Steven Harper Piziks

 So two days after wiping out a huge chunk of Russia's warplane supply, Ukraine blew up a bridge the Russians were using to invade and resupply Crimea. All just a few weeks after Trump castigated Zelensky because Ukraine didn’t “have the cards."

Never underestimate the power of language.  Right now people in Kyiv are rioting over a piece of legislation that was railroaded through the Ukrainian Parliament.  The legislation would make Russian an official language.  (The official language in Ukraine is currently only Ukrainian.)  The chairman of the Parliament actually resigned to prevent the legislation from reaching the Prime Minister: http://www.nytimes.com/2012/07/05/world/europe/top-ukrainian-lawmaker-quits-in-protest-of-language-bill.html

The article states that people are upset because this move violates the Constitution and, by strengthening ties with Russia, it endangers Ukraine's chances of joining the European Union.

This isn't quite true.

See, Ukrainian and Russian are essentially the same language.  The two are mutually intelligible, in fact.  They're rather like American and Australian English--some words and pronunciations are different or strange, but two people who speak the languages can communicate perfectly well.

Ukrainians, however, DO NOT LIKE RUSSIA.  Oh, the Ukrainians in the eastern part (who share a border with the old Soviet Union) may be willing to show some friendliness to Moscow, but if you ask Ukrainians on the street if they'd like to be part of the old USSR again, 99 out of 100 give a firm, "Ni!"  After all, who enjoys being occupied?

As a result of the occupation, Ukrainians don't much like to admit commonalities with Russia, even though the commonalities go back well before World War II.  The language similarity is a huge sticking point.  The first time I visited Ukraine, I noted the similarity between Ukrainian and Russian, and the Ukrainians sharing the conversation became so enormously offended, only my status as an ignorant American saved me from instant pariah status.  Curious, I brought it up again (rather more delicately) with someone else, and received much the same response.  The associations with Russia are so strong that Ukrainians disavow having the same language.  Do not ever confuse Ukrainian and Russian in Ukraine!

You'll start a riot.

Sasha has been saying he wants to go to church.  I had no idea what demonition he'd really be interested in, but knew he'd be most familiar with Eastern Orthodox.  A little searching turned up a Ukrainian cathedral in Southfield, which is about half an hour away.

I called them and, after a bit of phone tag, got hold of the priest.  He spoke in heavily-accented English.  I told him about Sasha's situation and said he was looking for a church.  The priest told me that the parish consisted of Ukrainians who were looking to hold onto a Ukrainian community, and that the services were mostly in Ukrainian.  This, I replied, sounded ideal for Sasha.

This Sunday it was time to attend services.

Okay, wee pause here.  I am not a practicing Christian of any stripe.  I have an extensive knowledge of the bible and of Christian ritual and beliefs from a number of sects, but I don't practice.  Monotheists, in my view, have a lot to answer for.  I've been a practicing Wiccan for decades now, and that's not going to change.

Yet here I was, not only arranging for my oldest son to attend Christian services, but going with him.

On Sunday morning, Sasha pulled on an old t-shirt and a pair of ratty slacks.  I made him put on an ironed shirt with a collar and nicer slacks. I also made him tuck his shirt in and put on a belt.  "I look like a nerd," he complained.

"You aren't slouching through the hall at school," I said.  "You're going to church."

We drove across town to the cathedral and arrived about ten minutes before the formal service.  A cathedral, you have to understand, gets its name from its function, not its size, and this one was about the size of a medium church.  The inside was very similar to other Orthodox churches I'd seen in Ukraine--pews, an elaborately carved wooden altar with a book and an icon of Jesus on it near the front, transepts where you could light candles for prayers.  (In the entry foyer, a man was selling beeswax candles and votives to light, but Sasha didn't want any, so skipped that part.)  Up front was a huge, floor-to-ceiling partition painted with golden-haloed icons of saints, angels, and scenes from the life of Jesus, all done in the tall, spindly Orthodox style.  A big central iron gate occupied the center with a curtain drawn across the inside.  Two of the icons, one left and one right, were actually rounded doors that the priest and altar boys would later use to enter and exit through.

