Feb
10
Back in October I visited a group of coal miners in the eastern Ukrainian city of Torez who work at one of the area’s illicit coal mines, called “kopanki” in Russian.
These are photographs from that trip. The music is a 1951 song by Vladimir Bunchikov, titled “An Old Miner” (“Старинная шахтерская”).
You can see more of the photos in larger sizes over at Flickr.
Feb
03
A ‘stiliaga’ – the Soviet Union hipster of the 1940s and 50s.
I came across two very interesting articles this week pertaining to elements of Ukraine’s past and present culture.
The first, “A foreign affair: On the great Ukrainian bride hunt,” published in Harper’s Magazine, follows a man who goes undercover to learn more about the men that come to Ukraine in search of women to wed.
The second, “The Western Brand: The socio-cultural revolution of soviet mods against boring clothes, music and behavior in the USSR,” from The Ukrainian Week, explores the subculture of the stiliagi, a group of young, fashion-forward, progressive-minded individuals in the 1940s and 50s who copied the lifestyles of young people in the west.
I recommend checking out both.
Feb
01
Too cool for school. I mean that quite literally. With the temperature hovering around -24 degrees Celsius (-10 degrees Fahrenheit) this morning, most schools cancelled lessons all together. My school, however, thought they’d give it a shot and see how many students would show up.
In my first lesson of the day, usually a rowdy bunch of 28 12-year-olds, just 5 girls showed up. The teacher I work with was running around like a mad woman trying to figure out where everyone was while also dealing with parents of children calling her mobile to explain that they were keeping they’re kids home from school today. “It’s too cold to be outside today,” my partner teacher explained. “And some of the students live on the edge of town and would have to walk in.” (What’s funny was the number of phone calls from mothers worried their boys would catch their death if they were to go outside. Contrastingly, only a few mothers called to explain they were keeping their daughters home. And like I said, the students that did brave the weather to come to class were, in fact, all girls. I’m seriously beginning to question who’s tougher in Ukraine.)
Proof to the severity of this eastern European cold snap can be found with a quick scan of the international news. A Reuters story published yesterday reported that already 30 people have died in the past week. Most of those were homeless people, but still. I tried running some errands yesterday afternoon, but quickly gave in, turned back and went home when my snot and mustache froze just five minutes after stepping outside.
Being from the Pacific Northwest, I’m not used to this type of weather. We get rain, fog, and at worst maybe some sleet. But the temperature rarely drops below freezing, except for maybe a few times and during the night. Having spent the previous winter in Ukraine, though, you’d think I’d be prepared. But nothing prepares you for this extreme chill.
I’m home now, curled up in a blanket a few feet from my radiator. This is where I plan to stay for the remainder of the day. Maybe this afternoon I’ll make some mulled wine. Here’s to hoping it warms up soon.
Jan
18
Nescafe 3 in 1 TURBO, for when you need a little something extra.
Before March of 2010 I’d never drunk instant coffee, never even had a taste. Sure, I’d had the cheap stuff. Folgers was a mainstay in my suburban childhood home. The garage was lined with the empty cans. My father used them to store nuts, bolts, nails and screws. As I got older, about high school age, I developed a taste for slightly better coffee, although I should say that it was my younger brother at age 10 who first asked for a French press for his birthday. It was rare for us then to drink coffee before school, but on the weekends we’d open a fresh bag of beans, grind them down for the press and enjoy a pitch black cup with our eggs and bacon.
By the time I entered college I was drinking two cups a day, sometimes more. Coffee was a necessary evil. Luckily, living in Portland, it was easy to get my hands on the really good stuff. I was a regular at Stumptown’s S.E. Division location, and from time to time I’d make it into the S.W. 3rd shop. My love affair with it continued a few years later when I moved downtown and got a job at Oregon Business Magazine. The office on S.W. Broadway wasn’t far from the Ace Hotel location, where I spent many a lunch hour sipping freshly pressed Hair Bender and preparing for interviews.
My palate used to quality java, I panicked when I arrived in Ukraine almost two years ago to begin my Peace Corps service and found my only coffee options to be Nescafe and Jacobs Original or 3 in 1. I knew that any coffee sold in small, one-serving packets at the check-out counter would never compare to the organic, dark-roasted grinds I had back home.
But you’d be surprised how well your palate adapts when your choices are shit and shit. Now, every morning with my two eggs over easy on toast, I drink a tall mug of it – and without cringing.
That said, there have been care packages from my parents over the past couple years that came with some of Portland’s finest coffee. And when they do, I make it last, saving it for those slow, heavy-eyed mornings when the snow drifts come up to my knees and the thermometer reads just 10 degrees.
Jan
13
Crossing of the Dnieper. (Переправа через Днепр).
Political commissar. Stalingrad. (Политрук. Сталинград.)
Monument to the civilians killed by the Nazis. Kiev Region. (Памятник мирным жителям убитым фашистами. Киевская область.)
The photographer, Arkady Shaykhet.
