The Road Less Traveled

It seems no matter how thick the curtains or my eye mask are, the morning light in Ukraine taps me on the shoulder at 5:45 a.m. So it was this morning. I had tea (2.50 uah) served by the conductor in a glass with a metal holder, a granola bar, and a banana. I arrived in Dnipropetrovsk at 7 a.m. and Valentyna from the secondary school of foreign languages was there to greet me. With her was Oleksander and his 7-year old daughter Ann, who is a student of Valentyna’s. We climbed into Oleksander’s fairly new Subaru and headed for the hotel.

The Hotel Dnipropetrovsk

After ultra modern Kyiv, the hotel felt like a step backwards into Soviet Russia. Valentyna went with me to check in at the hotel. We went first to the “administrator’s” window. She gave me a registration card to fill out. Then we went to the other window to check in. She asked to see my passport; I asked if she need the original or a copy and she answered, “either one” (все равно). Since I didn’t see a currency exchange but I did see signs for Visa and Mastercard, I decided to go ahead and pay with a credit card, especially since the sum was over 1000 gryvnias ($164). The strange thing was, she started to swipe the card before even telling me what the total was! I had to ask for the breakdown. She said it included 3 Ѕ nights (I wanted a late checkout Sat. night before the train), and 4 breakfasts (today, tomorrow, Friday, Saturday). I said, “I’ve already had breakfast, can I not take breakfast today?” She said no (не получается). I was too tired to fight about it so I signed.

Valentyna said I had to get the key from the attendant on the floor where my room was. I got the key and then asked if I had to give the key back to her every time I leave (уезжаю) the hotel. She said yes because there is only one key! I realized I’d better be careful it.  [On the other hand, I may have been using the word for checkout, in which case it’s possible that I didn’t have to leave it each time. But maybe Valentyna didn’t know I was using it incorrectly.]

The room itself was a pleasant surprise. There were many amenities such as a stocked refrigerator, a bathrobe, slippers, a shower cap, shampoo and conditioner, a dental kit, (all marked with the hotel name) and wallpaper that doesn’t make me want to gag. The toilet seat was sealed with a strip of paper that in Russian and English said it had been sanitized. The toilet paper was soft and white and replaced before it ran out. The water in the shower was hot. The only drawback to the room is there is exactly one electrical outlet in the room (over the bed) and 2 mirrors—one in the bathroom and one in the foyer of the room. I suppose next time I should pack an extension cord for my hair dryer and flat iron, or be happy that the lamp above the electrical outlet had a shiny metal finish that doubles as a hazy mirror in a pinch.

Valentyna said she, Ann, and Oleksander would wait 45 minutes for me to have breakfast and shower, then take me on a little tour. I went into the breakfast room, looked at the menu, and asked for the plate of vegetables and cheese. That’s when the server explained I couldn’t just order vegetables and cheese; I had to order one of the complete menu sets—either “firmovii” (house special), continental, or English (eggs and bacon). Although I joke in the States about being decisionally challenged [having a hard time making choices], because I’m American I get very frustrated when I have no choice. [On the other hand, maybe choices are hard because being part Russian I’m just not used to it!]

I went ahead and chose the house special: the basket of white and black bread (Ukrainian black bread is the best!!); the plate of cucumber, vegetables, and cheese; two mini croissants filled with jam; juice (again no choice, they just brought me grape juice); two frankfurters topped lovingly with mayonnaise; and butter with mashed potatoes (well, the mashed potatoes were so yellow it seemed like there was more butter than potatoes, but maybe they were just Yukon gold potatoes). I also got yogurt but decided to take that out and let Ann eat it. I had officially eaten more calories before 9 a.m. than some people eat all day.

