I got back from Ukraine (Україна) last night at 7:30 Utah time and 4:30 am Ukraine time. I slept well last night but I am having to force myself to stay away this afternoon as it is again early in the morning in Ukraine. It was an incredible experience and it would be hard to post about everything that I did and experienced but I will try to give you bits and pieces of the experience.
On our second day in Kiev we visited a site called the Lavra. I later learned that the word "Lavra" means monastery. At the Lavra there is also a folk art museum which was incredible but there was a fee to take pictures so I didn't get any. There was also a museum of miniatures which was a collection of art pieces which were so small that they had to be viewed with a microscope. They were amazing firstly because they were so small but they were also very artistic pieces. The really cool thing is that we got to meet the artist who did all of the pieces.
We had many tourist opportunities built into our trip to Ukraine. Most of these were carefully chosen to help us understand the culture and history of Ukraine so that we could better understand the patients we would be seeing. We visited the National Museum of Chernobyl. Many of the patients we saw in Chernivtsi had some connection to Chernobyl. I worked with one man who had dug trenches after the disaster, a woman who lived in a village near Chernobyl, and a woman who worked with the atomic scientists at Chernobyl. One of my colleagues noted that it was not unusual for a patient to describe their medical condition not in terms of the diagnosis that we are used to but rather simply as "Chernobyl." The picture to the right is a street sign near the museum (the words say "National Museum Chernobyl"). The apples are symbolic of how "juicy" and beautiful the area around Chernobyl was. The tree to the left symbolizes the destruction of the area. A book I bought at the museum says, "The museum does not allow forgetting and does not allow losing the conscience while the black side of the disaster reminds daily about its consequences. The doors of the museum are opened for every visitor whose soul is not callous." "We have been granted the right to live, but nobody gave us the right to forget about that tragic night happened on April, 26th, about an every day heroism of people to whom we are obliged for our own rescue."
The evening of the second day we took the train to Chernivtsi. It is a city in the West part of the country situated North of Romania and Moldova. The video below is long ... but hey, it was a 12 hour train ride! It was wonderful to be able to see the countryside of Ukraine. I told mom that I felt like if I had not gotten to see the countryside of Ukraine I would not have felt like I had seen it because so much of what Ukraine is, is related to its rich black soil. Everything is so green there and everywhere you look people have planted gardens or fields.
Tour of Chernivtsi with Zoya
On our first day in Chernivtsi we had the opportunity to tour the city with Zoya. She is a wonderfully animated lady and my travel companions were very excited to find out that I had video tape of her. I obviously did not get the whole tour so the content of the video is a bit jumpy between sites and topics but I hope that you enjoy a brief tour of Chernivtsi all the same.
This video of my feet is a wedding at the chapel at Boukovina University. We stepped inside for a moment to watch but photography was not allowed inside of the church so I just used my camera to get a sound clip of the singing in the ceremony.
