “African-American” but not “negro” or “colored”. It just confuses them. But it also exposes our idiosyncrasies about race, and about color as race. A typical Ukrainian can TRUTHFULLY claim, “I don’t see race”, in the context of color, whereas an American cannot. Of course, they notice varying skin tones, but it doesn’t carry the cultural weight that it does in the States. I’m oversimplifying the racial contours of Ukraine here, but this basic observation is something any American will experience and think about here.

In class, the only thing I could think to compare it to (the weight of words) was a similarly offensive Ukrainian (or Russian?) word like “Zalupa” (think Chalupas at Taco Bell), which I understand to be offensive in the same way, but since nobody in my family or in my class will tell me what it means, I can take no offense, personally 😊

DEVIANCE STUDENTS!! My audience and I would really like to hear what you have to say about this (hint, hint…comment button is at the bottom!)

So as I continue to reflect on expressions of diversity, and kindness and openness to other cultures, it is in this same spirit of humankind-ness (great book, highly recommended) that I have befriended the people I have been most afraid of when in Ukraine – the security babushkas!

I have to tell you, I have always been terrified by this group of babushkas – the old Ukrainian ladies that work as security guards (of a sort), at the entrance to many bathrooms, in museums, and especially the ones that work as concierges at most apartment entrances. They are solely responsible for making sure only tenets enter, not strangers. As one of those strangers, I always get the extra long glare and sometimes a slew of angry-sounding words shouted behind me as I try to shuffle quickly past them without notice (they were just asking for my room number). And when I mumble something resembling “ya nyet gavareech paruski”, which they never seem to understand, it only gets more tense as they continue shouting foreign words at me. I just freeze, especially when I’m alone at the entrance. Am I supposed to give them gryvna (money)? Am I doing something wrong? What are they asking me to do or say? It seems impolite to just keep walking and not reacting to their adamant request, whatever it is. So, while Tetyana was out of town for two weeks and I was alone in the apartment, I had to rectify this situation. It was an unsustainable situation.  

So, before I was ready to leave the apartment each day to get groceries, water, or to meet Oleg to go downtown, I would first practice a couple useful (Russian) words to utter to these ladies as I passed by. I even pre-prepared a voice response on my Google Translator app where I stated my name, my relationship to the apartment’s owner (Oleg), my room #, and what I was doing there by myself (but that didn’t go so well, I’ll explain some other time). It turned out, I didn’t need that translator. All I had to do was say (in Russian), “My name is Ken. What is your name?, which always provoked a big smile in my (three) security babushkas and, over time, became “Good morning. How are you? I am good”. I have now successfully endeared myself to the scary security babushkas and now look forward to saying “good day (insert 1 of 3 names here – Lida, Lyubov, and….you guessed it, Tatyana)” each time I walk by! I think I am the butt of their jokes because they giggle at me every time, but I don’t care. I’m not terrified of them anymore! I will try to capture this daily ritual on video if I can pull it off without freaking them out, stay tuned 😊

This daily ritual, by the way, is immediately followed by the tin box death trap ride, the Soviet-era elevator I must use several times a day to get up to my brother’s 10^th floor apartment. This elevator – or should I say – this moving coffin of death begins when you push the little silver button that ignites a flurry of clanking, whizzing, buzzing, and ticking sounds as the menacing tin can descends down to the lobby. Then an extraordinarily long pause before the creaking metal doors separate, only to reveal a dimly lit gray metal box exactly 3ft X 3ft, and which never quite settles exactly level to the floor you open up on, and which I’m sure does NOT meet OSHA standards of safety. It’s especially creepy when the elevator lights aren’t working. I mean it’s pitch black in there, can’t see your hand in front of your face. But you can hear all those noisy, metallic clanking sounds and even a kind of steely moan coming from the cold metal floor. It sounds like a drawn out “I ache!”, like “iiiiiiiiaaaaayyyyykkkkkk”. And it tugs and jerks on each floor as it moans, but of course you won’t know how long it’ll last because there is no lighted display to tell you what floor you are currently on.  And all this happens at the exact same moment you are wondering, “how high up am I right now?” and, “If this rusty cable finally snaps, would I survive?” - and then, as if it wants your agony to linger just a little longer, when you reach your floor, it doesn’t open for……like……………..like…..eight….…seconds.

