A Ukrainian Easter weekend

 In fourth and fifth grade, we'd occasionally get to visit an assisted living home; I vividly remember how one of the ladies there would decorate beautiful eggs.  Try as I might, I could never replicate their splendor (granted I was using Mr. Sketch Scented markers.)

One of the first things we discovered about Ukraine is that it (like many European countries) is famous for its decorated eggs.  Any time of year you can find them being sold along Andrivsky (the main tourist/art street that is held everyday of the week all year long except holidays.)  They come in all colors and materials: wooden, stone, carved goose egg, or your traditional hen's egg.

The picture on the right is a mosaic of the virgin Mary in one of the orthodox churches here in Kyiv.  All of the eggs were individually painted by a realm of people from famous Ukrainian artist to children from orphanages.  But this Easter it wasn't the Easter eggs that stood out.  As the picture shows there were mass arrivals of people from all around to every orthodox church that we passed. All were carrying their embroidery covered Easter baskets (to be blessed I believe.)

Ken, Rawly, a couple friends and I rented a car for a long weekend getaway to Lviv, located in western Ukraine.  Along the way we remarked at what a change we saw from our normal city lives.  Our blog is called the Ukrainian Adventure (though I won't be changing it) I guess the Kyiv Adventure would be more appropriate.  I'm not too sure that we've truly experienced the true heart of Ukraine prior to this trip.  Driving along we saw mile after mile of fertile farmland primarily being plowed by horse, hand, or rototiller.  Oh, there were tractors too--ancient ones.  The kind of machinery that you might be accustomed to seeing next to the barn trying to uphold it'd dignity of the good ol' days from the blackberries threatening to diminish its glory.  Perhaps I'm too sentimental.  But honestly Ken and I couldn't get over that it's 2011 and all this farming is done with just a little more than you or I would use in a backyard garden.

Easter Sunday was a unique experience for us.  Our friends were also in Lviv for the weekend staying at a Baptist church, so we decided to join them for the Easter Sunday service--in Ukrainian.  Little did we know that it's common practice to have multiple sermons, our count was three, I hear we got off lucky.  Fortunately Rawly slept most of the two and a half hour service and then was a ball of energy for the rest of the day.  The only restaurant that we found open turned out to be a Jewish one where we had to barter for the price at the end of the meal.  Rawly was a little fire tickler who at one point not only stuck his finger through the flame of the lit menorah, but also in the wax and came out unscathed, without so much as a yelp or a tear--the Ken-factor appears to have passed down the lineage.

Someday, I aspire to be a photojournalist or at least a photographer; I really wish that I could capture the essence of roadside Ukraine.  Unfortunately I have the eye, but not the talent and there are quite a few stories that I can't tell through photo...the two boys sitting on the hood of an old Lada, the family picnicking in the forest and picking wildflowers, the station after station of honey, twig broomsticks, and bay leaves, or the lonely bucket of potatoes waiting for someone to buy them and take them home, or lastly the beautiful bus stop mosaics--who created those, and why aren't they everywhere (aka drab Kyiv)? But our absolute favorite encounter belongs to this Babushka.  We were meeting a group of friends to tour old Ukrainian castle/mansions but Rawly was sleeping, so we dropped off Holly and Rachel and continued driving.  Apparently Easter Monday is also a holiday. It was crazy, people seemed to come from everywhere heading to the churches and graveyards. At one point we saw all of these people walking over a hillside down little earthen paths.  Ken and I just kept driving until we were in the middle of nowhere on an unpaved road, I had just suggested turning around when the woman pictured flagged us down.  We were a little startled at first as she rattled off in Ukrainian and proceeded to try to get in the back seat.  The door was locked. She rattled some more and we opened the door. Up until this point Rawly had still been off in his car-induced comma of dreamland, his face upon waking was priceless.  It turns out that she had blown out the sole of her shoe walking home from the cemetery so the lift saved her about a mile's walk uphill.  It took her a few minutes to realize that we didn't understand her, but she continued to jabber the whole way.  She wouldn't let us take her all the way down her lane, but we managed to get a "fotka" (which was the only word I was able to communicate with her besides "Anglisky" and "America") with her before she hopped out!