City Tour #1

Around 8:30 a.m. we piled in the car and drove to Taras Shevchenko Park. I found out on my second tour that the bridge we crossed into the park was actually a pedestrian bridge, but some cars drive on it anyway. I had thought that bridge was a bit narrow for cars…It was a bit chilly so we didn’t walk around, but we saw the monument to Ukrainian poet Taras Shevchenko and the church of St. Nikolai. Then we drove on to the Monument to Glory, with the Soviet hammer and scythe clearly marked on the side and flowers at the base of the monument in honor of Victory Day. We stopped at the Museum of History to see ancient statues outside (from 6^th century B.C.), a monument to the founder of the history (an ethnologist who lived in the 1800s). We also saw military equipment including tanks, rockets, and the famous “Katjusha” (Little Katie). It was hard at first to understand what Little Katie did. On the second tour I found out it was a very fast rocket launcher. We also saw a building built in honor of the 30^th anniversary of Victory Day (1975), which contains a “diorama” about World War II. It wasn’t open.

We drove on towards the school. The closer we got to the school, the less paved the roads got. I said it would be okay to walk instead of trying to drive over roads only a Range Rover should handle. But he said he could get me in front of the school, and he did.

Visit to the Secondary School of Foreign Languages

Upon entering the school, I was greeted by a few 10^th graders and two teachers. The students described some of the things I saw in the school. We went up to Valentyna’s classroom. It was large, clean, with new cabinets, a computer with internet access (donated by Ukrainian Americans from Buffalo), a pristine chalkboard and chalk.

I had my talk about technology. The take home message for sure was that the desire, use, and issues around technology are pretty much the same in the U.S. and Ukraine. Parents and a few grandparents use technology. The students don’t use technology quite as often (maybe once a day), but there were students who were concerned that technology was destroying the language and even people’s personalities as they don’t read enough and expand their mind. When I talked about students in L.A. not using technology for a week, they too thought they would go crazy. The students were familiar with every technology (including Mac) except Twitter, Facebook, and Craiglist. The dangerous side of technology (murder, bullying) hasn’t reached Ukraine, and I hope it doesn’t. Students use the internet for homework, but don’t get in trouble with their teachers if they copy things from the Internet. I taught them the world plagiarism and said if they go to a foreign country to study English they better be aware of this issue. I also taught them the words “dot” and “at” because they were saying “tochka” and “cobachka”.  They didn’t have smart boards in the classroom but it sounded pretty cool to them. The best part was when we started talking about emoticons, and they knew emoticons I didn’t. They started drawing them on the board for me. My favorite is the rose: @}- – – –

For the 9^th graders, I was concerned they wouldn’t have questions to ask. To get them started talking, I had them go around the room and say their name and their favorite word in English. My fears were unfounded; in fact, they raced through lunch to come back and have time for more questions. One student asked how I felt about my own hometown, then proceeded proudly to tell the story of the history of Dnipropetrovsk. I felt bad for not taking more pride in L.A. or Philly after that, and I also saw how similar Dnipropetrovsk and Philly are. Both are connected historically to 1776 (Dnipropetrovsk was founded by Catherine the Great in that year), both have a major river and bridges across the river, both have major performing arts centers and shopping malls. It was hard to stop the questions from coming, but for me that was a nice change. And they were intelligent albeit surprising questions. One major issue at the moment is the impending independent exams, a kind of final exam in all subjects that will determine whether students graduate. A student asked, if the book says one thing and the internet says another, how do we get the right answer on the test? I said the real question is, if the book says one thing and the internet says another, how do you analyze critically which information is right? As for how such differences affect a test, if it is a well written test the number of problems like that should be small enough not to affect the outcome.

I can’t seem to show it through documentation of our interaction, so I’ll just have to tell you how impressed I was with these students’ English level, energy, and intellect. As much as the morning at the hotel depressed me, so the morning with these students impressed me and gave me hope for the future of Dnipropetrovsk and Ukraine.

After the questions and answers, Valentyna took me to the canteen for lunch. I had salat Olivier (the delicious mayo-based one with eggs and pickles and ham and peas), beet salad, and piroshki (mini-pie) stuffed with cabbage (kapusta). Valentyna said she had never met an American who liked beets; I had to remind her I lived in Ukraine for two years and learned to love them then. I also saw a bread that looked a lot like a bagel. I remembered something similar in Ukraine that was actually sweet. I ended up just buying it and trying it. It was soft like the Ukrainian nonbagel bread, but it wasn’t as sweet. It reminded me of Turkish bread simit.