But when it does open, like a ray of sunshine in the morning, and when you start breathing again (did I mention it stinks?), your stress level drops back down to just your average panic attack, you stop sweating, and normal stress levels of being in a foreign country return.

Here, I’ll show you, let’s go for a ride, shall we?

Another project I’ll share with you next time, is a re-make of A Bob Marley’s song, “Three Little Birds”, rewritten in Ukrenglish (my made-up word) with some original lyrics (ex. First line is “don’t worry, about Ukraine…”, written and sung in Ukrainian) and, hopefully, sung by my Deviance students. Look for it next time!

That’s enough for now, more to come. Here’s my updated bird list, some exotic lifers included:

BIRD LIST FOR UKRAINE

Aug-Sept 15th

2 Eurasian Moorhen: https://birdwatch.org.ua/en/species/Gallinula_chloropus

4 Eurasian Magpie: https://birdwatch.org.ua/en/species/Pica_pica

30 Eurasian Tree Sparrow: https://birdwatch.org.ua/en/species/Passer_montanus

1 European Robin  https://birdwatch.org.ua/en/species/Erithacus_rubecula

3 Mute Swan  https://birdwatch.org.ua/en/species/Cygnus_olor

1 Pied/White Wagtail  https://birdwatch.org.ua/en/species/Motacilla_alba

50 Hooded Crow: https://birdwatch.org.ua/en/species/Corvus_cornix

2 Eurasian Kestrel: https://birdwatch.org.ua/en/species/Falco_tinnunculus

100 House sparrow: https://birdwatch.org.ua/en/species/Passer_domesticus

50 Mallard: https://birdwatch.org.ua/en/species/Anas_platyrhynchos

50 Herring gull: https://birdwatch.org.ua/en/species/Larus_argentatus

1,000,000,000 Rock Pigeon: https://birdwatch.org.ua/en/species/Columba_livia

 

All birds in Ukraine: https://birdwatch.org.ua/en/ukraine

Privet Odessa!

"Man will become better when you show him what he is like."

                                   -Anton Chekov (1860-1904) 

Natalia is one of the program directors for a mediation/restorative justice agency in Odessa, called the Odessa Academy of Mediation, where she consults and advises for staff there who are attempting to employ more restorative justice practices there. Natalia is also a professor with a doctorate degree in law, and chair of the Maritime Law Department at the Odessa Maritime Academy in Odessa. Originally from Belarus, she has lived in Odessa for the past 35 years or so. I can see why, it's beautiful here!

Tetyana, Oleg and I sat down with her over lunch, outside on the patio on a beautiful Summer day where we asked her questions about mediation/restorative justice in Ukraine, how it’s done, the obstacles Ukraine faces in employing this form of justice, and how it could be done better. It was an enlightening conversation where we learned, for instance, that (no big surprise here) the Ukrainian criminal justice system, it’s police, courts and judges have not fully integrated restorative justice approaches (RJ) into their legal system and base most of their policies and practices on retributive, punitive approaches to crime (e.g.,prisons, fines, probation). So, not unlike mediation/restorative justice programming in the U.S., Natalia’s agency works largely to educate in the ways of restorative justice, and it’s advantages over traditional, retributive approaches.  

One of my main goals during my time in Ukraine, then, is to learn from other international actors who work and/or educate in the field of criminal justice and, specifically, to learn how other countries employ principles of restorative justice in various settings, and in the particular context of where they live and work. And, interestingly, I can see from my observations in Ukraine that the that various forms of RJ that are employed outside the U.S. are still centered on the same basic principles that we all adhere to. For example, for juvenile delinquents, whereas Natalia might use a one-on-one, mediation meeting between two boys who have a conflict over a stolen bike (story told by Natalia at our meeting), in America we would send them to “teen court” or something like a “teen justice” program like the one Keyria Rodgers has developed at Millikin University where I teach.

