Where are Ron and Ellen?
Summer 2002
18 August 2002
Afton, Virginia, USA
Dear Family and Friends,
I've just come back from 6 days of travel. I was working at the NRAO library in Socorro, New Mexico, Tuesday through Thursday, on Friday went on for a short (too short!) visit with our son Steven in Eugene, Oregon, and flew home again today. Ron knew he had some extra time to prepare his latest report, since I couldn't send it out while I was traveling. Much to my delight, I discovered there had been two thunderstorms here while I was gone, one on Thursday and one this afternoon. This is the first rain we have had in weeks, and it was much needed, so I am very thankful -- although it probably means the grass will grow again and I'll have to mow it!
Love to all,
Hello Ellen,
After all the news of floods in Europe and on the Black Sea Coast of Russia; and the heavy rain I experienced on my first night in Chernivtsi, it seemed like a good time to take a part of the trip without the bicycle. So after bicycling to Kamyanets-Podilsky, I left my bicycle and took a bus to Lviv and then a train to Kyiv. Now I am watching the news about the flooding in Prague, while only experiencing light rain one day in Lviv and none so far in Kyiv.
In Chernivtsi, as I was about to leave town, an invitation changed my plans, so let me bring you up to date on my recent adventures.
Aleg and his partner have a water and heating company (as I understand it). They design and build the heating and water systems for new homes being built in Chernivtsi. I was invited to his home for dinner and stayed for several days.
Aleg is a quite versatile engineer that my high school engineer buddies would be pleased with: his car operates off of either gasoline or propane (he just switches between), he maintains his old Lata himself, he built a wood stove for heat and cooking for his mother-in-law, does his own plumbing and masonry, maintains his stereo, video camera and player, computer, printer, and satellite dish in his living room. My favorite tool he had was a little air pump that operated off his battery to pump up his tire.
On Aleg's computer, he had a translation program he used to translate computer information. With this program we carried on an extensive conversation which lasted for hours.
We downloaded my pictures from my camera to his hard disk and emailed them home. During this process I discovered there is something wrong with my camera and the pictures are all coming out blurry.
We went to the large outdoor market where Maria works at her sister's store. The market reminded me of the Sunday Market in Bangkok.
One afternoon we went on a family picnic along the river: his wife Toni, two of her sisters Marie and Alisa, brother-in-law, and some kids and other friends. Sunday they decided to take off Monday and go to the Carpathian Mountains to visit Toni's mother who lived a little southeast of the village of Patila, which is south of where I turned to go to Verhovina on my bicycle circle trip through the Carpathian Mountains. If I had gone straight along the River from Turti, (instead of turning right and crossing the bridge) and continued a bit more than half way to the Romanian Border, I would have found Patila. Actually his mother-in-law lived a bit further south outside the village. I thought it was a day excursion, but it turned out to be overnight.
In the village we visited and had dinner with Toni and Maria's fourth sister, Anna. Then continued on to their mother's home.
Now this was a real mountain experience where most of the food eaten was raised by Aleg's mother-in-law or was a product of her cow (sour cream, yogurt, cottage cheese, and a couple of things I was not quite sure of), homemade bread and other fresh produce from the village market.
Very simple life including the traditional outhouse and water carried to the house in a metal bucket.
I understood that Marie was going to take Aleg and me on a walk up to the top of the hill where the pregnant cow grazed (rather steep and high) but I didn't understand that we were going to continue on beyond the top of this hill, to the top of several more higher mountains in the distance. It was a beautiful walk, one that I will always remember, and may turn out to be my favorite memory of this trip to the Carpathians. Finally we could see rain in the distance, and then later could determine that it was heading our way, so we turned and started back around the other side of one of the mountains we climbed. Before we made it home, the rain caught us but eventually everything dried out.
On the other side of the Romanian border is the Moldavia region, where I bicycled in the area west of Suceava in the fall of 1999.
When we were packing for the trip I noticed that they were taking a lot of plastic bags and bottles, so I thought they must be taking them to a recycle center. But no, they were taking them to the mountains to be used. Some came back with milk for their daughter. Others stayed on the farm to serve as containers for various uses: milk, milk products, water, etc.
On Tuesday Aleg and Marie returned to work, Toni continued to take care of their young daughter and I headed to Kamyanets-Podilsky on my bike. It had been a wonderful visit, plenty of CNN news on the satellite TV, computer translated communications, a steady stream of Ukrainian food prepared by Toni and Marie, and an experience in Ukrainian hospitality.
For my trip to the mountains I had a regional map in Russian. But I was now outside the region and was using my English Ukrainian map, which also provided the Russian name for most of the major cities but not the smaller ones. I could follow the signs in Russian to Kamyanets-Podilsky, and sort of figure out where I was in relationship to the smaller towns and intersections where the signs were only in Russian. But I made a mistake and found that I had gone 24 K in the wrong direction, when the trip was already going to be my longest yet, around 100 K. The intersection had no signs for the big cities, just the small ones. On the map it appeared that I was to go straight, but the actual turn to Hotine was to the left and back in the general direction I had come from. (later it would turn right and head in the correct direction - NW). I had used the map and my compass to pick my direction, as well as followed the main road which appeared to be the main road on the map. All of my logic was wrong. Finally after running out of water, light, energy, and food, I arrived in Hotine and found a hotel after 128 K. The last couple of long hills I had to walk up. But I did get to use my new bike light with it's several LED bulbs and different settings. It worked fine.