At my request, after lunch we stopped in briefly at a few classrooms so I could see how English is taught there. (I am, after all, here on a mission to find a dissertation topic). Valentyna said they try to conduct classes in English, though occasionally they may also use Ukrainian. Sure enough, in the two classes I observed I only heard English, except when one student couldn’t remember a word and there was some negotiation (and I couldn’t tell if that negotiation was in Russian or Ukrainian). In the third class, a 5^th grade group, my entrance became another question and answer session as young boys in suits raised their hands eagerly, stood up, and asked me questions about reading. Of course, being a grad student I don’t read much for pleasure, and what I read would be of no interest to 10 year old boys who want sci-fi and adventure stories.

At least I understood that my Russian textbook was right: Russia (and Ukraine) are the most well-read countries in the world. I also understood that to conduct ethnographic research in a Ukrainian classroom, I will have to choose the class very carefully to make sure my presence is not a complete disruption of all activity.

By the time it was time for me to give my pronunciation workshop to teachers, I was dragging. I think the overnight transits were catching up to me. I got through the workshop fine and enjoyed the present (a ceramic dish and bell of Dnipropetrovsk). But I asked Valenytna if I could skip the Skype session they were having with a school in New Mexico and head back to the hotel. It took 20 minutes for Oleksander to come, then another 10 minutes to track down Ann. They took me to the hotel with another teacher.

I got to the hotel about 4:30-5 p.m., went up to the room and straight to bed. Oleg, the professor whom I knew from his days as a visiting scholar at Penn, called me awake at 7:30 p.m. to invite me to dinner with him and another visitor, if I could be ready in 5 minutes. I was exhausted and had already had 3 square meals, so I apologized and said I needed to catch up on my sleep. And I went back to sleep for the rest of the night.

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Arriving and settling in

            My flight left rainy Frankfurt a little late, but we arrived in Kyiv on time.  My first reaction was surprise at walking onto a jetway instead of having to walk down stairs and take a bus 400 feet.  The jetway may have been there last time and I just didn’t remember it.  The immigration line moved very quickly. The passport control employees (and they alone) were wearing surgical masks, most likely to prevent catching swine flu.  It’s always nice as a tourist upon arrival to be greeted with the feeling that you might be disease-ridden.

I got my luggage (apparently intact) and walked out the only of three doors that was open into the Kyiv sunshine.  I looked around for the cashier’s desk or other signs of the airport bus that runs to the Kyiv train station.  Across the parking lot I was able to spot buses marked “Polit”.  I couldn’t remember if that was the name of the company, but “Polit” sounded like Ukrainian for “to fly”.  I walked over and found out my interpretation was correct.

I took the bus (25 hryvnias, about $3) for the 45 min. ride to the Kyiv train station, then caught a taxi (50 hryvnias) for the 5-10 minute ride to the apartment I would be staying in. Hotels in Kyiv are either extremely expensive or extremely depressing. Last time I was in Kyiv my friend Lilia arranged an apartment stay for me. It is $70 a night and has been completely renovated.  Plus there’s a full kitchen, huge tub, and even a washing machine.  So I was looking forward to staying there again.

On the road to downtown Kyiv, I made a note to myself to tell my mother I think I have a lead foot (like to drive fast) because I’m 3/8 Ukrainian.  I also made a note to myself to tell Christie and Suzi that I passed an Avon office building with the U.S., Ukrainian, and Avon flags flying.   I saw ads for modern luxuries such as a Ukrainian golf school and club and a Nokia touch phone, a store that sold “vse vid 8 hryven” (a Ukrainian dollar store), a wooden church, lots of apartment buildings old and new, and messages from the Ukrainian president and other leaders in honor of May 9, Victory Day.  And of course I had my first sighting of the word “remont” (renovation).