More broadly, these commonalities across countries – not just in approaches to justice - are more evident to me as I travel abroad, something I know many of you have come to realize as well. For example, many Americans think countries like Ukraine are a bit “backwater”, or underdeveloped, (or even “shitholes” according to our last U.S. President whose name will not be uttered here) because they do not appear to live by the same standards and values as America. Sociologists themselves even used to refer to countries like Ukraine as “third world” countries for this reason which, of course, was so wrong-headed and biased that it barely deserves mention here. Of course, our countries have differences, but to consider them as beneath us, or as culturally inferior, only highlights our own arrogance and ignorance as Americans – a charge often levied upon us by some citizens of other countries in similar fashion! Indeed, there are differences between countries that we can all see and be critical of, and some of those criticism have merit; but the prejudicial assumptions about the people living in those countries, whether they be U.S. citizens or citizens of Ukraine, too often become stereotypical caricatures of an entire group of people, which only leads to profoundly incomplete and false beliefs about that country as a whole, often leading to widespread racism and/or bigotry against that group. And the last thing we need in this world is more divisiveness and conflict, whether cultural or physical! Isn’t it better to be open-minded, and to learn from each other, taking the best bits of each others’ countries, their lifestyles, attitudes, values and behaviors, rather than rejecting everything that doesn’t resemble our own familiar lands?

Babushkas selling fruits and veggies in my Kyiv neighborhood (the peaches are SO sweet & tasty, picked that morning!), a whole bag of em costs about $1.50. No GMO fruit here!

So, is America really the best place to be? It certainly is NOT! America may be the wealthiest country in the world but it definitely isn’t the happiest place in the world. Or the healthiest. Or the wisest or best educated. Ukraine has helped me to realize that the best place to be is right here, right now, wherever you are, provided you understand who you really are in relation to where you are - and among all those around you all over the world.

And yet, this is exactly the kind of negative bias I came to Ukraine with my first time here back in 2010, and even the second time I came here in 2013. Fortunately, including throughout this more immersive 3 month sabbatical, I have had my wife and her Ukrainian relatives to keep such biases in check. For it is here in Ukraine where I have evolved as a global human being with a clearer, more picturesque and enlightened worldview. I’ve dropped most of my first-impression stereotypes of the stoic, cold-hearted Russkis that I’ve seen all my life on American television (think, “I must break you!” from Rocky IV :), and I’ve been able to peek past the veiled curtain of such prejudices. And what I can see now is people. Just people trying to survive and to cope with the daily challenges of life that we all must face. I can see them more as brothers and sisters in “the struggle”.

                                          Tetyana getting her shoes repaired at the shoe store

This place. This place where I look out my apartment window and see an old lady picking through trash for items she can repurpose, and see a man on his balcony hanging wet clothes on a makeshift clothesline (remember, no dryers in Ukraine!), where feral dogs and cats roam the city streets, where there are no suburbs or white picket fences, and where I live in cramped quarters with no air conditioning (the average apartment where the majority of people live is about 300-400 sq. ft), and where nobody gets their meals from a drive-thru, and where your electricity and hot water might be shut off for days on end, and where you are likely not to have a television or a microwave. This place is where I see myself best, and where I am my best self.

And that’s because I’m not by myself. I’m with this amazing family, my Ukrainian relatives, who know hardship much better than me, but who will give me the shirt off their back if they feel it will make me - this relative stranger - more comfortable. These are the same people who smile more often than I ever have in my life, and who simply appreciate life as it comes, in good times and bad. These are the people that feed me homemade varenyky, or grill shashlik or make tea from a soviet-era samovar, or who play joyous music with a old-school bandura during Ukrainian Independence Day.

 

And these people and its thousands year old culture , with such a deep history of conquest and oppression, remain steadfastly stoic, but also upbeat and positive about their country’s future even amidst relative poverty and an ongoing simmering war with neighboring Russia where hundreds have died and where they lost the Crimea region (on the Black Sea) to Putin’s annexation of it. So, although Ukraine appears to first-time foreigners as a cold, gray and bleak place, where nobody smiles at you on the city streets (in fact, you’ll be regarded as mentally challenged if you do, no joke!), in close quarters, with family and friends, Ukraine’s true personality emerges and they expose themselves as a genuinely caring people. Not that they don’t have some of the same problems as any other urban locale. They have corruption. They have street crime. But you won’t see gangs, drugs or mass shootings here in any noticeable way. Very few people own guns and, if they do, they aren’t used for these nefarious purposes, almost never. Just check out some of the graffiti on the streets of Kyiv, it’s rather cute by American standards. No gang symbols or territory marking, just innocent tagging by kids who are bored and looking to express themselves. I haven’t yet see any Banksy-esque art, but some of it is pretty artistic and well drawn. I’ll keep searching for such oddities.