Born September 9, 1898, in Nikolayev, Ukraine, Arkady Shaykhet grew up to be one of the most famous Soviet photojournalists and photographers of the 20th century. His photographs of The Great Patriotic War (WWII), including the series Two Views of Kiev, at the time were known as ‘artistic reportage.’
As a staff photographer for the Soviet magazine Ogonyok (Light), his photos were often used as cover art. In 1926, along with a friend, he started Soviet Photo. Beginning in 1930, he worked as a freelance photographer for USSR in Construction. The magazine was known for its progressive style, which included full-page photos and even fold-out pages. Each issue, published in Russian, English, French, German and Spanish, was an elaborate artistic creation. The magazine’s main role, though, was to inform readers outside the Soviet Union of the construction going on within it, and to portray the country as an emerging superpower.
Over the years Shaykhet’s images have been shown in galleries from Moscow to New York City. He died in Moscow, aged 59, on November 18, 1957.
Jan
13
I was recently contacted by Matador Network to put together a photo essay that represented the eastern Ukrainian region that I’ve called home for the past two years.
Beautiful rubble of rural Ukraine was the result. And while you’ve seen many of the 20 photos here on The Borderland Chronicles, there might just be a few that’ll be new to you.
While you’re there, check out the other pieces I’ve published with Matador.
Jan
12
I finally got my hands on a copy of The Other Chelsea – A story from Donetsk, a documentary film by German director Jakob Preuss. Having lived in the Donbass region – where the film is set – for the past two years, I found it to be a very accurate and fair depiction of the culture and mindset that exists here in eastern Ukraine.
The film follows a Donetsk coal miner and a city assemblyman during the run-up to the UEFA Cup in 2009, which was won by Donetsk’s football team Shakhtar (Miners), owned by billionaire oligarch Rinat Akhmetov. The Other Chelsea examines the stark contrast of the region’s working class and political elite as well as that of east and west Ukraine.
With multiple film festival wins and nominations, The Other Chelsea is well worth the 86 minutes, especially if you’re interested in football, corruption and eastern Europe. The film is mostly in Russian, with some parts in German and English, but English subtitles are provided throughout.
Jan
12
It’s been five days since Ukraine celebrated Christmas on January 7, but I thought this story in The Local East Village, an NYU Arthur L. Carter Journalism Institute project in collaboration with the New York Times, was interesting enough to post here.
The story about a small Ukrainian shop in the New York City area once known as Little Ukraine does a good job of sharing what Christmas is to Ukrainians while providing a glimpse into the life of an immigrant who migrated to the U.S.
Here’s a snippet:
Andrew Ilnicki, the store’s 50-year-old manager, spoke as customers shopped for smoked meats, breads, borscht mixes, pierogi, and jellied pigs’ feet. “On Christmas Eve,” he said, meaning Jan. 6, “people serve non-meat food, which can be dairy; a lot of fish; and kutya, which is a pearled wheat with poppy seeds.”
“You can make kutya richer with honey and walnuts and raisins,” he said, describing one of 12 dishes that make up a traditional Ukrainian Christmas Eve supper. “On Christmas, there will be hams. They’re very popular with people. We cure them, smoke them, bake them and sell them.”
As Mr. Ilnicki spoke, the store’s owner, Julian Baczynsky, looked on with a paternalistic smile. Mr. Baczynsky was a displaced person in a German labor camp before he migrated to New York in 1949, one of tens of thousands of Slavic immigrants to do so after World War II.
“I worked for a farmer in Germany,” he recalled, adding that he has a degree from a German college and has learned to speak seven languages. He described himself with a grin as “just a young fellow – 88 and a half years old.”
Mr. Baczynsky opened his now iconic market in 1970, after closing a store he ran on Avenue B in 1955. It has since drawn visits from a multitude of locals and dignitaries ranging from the first President of Ukraine to Ray Kelly, the city’s police commissioner.
You can read the full story over at The Local East Village.
Jan
04
This fascinating short documentary by Maisie Crow explores the lives of survivors of the Chernobyl disaster and the workers still dismantling the plant today, in the city of Slavutych.
Dec
22
A monument for those who died in the Chernobyl disaster stands near the nuclear power plant’s reactor No. 4. On April 26, 1986, an explosion and fire released large quantities of radioactive material into the atmosphere, which spread across the western USSR and Europe.I spent nearly two hours this afternoon going through the incredible multimedia project created by Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty to commemorate the fall of the Soviet Union.
“The Fall – Twenty Years After the Collapse of the U.S.S.R.,” looks back on the momentous event and the developments leading up to it with video interviews, photographs and an interactive timeline and map.
Each of the stories told by the people who lived under Communism – the miner who was arrested by the KGB for predicting a mining accident; the villagers who lived through the 1932-33 Holodomor under Stalin’s rule; the men who escaped to Finland only to be arrested, sent back and put in a mental hospital – are fascinating glimpses into an oppressive society.
If you have any interest whatsoever in this part of the world, I highly recommend checking this out.
Here it is: http://ussrfall.com/