So Much to Do, So Little Time

Recently, I wondered if maybe I wasn’t taking full advantage of the city so I decided to plan some local excursions. Since I had already been bowling and ice fishing (which I shouldn't have done in heels), that left me with three options: the opera, art museum and circus.

I went to the opera to see Rigoletto with a colleague who was in town. Not knowing the story, it went something like this: there is a prince who has many women in his court but falls in love with an outsider. There is a hunchback man who maybe works for the prince and, eventually, this woman, who is dressed as a man, dies. I think. Between each 20-minute act, there was a 15-minute intermission so the set could be changed. This turned out to be a very long three hour performance. At least we did not check our coats since the theatre was not heated.

The cold theatre is a perfect segue to the freezing art museum. I was with Jonathan and a friend. We asked the coat-check lady if it was warm enough throughout or should we keep our jackets. After a cruel stare down, we checked the coats, which was a big mistake. We purchased our tickets for 8 UAH (about $1.60) and were set to begin our self-guided tour. First, we surrendered our tickets to the ticket-collector who also happened to be the woman who sold us the ticket. Here is how that worked: I gave her money, she gave me the tickets and then I gave them right back to her.

In addition to being cold, there was only electricity upon request. So, as we entered each room, we asked the proctor to open the lights which were promptly extinguished upon our exit. When I decided to skip one exhibit by a local artist, I was chastised in incomprehensible Russian by the docent and followed back to complete the full retrospective before I was allowed into the next room. The whole tour took about 20-minutes (we walked slowly) and we were the only visitors.

Yesterday, I made it to the circus despite my long held beliefs against the institution, but when in Rome. The circus, not far from my office, is a permanent tented building with performances every Saturday and Sunday. The greatest show on earth featured the traveling Moscow Circus. The cast of usual suspects like clowns, acrobats, panthers, cheetahs, hula-hoops set ablaze and trapeze artists dressed as Buddhist monks were quite entertaining. I also enjoyed the fresh popcorn and cotton candy, only $1 each, which is the second best deal in town after the $.80 Stella Artois sold on the streets.

After listening to an elephant play the harmonica accompanied by Jon Bon Jovi’s “I want to live forever,” I decided that my mission was complete. Now, I just need to decide what to do next weekend.

No Chicken Kiev in Kiev for this Vegetarian

Because cars are allowed to drive on sidewalks, navigating Kiev on foot was perilous at best but not impossible. One rule of thumb will get you around: beware, pedestrians never have the right of way! Otherwise, my long weekend in the capital city with Jonathan was a real treat that included magnificent views, English speakers and good food, for a change.

We spent half a day at the city’s most well-known site, the Kiev-Pechersk Lavra. The Lavra is a series of intimate streets that make up this Ukrainian Orthodox monastery which feels like a small city in and of itself. It is the preeminent center of Christian orthodoxy in Eastern Europe and was founded in the early 11th century. Unfortunately, nothing was written in English and our guidebook didn’t provide much more. In my broken Russian, I managed to exchange a few words with a monk who apparently mistook us for pilgrims (as opposed to tourists, a big difference which my language skills did not decipher) and helped arrange a special tour reserved for the most devout. Oops.

We spent several hours with a guide from the nunnery who was on to us when she realized we were not baptized. Still, she allowed us this profound opportunity to learn about the religious and spiritual life of nearly half of my Ukrainian neighbors. The main attraction at the monastery are the historic caves, a complex system of underground corridors, working churches and nearly 100 catacombs of saints where the pious arrive from around the world seeking favor and blessings. It is said that their “holy and corrupted” bodies were preserved through miracles; you can view their clothed remains and exposed hands through glass coffins using light from small candles purchased at the entrance.

Of course, we also made several Jewish site visits including to the Hesed Welfare Center which serves more than 14,000 elderly and at-risk clients in the city compared with the several thousand in Dnepropetrovsk. Our Jewish tour ended on a sobering note at Babi Yar, a ravine in the city center where during the course of two days, September 29-30, 1941, the Nazis murdered 33,771 Jews, the single largest massacre during the Holocaust. In the months that followed, more than 100,000 people from Ukraine, mostly Jews, were also murdered at this site. The large menorah monument presented on the 50th anniversary of the massacre is a reminder of the city’s grisly history; and, just across from the memorial children played soccer and went sledding without a care in the world.

Делай добро- Украина or Do Good Ukraine!

I am back to the blog and from my brief hiatus in Israel! I spent time getting to know my colleagues at JDC, visited with my family, got a much needed haircut and pretty much ate everything in sight, although I swore off potatoes and cabbage for the week. I had hoped for warm weather but instead it snowed in Jerusalem and there were 60 mile per hour winds in Tel Aviv… so much for sunny skies. At least I had one beautiful afternoon at the beach when I arrived (above). Three falafels, two pounds of hummus and a ton of tabuleh later, I’m back in Ukraine which is, ironically, warmer than Israel.

I was there to meet with colleagues and other Israelis interested in my Fellowship project to solicit their advice, expertise and present funding opportunities. The project is called Делай добро- Украина (Do Good Ukraine!) and is a web-based program designed to connect nonprofit organizations and individuals with volunteer opportunities. The website will feature a live forum that allows organizations to post opportunities with real-time and immediate responses from individuals. The goals of the project are to: nurture a culture of volunteerism; create a network to manage volunteer needs using existing local systems; increase volunteer activity beginning in two pilot communities; assist organizations to attract volunteers; involve businesses with an interest in social responsibility; and, establish and infrastructure for a wide-scale national program.

This project is the first of its kind in Ukraine, a country that has a short history of volunteerism. For this reason, the program will also offer online resources and in-person training for both organizations and volunteers to make the most of their experience together. Development of the voluntary sector is a critical factor in strengthening local resources in order to assume responsibility for the unmet social and welfare needs in the community.

As a community-based project, we involved both Jewish and non-Jewish partners. Improved partnerships with other, mostly non-Jewish, organizations benefit the Jewish community in many ways. For instance, a Jewish organization that does not have HIV/AIDS or deaf-related services can refer clients to another organization through this coalition and vice versa. We hope to see the capacity and self-sufficiency of Jewish organizations grow through increased volunteerism and peer partnerships. I will look forward to sharing the website, which will be in both Russian and English, as soon as it goes live in the next month.

And, today is Jonathan’s 32nd birthday so please wish him a very happy birthday and buy him a drink (or dinner, we still don’t have a stove in the new apartment) for me if you’re in New York!! Happy birthday, Jonathan!