On the Congressional bicycle ride at the Bike Summit in Washington DC I met the wife of Chris Morfas, the Executive Director of the California Bicycle Coalition. Tatiana was from Ukraine and was the person who told me how to get a visa. She also gave me the name of a couple of her friends from her hometown on Kamyanets-Podilsky.
When I telephoned her friend Lena, she said that Tatiana had called and talked about my possible visit. Lena, a professor at the University, had pre-arranged with some of her students to give me a tour of the city. Three bright and beautiful 18 and 19 year old women speaking excellent English turned up to give me a personal tour. I never actually met Lena, but perhaps we will meet on my return visit.
Kamyanets-Podilsky has a history going back more than 900 years, and the old town has lots of old buildings still standing even though many were destroyed in the First and Second World Wars. From the castle you can see the monument to 7 cultures, the symbol for what I consider the "Camelot" of Ukraine, where several religious groups lived peacefully together for a long time. The physical setting is quite dramatic with the Smotrych River making a serpentine curve that almost encircles the entire old town, having cut a very deep canyon through the rock around the town. They described the city as a flower on the rock. This should become another UN World Heritage site in my opinion.
Olga Solovey was bright and wants to become a University Professor like Lena. She is dedicated to reaching her goal and I believe she will achieve it. I left my bicycle and bike-backpack at her parents home and left for Lviv with just a small day pack.
I took a 9:40 AM train to Lviv, arriving in the evening around 5:30, and checked into Hotel George, a hotel recommended to me by the Canadians running the camp for orphans.
Lviv (Lvov?) is a fascinating old city, with large parks, many plazas, old buildings, and a very pleasant city to walk around. On my walk up Castle Hill, I took a break at a cafe and heard a discussion in English. Now this was a most unusual experience. Other than the Canadians in the mountains, I have not met other travelers.
Tim is an American freelance journalist traveling with his fiancee, whom he met here on a previous tour. The conversation I was overhearing was between Tim and his fiancee's interpreter, Maryana. Lisa does not speak English and Tim does not speak Ukrainian. We all spend the afternoon together walking through the old town and visiting an Arms Museum. We parted a little after 5 so they could go have Tim's first meeting with Lisa's mother. I am looking forward to hearing about how this meeting went when Tim emails me later.
Lviv was a pleasant city, lots of old buildings and history that makes our history like current affairs. But traffic degraded the experience of walking around the city. I met some interesting people. Next to the National Museum, there was an outside market which had a lot of art which I enjoyed a lot more than the art in the museum and spent a couple of hours talking to one of the artists about what art people buy and the quality of life in Lviv. In a cafe I met a woman working on her Ph.D in Public Administration, which she hopes to finish in January. She said that there were only 10 people in Ukraine with Ph. D. in Public Administration, so we joked about how I expect her to visit Virginia when she becomes the Minister of Public Administration in Ukraine. Currently she is working for the Regional Government, having something to do with power (gas and electric) and currently earns $40 per month. (I have talked to people who work in shops making $40 to $100 a month, so understanding their economy has been a challenge).
Finally I got up the nerve to go to Kyiv and spend whatever was required to enjoy my time there. A young woman graduate of William and Mary who was teaching English in Turkistan was also staying in my hotel and we took the overnight train to Kyiv and she continued on by air to Lithuania the day we arrived in Kyiv. Having someone to talk to in native English who was living such an adventuresome live was a real pleasure and inspiration for me.
Now I am exploring Kyiv. Perhaps I will stay a week before going on to Kharkiv in the east.
Dear Family and Friends,
On Friday night 30 August, Ron took the overnight train from Kiev to back to Kamyanets-Podilsky (where he had left his bike and some of his stuff), and spent the weekend there. Then on Monday night 2 Sept he took the overnight train from there to Odessa. Here is the report of his weekend in Kamyanets-Podilsky.
Love to all,
What was going to be a slow relaxing weekend turned out to be rather full and speeded up considerably today as I prepared to leave.
Ned [our good friend who is a university professor] would be proud of me today. Not only did I attend the first day of classes with Olga but I was asked by the professor in the second class to take over the class as he had to do something else at the last minute. The class was on lexicology, the study of words, their meanings and use, slang, formal and informal, and stuff that I only figured out looking at the chapter heading in the text book he left me. I ended up telling stories and answering questions for the first part, and then after break he returned and asked me questions. The reaction of the students seemed positive, but they are also two polite to show negative reactions, so I really don't know for sure.
After classes another student took me to the botanical gardens where her mother worked as the botanist and plant specialist. At the end I also met her father who came to the mother's office for a key or something. Natasha, the student, had a real passion for trees and plants, and gave me an excellent tour.
Now I am writing this in the few moments before changing clothes and heading to the train station for my overnight train to Odessa.
Yesterday I got all unpacked, reorganized, and repacked for a bicycle/train trip, before going to the celebration of the last night before school starts. Thousands of University students gathering in the old town and dancing outside to disco music. Then later I was trying to give a good-luck penny to someone outside a wedding celebration to have them give it to the bride. Finally found a guy who could understand English, and he promised to pass on the penny. I got around the corner, but he came running up and wanted to talk, and ended up inviting me to come back to where I met him. Then the bride and groom came out to meet me, and he gave me the penny back to give to the bride. I gave one to both the bride and the groom, and they invited me into the wedding celebration. Quite an experience. 200 guests, food and beverages stacked up on the tables. People dancing. And a lot of different traditions which I will write about later. [Hmmm -- no sign of this promised message!]
I am short on sleep, after staying up late and getting up early today for the first day of classes!
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Last updated: 6 September 2002