In the choir loft up and behind the pews, the choir master was chanting prayers in Ukrainian.  A small group of people occupied the pews.  Most went up to the altar, crossed themselves, and knelt to kiss the icon.  When Sasha saw how everyone was dressed, I think he was glad I made him put on nicer clothes.

At the stroke of 10:00, another voice floated out from behind the partition and did a back-and-forth chanting with the choir master.  After a moment, the curtain drew aside, the gate opened, and priest emerged in embroidered blue vestements.  He swung a censer all around the altar area while the choir joined in the chanting in a tight harmony.

The priest moved over to one of the transepts, where a lecturn held an elaborately-decorated book.  This was apparently a signal for people who wanted a special kind of blessing--two people approached and bowed over the book while the priest threw part of his vestments over the person's head and whispered in their ear for a moment.  The choir continued to chant.  Once each person was blessed, the service began.

It was very similar to a Catholic service.  There was a lot of standing up, sitting down, and kneeling.  Sasha did all three.  I stood or sat--as a non-practitioner, I didn't kneel.  The priest sang and chanted the entire ceremony, which surprised me a little.  It went on for an hour and a half.

Several times during the service, the parishoners crossed themselves.  Sasha tried crossing himself but couldn't remember how to do it, so I taught him how (and all the while I was finding it beyond mere irony).  Orthodox Christians cross from right to left, and the bottom of the cross is the navel, not the sternum, and Sasha had it backwards at first.

Sasha didn't take communion--he couldn't remember if he'd been confirmed or not, so we decided he shouldn't.

A chunk of the service happened out of sight, behind the partition.  There was a second altar back there, and the priest was doing something near it, but since I couldn't see him or understand what he was saying, the meaning was lost on me.  There was much parading of holy objects--a book, the grail, the cross (not a crucifix).  Several people were given host  (bread, not wafers) in little baggies to take home, I'm assuming for people who couldn't come.

Sasha asked to leave partway through, but I told him we needed to stay for the whole thing.

I have to admit to a certain amount of boredom.  My only stake in this was Sasha's, and while I was willing to be there to help him, it didn't make the event itself any more interesting once I had seen everything there was to see.

When the ritual part of the service ended, the priest spoke for about ten minutes.  I think he was making announcements, but I'm not sure.

He finished and everyone rose.  We were sitting at the back, and Sasha wanted to leave.  I said we should go and talk to the priest for a moment and hang about to meet people, but he wanted to leave.  So we left.  (Sasha doesn't often plunge into new situations and grab them quickly; he needs to circle them for a while first.)

In the car on the way home, he said he understood only a little of the service, and added, "It made me feel weird."

"Weird good or weird bad or just weird?" I said.

"Just weird."

"It's probably poking at old memories from when you were very little," I said.

"I did like it," he said.  "I want to go back."

So we'll see what happens.

This photo was given to me in Ostapy by a man who lived there.  Can you see Sasha?





























This photo was taken when we visited Ostapy last week:

Packed up everything in the morning.  This took some doing.  Sasha’s family loaded us down with several presents, including many jars of fruit preserves.  Most were jams, but a few were syrups or fruit preserved in liquid.  Those we unfortunately had to throw away.  Jams we can put into plastic shopping bags and wrap in dirty laundry.  If such a jam jar pops open or breaks, it’ll only wreck one item of clothing.  If a syrup jar is involved, it’ll ruin the whole suitcase.

Packing the other things so they wouldn’t break was also a challenge, but we managed it and we got everything together just as our transportation arrived.  It was the same mini-van driver we had to and from Korosten.  His driving technique to the airport hadn’t improved any, and he nearly hit a little car while passing it.  I almost told Gene to add that if he had another close shave, I would knock 50 grivna off his fee, but I didn’t, and he had no more close shaves anyway.  I mysteriously failed to tip him, though.

Inside the airport, we bid Gene good-bye.  I did add a 400 grivna tip to Gene’s fee, which he liked very much.  And then we were on our own.

It’s not much fun to negotiate an airport in which you don’t understand the dominant language, but we managed it.  Got our boarding passes, checked our luggage, negotiated passport control, and then waited for boarding to begin.