            I called Olena, the apartment owner, when I was on the bus and again when I arrived at the apartment building because I didn’t know the house number. (My phone works in Kyiv, and although it’s very expensive to make a call with a U.S. number, I didn’t send text messages because wasn’t sure if she could read Russian written in a Latin script.).  She came downstairs and helped me get my bag upstairs to the apartment.

Olena showed me the rooms, the towels, the tea and coffee and refrigerator.  She checked the stock of toilet paper and found that the apartment is almost out. “You can use tissues (Kleenex)”, she said.  The irony is I almost packed a roll of toilet paper for myself, but then thought I was being ridiculous in assuming there wouldn’t be any, and the purse-size packet of Kleenex seemed more convenient. Maybe I have gone native after all!

I took a much-needed two hour nap, shower, and turned on the TV and flipped the channels. I was looking for evidence of Ukrainianization policies.  What I noticed were Russian-language soap operas with Ukrainian subtitles, a news show (likely in Ukrainian) with an English language news bar, and foreign shows dubbed in Ukrainian.

Khreshchatyk—Kyiv’s Promenade

A little after 7 pm, I finally got myself out of the apartment on onto Ulitsa Artema.  I had no idea at that point which way to go (train station to get my tickets for Dnipropetrovsk and Odessa or to Khreshchatyk to see the sights).  I didn’t even know which buses ran in which direction.  Running on instinct, I crossed the street and got on the first marshrutka [minivan which runs a fixed bus route] that said “Maidan Nezaleznoshti” (Independence Square).  I found the sign with the price (2.50 hyrvnias), and remembered to pass it forward. I also understood when I got a 2-hryvnia note back that it was being rejected because it was slightly torn (giving new meaning to the expression, “you’re money’s no good here”).  I got out a fresh note and passed that one forward.  When a woman sat next to me, tried to close the window above our head, said she couldn’t get it (shut), and pointed at the open window on the opposite side (an indicator of crosswinds which Ukrainians are convinced will make them deathly ill), I understood all that too.

The marshrutka ended up going down Volodomirskaya, past two beautiful cathedrals.  I made a mental note to head that way again. We turned the corner and soon enough we were where I wanted to be.  The square had never seemed so grand, so larger than life to me before.  Across the street from the independence statue was a large park area and another memorial/victory-type arch I didn’t remember.   I walked around the Globus shopping center near the independence statue, amazed at the number of high-end shops and stores.  I was even more amazed at how happy people seemed as they walked on the street, at the sight of signs that said, “Love Ukraine!”

I walked along and saw the McDonalds next to the metro. It now has a real breakfast menu with Egg McMuffins (here just called “MacMafin”) and blini (Ukrainian pancakes, not American ones).  I loved the sign above McDonalds for Ernst and Young—not only because it means there’s a big accounting firm in Kyiv, but because the sign below it in Ukrainian didn’t translate the word “and” as и or even і; it said єнд (end).

What I didn’t love were the prices, which my friend Tina had warned me about, though as Lonely Planet said there are bargains to be found. There was new café opened by the beer company Slavytych which looked lovely, but I wasn’t about to spend over $10 for a basic dinner there. I walked up the Passazh to find the Italian restaurant I used to go to with my friend Kitty, but it seemed to be gone. What I found on that street instead was a very nice Ukrainian cafeteria called Puzata Khata (and no, that doesn’t translate as “Pizza Hut”, though it sounds pretty close). For 40 gryvnias ($5) I got a bowl of Borscht (Smetana/sour cream pre-loaded in the cup) with pampushki (garlic rolls–yum!), “spring salad” (shredded lettuce, sliced cucumber and radish with oil), a fried pork cutlet with mushrooms, hrechka (buckwheat), and Bordjomi (mineral water from the republic of Georgia).

After dinner I continued walking and suddenly remembered that instead of taking the Metro, I could walk to the train station by turning right on Boulevard Taras Shevchenko, and then left when I saw the Vokzal  (train station). It took about an hour, but I needed to work off that hrechka anyway.