Kyiv, by the way, is an absolutely beautiful and modern European city, rivaling Rome or London in its historic architecture, traditions and culture. I’ll have more to say about this city after I spend more quality time downtown, this time not just photographing architecture but meeting the people and experiencing the downtown culture and all these fantastic "Kyivites", hopefully using more of my newly-acquired Russian language skills, still a work in progress 😊 

And this is just one more reason for you to get off your couch, turn off your screens, and go out an immerse yourself in a different culture. The epiphanies that are revealed can only be realized through cultural immersion, in my humble opinion. So immerse yourself! Dive into the deep end of the cultural pool and surprise yourself by overcoming your panicked need to surface more quickly than you need to. It is here, gasping for familiar air, where you will find your true self.

My Deviance class, where I will be teaching 20 Ukrainians about theories of deviance and crime, starts this week so I’ll have more to say about that teaching experience, which I’m really looking forward to (although it’ll be almost entirely on Zoom…fucking Zoom and this goddamn pandemic!). But I met with my Ukrainian counterpart at Kyiv Polytechnic University, Pavlo Kutuev, chair of the sociology department, and got acclimated to their somewhat different academic structure, which is European in nature, so I’m sure I’ll fail miserably but it’ll be a growth experience for me anyway, if not for the students. It’s against the law in Ukraine to speak Russian (technically) so I’ll be teaching only in English, so I’m curious to know how these students feel about being taught by an American, and if it’s a valuable experience for them. I’ll tell you about it next time!

Arriving in Kyiv - first week in Ukraine

 8-16-21

Yesterday is history

Tomorrow is a mystery

Today is a gift

That’s why we call it ‘the present’

                                                        -Eleanor Roosevelt

 Oleg arrived at Kyiv International Airport to pick up his relatives, his sister, Tetyana and brother-in-law, Ken. He is a well-dressed, tall and handsome man, dressed in the style of Summer Ukrainian casual dress, tight shorts and a muscle-bearing shirt, with the seemingly mandatory gold plated chain necklace. At 39 years old, his noticeably younger, pretty and thin girlfriend tags along to assist. Her name is Tatyana, same as my wife’s, so I take to calling my wife Tety, and Oleg’s woman, Tanya, instead of dealing with the constant confusion over who I am addressing, although I don’t have much to say to Tanya because she doesn’t speak any English and is shy around me and not talking directly to me, either. More likely, like me, she doesn’t know what to say and instead remains quiet so as not to be misunderstood or as ignorant (which she certainly isn’t). 

Haven’t you also noticed how shy and reserved you are when in the midst of foreigners when you are on their home turf? In a way, it’s kinda nice to be relieved of the pressure of always having something to say to people, or to sound “smart” to others. Americans like me always need to be heard, so it’s actually quite refreshing to just sit and listen to other people yammer on and on. And when they are speaking a foreign language, you don’t even have to pay attention all the time because you have no idea what they are talking about, giving you extra moments of time to observe the environment around you, to really soak it up and absorb the smaller things in life that typically pass without us even noticing. Those girls on the Riverwalk playing bad Ukrainian disco music too loudly in an effort to gain the attention of that one cute guy over there (he’s not listening). A man giving me the side-eye after noticing my old worn sandals. Those young men playing a form of chaotic basketball by their own rules. That woman in the red dress siting on a rock, eating an apricot while her man stands knee-deep in the Dnieper River flyfishing. The graffiti/tagging in parks that has nothing to do with gangs, turf marking or nicknames, just random shit like this. All this witnessed on a late afternoon stroll with my peeps along the Dnieper Riverwalk, while they all spoke Russian. I would have missed all that.