So now we’re on our way back.  It’s the usual tediousness of air travel.  We had some drama because the flight out of Kyiv was inexplicably delayed (we all sat on a shuttle bus on the tarmac for over twenty minutes, after which it looked like Lufthansa and United Air would have to reroute and/or find hotel accommodations for a couple hundred passengers who would miss connections, so they quickly decided to hold the connecting flights for us).  It’s weird to be looking out the window at an afternoon sky when my watch and my body say it’s nearly midnight.  I’m doing some writing, the first time in over a week.

Almost home!

It’s the Fourth of July, and here I am in Ukraine.  Weird.

Mom is feeling fine today, if a little shaky, and she ate breakfast in the restaurant.  She wasn’t up to going to Ostapy, though, so she stayed behind.

The morning was actually free time, since we weren’t planning to go until afternoon.  I set out to explore a bit more of Korosten.  There =had= to be more of it than the bit I was seeing.  Mostly, there had to be more shopping.  The tiny little stores I had seen simply wouldn’t support the population.

I went down a large side street and followed a stream of people.  I passed a bunch of Soviet era concrete bunkers, a wreck of an apartment building that had apparently been “under construction” for several years and would be for years to come, and then came on a bunch more little stores.  Ah ha!  And then I found an alley with a door at the mouth of it.  A woman was selling bras and other ladies’ underthings nearby, and people were going in and out of the door.  I suppressed a small triumphant whoop.  I’d found it!

( Read more... )

Tomorrow we return to Kyiv.

(Oops. I posted some of the days out of order.  They're properly ordered now.)

I’m back at the hotel for the evening.  Sasha is in Ostapy.

Slept like the dead last night and woke up only because my alarm went off.  I elected not to shower, since I’d done so the previous evening, but Sasha hadn’t washed yesterday, so I made him get into the shower.  He was grouchy and uncooperative, but I persisted.  When he got out and was dressing, he reached for the same red t-shirt he’d worn yesterday.  I told him to put on a nicer one, since he was going to his mother’s house for the first time in six years.  He refused, and we argued.  Eventually he submitted to the nicer shirt, but with bad grace.

In other words, Sasha was frightened and upset.  He always snarls and snaps and pushes back when he’s upset.  Even from the first day we adopted him, he pushed boundaries, testing Kala and me to see if we would set parameters.  And he partly wants to know that I’ll set some boundaries, even as he fights to break them.  So I made him change.

After breakfast, we bought some things for lunch--bread, sausages, peaches, cookies, juice.  Sasha’s family doesn’t have much, and we didn’t want to eat them out of house and home.  Gene had hired a cab--a different one, this time, a Fiat with GPS and AC--and off we went.

The drive was the same as yesterday--roads started off fine, then got progressively worse and worse as we passed farms and farmhouses.  We didn’t speak that much.  I was trying not to think, really.  Yesterday was physically and emotionally exhausting, and today would probably be the same.

At last we arrived at Ostapy.  ( Read more... )

(I'm in Kyiv and I'm scamming off someone's wifi.)  Photos are posted here.

After the adoption trip itself, this has got to be the scariest trip I’ve ever made.

I’m sitting in the hotel in Korosten as I write this.  It’s 5:23 a.m. local time, and I’ve been awake on and off since 3:30, thanks to jet lag and wondering what the hell is going to happen today.  Sasha is asleep in the other bed, or he’s doing a good job of faking it.  I know he’s more on edge than I am.  I’m nervous on his behalf.  He’s nervous about himself.

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Okay, I think we're all set!  We have exchanged the toys.  Sasha and I went to the toy store and got and little motorcycle and a rider for his two-year-old nephew and one of those bead-and-wire maze toys for the one-year-old.  I also snagged a package of baby care stuff--oil, lotion, rash cream, etc.--for the mother.  Nice!

After a flurry of packing and double-checking, everything is set and ready to go.  My mother will be here any minute.

=Now= I'm ready to look forward to the trip.  Watch out, Ukraine!  The Pizikses are returning!