The Russian (or American?) Bear

Winter is coming to town ... we went shopping, looking for wood for our fireplace, as we believe it's better to prepare for the central heating not working one or another day ... and when we turned round the corner, the BIG BEAR was waiting for us ...

The first snow!

Part of a Minority: French Speaking Catholics

Nov. 9:

Our friend from Austria Elisabeth wrote us a mail that she is contributing to an orphanage in Kiev, which is run by a catholic priest "Vater Viktor Simon". With the address, we find out that he is at THE catholic church in town. They have services in Ukrainian, Russian, Polish. One Sunday per month there is a kids' prayer.

Every Sunday, they offer also a service in French, but in a smaller chapel in a Jesuit outpost that happens to be close to where we live.

The German speaking community seems to be smaller, as they only gather every second week in another chapel. So we decide to go and join the French Community on Sunday.

We meet quite a few people from the school, class-mates of Nathalie and Isabelle and their parents.

Important remark: The priest has a certain accent ... afterwards, when seeing his car in the backyard, we find out why ... as in all of Europe, Catholic church seems to work only by the help of Polish priests!!

Kiev Zoo

Friday October 3rd

1st visit to the Zoo as special treat for Nathalie (with Isa still sick at home), taking advantage of the nice weather.

The conditions how animals are being kept are depressing for Peter, who concludes it’s better that quite a few of the cages are empty. Nathalie enjoys the Dino-park for photo-posing, then a huge “Zuckerwatte/Barbe-à-Papa/Cotton Candy”, and riding the Riesenrad.

Nathalie’s Animal of the day: The little cat running around everywhere.

Getting started for Music: Buying a Piano

Oct3 after lunch, Peter and Isabelle meet with Lena, the piano teacher to check out a piano that is for sale.





Meeting point: A Metro station on the other side of the river.

The way to the “storage” is an adventure, leading through deserted ex-production areas, a real ex-soviet-feeling is guaranteed!




At the final destination,
in one of the garages, “the master” keeps our piano and some parts of other pianos



Isabelle’s teacher tests the piano, thinks it’s good enough, so we agree on the final price (400 UAH for the piano, 200 for the transportation, 240 for the strong men, and 200 for the tuning. The sum of 1.040 UAH is some 150 Euros). Isabelle is happy and we drive off.
We wait for delivery … but we can be sure it will come, as no payment was made yet.

While we wait for the piano to be delivered (will it really come here?), we prepare for our first “big dinner with guests” with Martin from Kyivstar. We didn’t manage to buy meat for Schnitzel, so Isabelle helps to prepare the usual “Indiander-Fisch”, but it’s bigger than in Vienna, like many things here …

During dinner, the piano man calls and agrees on a delivery time tomorrow at 1pm with Peter…. in Russian!

On Monday, Peter changes the delivery time of the piano to 4pm-5pm (over the phone in Russian!).
It's Sylvie’s first real working day in our home-office: the printer works for the first time, the noisy repair works in the neighboring flat are quite restrained today,….maybe the deadline for her report to the Austrian Ministry can be met!

The piano arrives at 5:30pm, 2 strong men carry it inside, then the master (http://www.musicsalon.info/) takes it apart and tunes it for 1,5 hours. The piano is from a state combine in Moscow and the inner mechanics are from St. Petersburg.

Then he discusses storage problems for Steinways and other large pianos with us. Peter is tempted to give our new piano away and host a better piano for free. After some discussion, we decide to stick to what we have and propose the big piano to friends who don't have one already. Anybody interested?

Contemporary Art in Kyiv

Last evening, Peter and Sylvie visited the Pinchuk Art Center (http://pinchukfund.org/en/projects/culture/pinchukartcentre/). Open from noon 'til 9pm every day and charging no entrance fee. Upstairs, a very stylish lounge/bar with WiFi, music and a big screen. On the three lower levels, exhibits that are far from being the usual stuff. The people walking around are mostly students and lots of them. Very unlike the public we usually meet in museums in western Europe.
We will go back for the next exhibition and the lounge is certainly a worthwhile stopover for anyone walking around town.

