After an hour or so of driving through very beautiful conifer forests, we left the Carpathians mountains towards Lviv. Both the Carpathian mountains and Liviv are in western Ukraine which is staunchly pro-Ukrainian, pro-western and anti-Russian. In fact, Yelena says Liviv was a hotbed of Orange Revolution supporters. We were cautioned again not to speak Russian when we get to Liviv. A joke, of course. In reality all it means for Pippa or me is saying “dyekuyu” instead of “spassiba” for thank you.
Vasilly stops to buy blueberries from this mother and her kids sitting by the roadside.
Andry hops across the tires that create a road side barrier.
Olya has to do it too.
As we came down from the mountain this was a common site. Families in their fields harvesting their hay.
Two hours or so down the two-lane highway, I began to get nervous. We seemed to be driving much faster than we had before, yet the traffic was heavy on both sides on the solid white line. I was particularly nervous because no one was paying attention to the solid line that is supposed to prohibit passing. Every vehicle was passing anyone whenever they felt like it whether there was room ahead or not. And that included our vehicle. After one particularly close call when Vasilly barely made it back to our side of the highway and would not have, if the car hadn’t made a big effort to give him room, I called out whoa! I told Yelena to tell Vasilly to cool it a little, slow down a tad.
Well, after Yelena translated to Vasilly, there was a long stream of Russian from him in reply. I really didn’t need the translation, but got Yelana’s version which I’m sure was modified to a large degree. The gist was: “I’m very good driver. I was driver for 2 years for Vice Minister of Atomic Research, etc., etc.”
Driving comments aside, Vasilly is a fascinatingly interesting man. First of all his stature is very imposing. He’s a large man, a stereotype for me of a Soviet, which he was of course. He looks a lot like Leonid Breznev, a former leader of USSR. Like Breznev, Vasilly has large, bushy prominent eyebrows, and a wide face with large flat lips. His manner is of a gentle giant; he’s very thoughtful to us and particularly the children. He’s very dedicated to his role as a driver. He is a college graduate, an engineer, and a good driver.
His history is extraordinarily interesting. He grew up in Chernobyl, went to college there, married there and returned after military duty to work in the nuclear plant in Chernobyl. He was working in the nuclear plant at the time of the meltdown that killed so many people in Ukraine and neighboring countries. His family and he lived in Pripyrat, which is only one kilometer from Chernobyl nuclear plant. The Soviet authorities continued to send workers into the area even knowing they were sending them to their death. Vassily was allowed to evacuate his family two days after the disaster. He had a year-old baby (Slava) at the time. The authorities sent him to a sanatorium in the Carpathian Mountains for a period of rest and recuperation. Then they sent him a letter requiring him to return. The plant workers could either return willingly and still receive their pensions. Or the police would find them, physically return them in which case they would loose their pensions.
Sometime after his “rest” he was given a pension stipend and a furnished apartment in Kiev in an apartment complex set aside for all the Chernobyl workers and their family. We’ve actually seen the apartment complex and the monument to Chernobyl that is outside the apartment. We saw a number of middle-aged men playing dominoes on benches near the monument. Vasilly told us that many of the men (and women) in the complex are very sick and that many of his friends have died. At another conversation with him about Chernobyl, he confided that Slava, his son, who is now 23 is having fairly severe problems of fatigue and depression, early symptoms from radiation exposure.
Lunch at a roadside restaurnat that in its day must have been beautiful. Olya played Game Boy while Andry taught Pippa a new card game.
WE STOP TO TAKE TELEPHOTO SHOTS OF STORKS
I debated with myself of what photo equipment to bring with me to Ukraine. I didn’t want to bring my digital Canon 20d; it was just too heavy. So I bought a pocket-sized new video/still camera just out from Canon. At the last minute, on the way out the door I changed my mind and grabbed the 20d, then went back and got the 300mm telephoto lens for that camera. While the 20d has turned out to me a wonderful workhorse, taking great photos of Olya’s visit to her birthplace/village because of it’s rapid shutter response, the telephoto lens has stayed unused in the bag. That is, until the trip to Liviv.
We were about midway between Ivano Frankviske and Liviv when we came onto a stork nest, filled with mama stork feeding baby storks (so big they were almost her size) on the top of a light pole right beside the road. I gave the camera to Andry and he hopped out of the car and started shooting. I remembered the telephoto lens and put it on the camera for Andry. He was very excited; I’m certain he had never used such a lens in his life. He cranked shot after shot on my 4gig memory card.
The mother has the orange beak.
When we had exhausted that scene we drove on, only to have the same opportunity time and time again as we went down the highway. After a while we got as jaded as the Ukrainian villagers and left the storks alone to do whatever storks do.
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