It’s like clandestine meditation, a discreet moment of mindfulness, which I guess is why most people in these seemingly awkward moments don’t feel particularly stressed about it. Especially nowadays in the U.S., where everyone has strong opinions about everything, and where we feel a need to proclaim these opinions loudly and often, it’s really nice to just sit back sometimes and LISTEN freely to the world around you!

So, the first thing I noticed in this selfless state was Oleg’s ability to focus on our well-being and comfort. Oleg has gone above and beyond for us on this trip, my first and likely last sabbatical. He is acutely aware of our need for respite since he himself has spent a lot of time in foreign countries himself, including several years in Connecticut, Rhode Island and New York City where he got his M.B.A., learning the language and cultural nuances of America. He is fluent in Russian, Ukrainian and English, so he is not just our tour guide while we are here; he has also volunteered to be my translator when I visit some criminal justice (restorative justice, mediation) programs for the interviews I plan to conduct for my research as well as for the Deviance class I’m supposed to teach to Ukrainian undergrads at Kyiv Polytechnic Institute in a few weeks. Oleg has also kicked out the residents of one of his spare apartments he rents out so that we could live there, rent free. So, this accommodation has cost him plenty, not just in terms of cash money, but in his time and energy, which is something I can never fully repay him for.

But I’m not thinking about any of this as we pass through customs after a long, 12 hour flight, our first flight since the pandemic, which made the trip particularly tense for everyone. I’m merely grateful that he is there to help us with our luggage and to drive us to our home for the next few months. When he asks the obligatory question for anyone getting off a long flight, “how was your trip?”, I decide not to tell him how awful and uncomfortable it was wearing a (Covid) mask for the entire duration, the ear strings gouging painful indentations behind both ears, or the fact that the guy sitting directly behind me was coughing up a lung, or the fact that when he wasn’t constantly kicking my seat, he was farting incessantly. And let me just expound on this for a moment - so you can really experience the emotional trauma I endured with this man’s butthole, because the noxious gas released was exceedingly foul, a mixture of sausage and stinky fish (herring or mackerel I supposed), with a side order of rotten curry and ass. So toxic was this smell that I could actually taste what he had for dinner (guessing pizza and/or thai food)! At that moment, I wished he would have coughed the virus into my lungs just so I would lose my sense of smell. In hindsight, I was actually glad I was wearing that mask (note to self: continue wearing a mask on flights in the future, post-pandemic)!

Are you ready to get on a plane again? They say it’s not the destination but the journey, right? But when the journey to your destination sucks a bag of dicks, all you can think of is the destination, which we finally arrived at, Oleg’s apartment and neighborhood in Kyiv, and it already feels like (temporary) home, thanks again to Oleg and his thoughtful preparations for our stay. We have everything we need, we are comfortable, acquainted with the neighborhood and finally able to relax and start settling in. Memories of that awful plane ride have quickly faded, as if it only happened in a dream or, more precisely, a boring, stinky nightmare!

From our apartment window: PIC1 | PIC2 | PIC3

notice the McDonald's?

Other pics from the neighborhood: PIC4 | PIC5 | PIC6

Ukrainian currency looks like this 😊

Traffic is crazy and parking is even more bizarre!

Fresh fruits and vegetables picked daily from local fields are found on nearly every street, sold by babushkas

the peaches were orgasmic, picked that morning

It’s now DAY 4 and Taty, Tanya, Oleg and I are preparing to travel by train to Odessa to visit Taty’s cousins whom I’ve met on a previous trip, and also to hold my first interview with a woman named Natalia who runs this mediation/RJ program, so this seems like a good time to break for now until the next post, which will be on the Black Sea. Taty has set up an (English) tour guide for me while there so I can learn more about Odessa’s rich history, so I’ll have some interesting stories and pics to share next week!

BIRD WATCH: Here’s what a Ukrainian crow looks like, more accurately an “Old World” Hooded Crow, but so far I’ve also seen urban magpies, mallards and gulls (on the river), and the ubiquitous pigeons and house sparrows. Odessa will have much more to offer as far as birds go, and I still need to get to a couple spots around Kyiv (the hydroelectric plant and dam, and nearby parks).

See ya soon, (“Paka”)