Isabelle's first entry into her online diary

Hi ich heiße Isabelle Zehetner .

Ich bin 7 Jahre alt und ich schreibe über mein leben in der Ukraine, hier im internet.

I DIE SCHULE IN KIEW

Ich wohne in der Stadt Kiew und gehe in eine französische Schule.
Das ist sehr natürlich denn ich bin nicht nur Deutsche/Österreicherin aber auch Französin.
Die Schule in Kiew ist sehr, sehr klein.
Ich finde diese Schule zwar nicht so super aber sie wird mir ausreichen!...

II KIEW

Kiew ist eine sehr, sehr schöne Stadt, in der es sehr viele schöne Sachen gibt, wie zum Beispiel das goldene-Tor, Kirchen mit Dächern aus Gold und sogar die Eiserne-Frau steht in der Stadt Kiew.
Kiew ist eine so wunderbare, wunderschöne Stadt mit allen ihren Kunstwerken. So schön, dass ich es zu schade finde, dass ich nicht hier geboren wurde und dass ich keine Ukrainerin bin.

Wenn wir Ukrainer wären dann hätten wir auch beim einkaufen keine Probleme mehr und wir könnten auch noch viele andere Sachen machen die wir so leider noch nicht machen können.

Kiew liegt in der Ukraine und war früher auch mal in der Sowjet-Union. Die Ukraine ist nicht so gut organisiert denn es gibt sehr viele super reiche Leute und sehr viele super arme Leute.

Das ist normal denn als sie in der Sowjet-Union waren mussten sie sich nicht um Geld und so etwas kümmern denn das machte der Staat von der Sowjet-Union.

III Die Geschichte

SCHEVTSCHENKO

Tarass Schevtschenko war zu beginn kein freier Mann, doch sein Herr war so begeistert von ihm, dass er ihn belohnte indem er ihm die Freiheit schenkte. Dann war er Mitglied in einem Club der wollte dass die Ukraine ein freies Land ist. Tarass Schevtschenko half dem Club sehr , aber der Staat wollte das auf keinem Fall. Der junge Dichter hatte kein Glück. Er musste 10 Jahre ins Gefängnis gehen und er hatte Verbot zu malen und zu dichten. Als die 10 Jahre vorbei wahren, kam
er krank wieder zurück. Ein paar Wochen später starb er...

Odessa

Barely back from our vacation in Vienna, we headed off to Odessa on Friday night, Oct. 31st.

1 hour to drive out of town and then almost 5 hours to Odessa. All of this with the help of a Russian speaking navigation system ;-)

With the help of a colleague, Peter had found a luxurious furnished flat (in a high rise) for us and when we arrived late at night, the landlady came to let us in and put the kids to bed. The next morning, we strolled along the city center to the stairs (see photo) made famous by the movie Panzerkreuzer Potemkin

The statue of the sailor's wife waiving him at the harbour of Odessa was an occasion for the three Zehetner girls to take a good look at the sea :-)

Very impressive big ships, a lighthouse a lots of fog on that day.

Right at the harbour, by chance we discovered a little art galery showing the works of the French painter Yvon Taillandier and we all liked the paintings very much http://www.yvon-taillandier.com/fr/oeuvres.php?niv=8&perio_id=8niv=8&perio_id=8).

Peter's colleague with his wife who are originally from Odessa, not only helped with the housing, but also told us that the dolphin show is a MUST and that it starts at 3pm. So we were there on time, had a quick pizza and then a really wonderful show. We agree: if you go to Odessa, you must go and see the dolphin show (that also inlcudes some seals).

http://www.delfinariy.od.ua/?idr=1

Finally the way back Saturday night:
3 emergency stops on the way (seems we were the only ones not just hanging out on the highway, as Peter speeded home to get feverish Isa into her bed):
1 for 2 pedestrians who were strolling slowly crossing the highway
1 for a wild dog strolling slowly on the highway
1 for a policeman with a radar pistol (or was it a hairdryer?) who soon gave up on Peter's repeated "What? What?"
In short - trip & all 3 stops went well, nobody injured, only the policeman was pissed off without bribe.