I love the Kyiv train station, the hustle and bustle and the beauty of the building. I love Union Station in D.C. for similar reasons.  But I was reminded I was in Ukraine when I went to buy the ticket. I stood in line patiently for one man to finish at the kassi (cashier’s desk) that was open round the clock.  When it was my turn I started to say what I wanted, but the clerk said, “This is not a kassi.  Go to the other side [protiv].” Although I half suspected something like that could happen, especially since there were words above the opening times that I didn’t understand, it seemed only in Ukraine could someone walk up to a window under big signs that say “kassi” and be told that this is not a kassi.  At least my listening skills have improved enough that I could understand what she was saying and what she meant.

The other side was a more pleasant surprise.  When I went to the kassa that was a kassa, and I slid my passport through the window, and the clerk said (in Ukrainian), “Is that your passport? It’s not necessary.” That’s a HUGE change from 2001, when in Kharkiv I had to have my original passport (they wouldn’t accept a photocopy) passport to buy a ticket.

From there I walked to the good supermarket (Fourchette), but it was already closed.  The tram stop next to it looked deserted and scary, so I walked back to the train station. I thought I would have to take another expensive taxi, but I found the marshrutka stops, found one that went to Artema, got off as soon as I saw a landmark I recognized (Soho New York Steak House), and found my way back to the apartment.  I trudged up pitch black stairs until I realized I had used the wrong entrance, walked back down into the blackness, and went to the next entrance which was locked up. I had to call poor Olena again at 11:30 at night to ask what the code was to open the door. Good thing I’m not a party animal.

A Footnote about Codemixing

            Being a sociolinguist, it seems necessary to analyze my own use of language today, especially compared with how I use them in the U.S.   I usually think of myself as Russian dominant and not able to speak Ukrainian.  In Russian class I didn’t use Ukrainian unless 1) I couldn’t remember the Russian word for it, or 2) it was very fresh at the top of my mind. At the Ukrainian school I tried very hard to use only Ukrainian (unless I thought something was close to Russian and then I tried to pass it off as Ukrainian).

Here in Kyiv, despite knowing the politics of Ukrainian and Russian and the stigma associated with code mixing (surzhyk), it seems there’s a race from my brain to my mouth, and which ever language gets there first wins.  And that race is run for every word in a sentence.  I think I sense that this is an environment where Russian and Ukrainian are understood equally, and so which ever variety I use I will be able to communicate my idea.  Sometimes it’s not a problem and even results in cute discoveries, like last night when I bought water. I said, “pol liter bon akva, budlaska (half a liter of Bon Aqua, please). I am not sure if “pol liter” is Russian, Ukrainian or both, but when the lady replied, “haz, bez haz?” I knew she was answering me in Ukrainian because “haz” is the Ukrainian pronunciation for “gas” whereas in Russian it is “gaz”.  I had never heard “haz” before, and it just sounded cute.  (That is the non-sociolinguist talking for sure!) Anyway, she probably accepted my sentence as Ukrainian, unless she was just speaking Ukrainian no matter what, which people have been known to do here.

On the other hand, when I was taking a taxi from the train station to the apartment, I said, “skolko stoyt poekhat do Bekhterevska 13?” (How much does it cost to go to Bekhterevska Street Number 13?) The driver replied, “Bekhterveskaya Pereulok?” (Bekhterevskaya Lane?)   I realized that he was saying the street name in Russian and I was saying it in Ukrainian because “ska” is the Ukrainian adjective ending, “skaya” is the Russian adjective ending. Plus, “pereulok” is Russian; “provulok” is Ukrainian. I had said the street name in Ukrainian and my question in Russian (in Ukrainian, “How much is it?” would be “Shkilki koshtuye”.) So he might have been correcting me for codemixing, or, he might be someone who continues to use the Russian street names for everything the way I still call the airport in D.C. “National Airport” and not “Reagan National.” Or both.