The Borderland Chronicles

Greetings! Or, rather, Nǐ Hǎo.

I can hardly believe it, but I’ve successfully completed my service as a Peace Corps volunteer in Ukraine. As of one week ago today, I am an RPCV, or what those of us who’ve finished service call a Returned Peace Corps Volunteer. (In PC there are a lot of acronyms.) I’m still able to vividly recall my first day, hours in Ukraine as a trainee more than two years ago, after being whisked from Boryspol airport to a quiet sanatorium in the small town of Desna outside Chernigov, like it was yesterday. Now I’m here in Shanghai, China with all that in the past. Wild.

Honestly, I still haven’t processed it all. Two years, while sounding like a long time, in reality passes like a train in the night. I think it’s going to take some time before I’m really able to sit down and figure out what it all meant and means to me, as well as how the whole experience influenced my life. Right now I feel as though I’m merely on vacation. Any day now I’ll be returning to my home in Artemovsk, right?

Fortunately – and unfortunately – no, I won’t be returning there. Yes, leaving Ukraine was bittersweet. I had some great times, but I experienced some extremely trying ones, too. I’d say Ukraine and I had a love-hate relationship. There were certainly times during the past years when I felt lower than ever before, but there were also times when I felt extremely proud, appreciated and as though I was a contributor to the development of the country. It was, at risk of sounding extremely cliche, an incredibly enriching, fulfilling and invaluable experience.

I’ll forever remember my time in Ukraine, especially a select few things. Visiting the Chernobyl exclusion zone was a fascinating look into a post-apocalyptic world. Traveling around the southern coast of Crimea with my girlfriend and swimming in the Black Sea among the many jellyfish and thonged Ukrainians was a wonderful getaway. Celebrating holidays with my Ukrainian friends and colleagues over incountable bottles of vodka and samagon was always an interesting cultural experience. These memories and many others I’ll forever cherish.

Now I’ve begun the next chapter. Let’s call it the China chapter. I’ve been in Shanghai one week now, and I can happily tell you that I’m enjoying it immensely. It’s not only wonderful to finally be living with my girlfriend of three years, but it’s incredibly fascinating to be living and working in the People’s Republic of China. If all goes according to plan, we’ll be living here at least a year, teaching, photographing and writing.

So far, deprived of a vast variety of food during my 27 months in Ukraine, I’ve eaten an array of cultural dishes from all around the world here in Shanghai. I’ve huffed down a delicious Reuban with a pale ale that put Ukrainian beer to shame, I’ve chugged 2-for-1 margaritas and fed my face with fish tacos and I’ve devoured an enormous amount of Chinese street food, including meat-filled dumplings, fried octopus and assorted vegetables and strange fruits. Since arriving I’ve been in a state of pure foodie bliss.

I’ve also seen more smiles in one week on the street than I did in during all of last year. The Chinese are incredibly friendly people. I’ve already made pals with the woman who sells produce down our lane, the guy who works at Toby Good Eats, a quaint food kiosk across the street, and a very talented cobbler who I bought a gorgeous pair of shoes from this afternoon. (The cobbler and I strolled down the street arm in arm in the rain discussing his learning to make shoes as a child in a leather factory operated by his father.)

So I’m off to a good start here in China and I’m looking forward to what’s still to come. But I’ll never forget the good times I had in Ukraine, the friendships made, the vodka shared, the borsch eaten, nor will I forget the many trials and tribulations. It’ll all forever be with me.

Consider this my last blog post here at The Borderland Chronicles. In the not-so-distant future I hope to start a separate blog for my adventures in China, as well as a new personal website highlighting my written and photographed work. If you’ve enjoyed this blog over the past two years, keep your eyes peeled for these news sites soon to come. I’ll post links on Twitter and Facebook once they’re up and running.

Posted in Artemovsk, Chernobyl, Crimea, Culture, Donetsk, Food, History, Journalism, Kiev, Life, Lvov, Odesa, Peace Corps, Public Transportation, Russian, Soviet Union, Trains, Travel, Ukraine |

The documentary film, “Шахта №8″, translated as “Pit No. 8″, released in 2011, provides insight into the harsh lives of people living in the Donbass region.

If you speak Russian, watch this film. If you don’t speak Russian, watch parts of it to get an idea of what the Donbass region of Eastern Ukraine is like. Illegal coal mines, called “kopanki,” abound, and many people live beggarly lives.

Below is a six-minute trailer with English subtitles to help better understand the film.

Posted in Culture, Donetsk, History, Life, Russian, Soviet Union, Ukraine |

Last October, as a fall 2011 Glimpse Correspondent for Glimpse.Org, I spent a weekend with six coal miners in the eastern Ukrainian mining town of Torez. The plan was to get an idea of their lives and then to write a piece that would provide the outside world with a glimpse into their lives. While in Torez that weekend we discussed everything from work and moonshine to family and the future. The result, published earlier this month, was a 4,000-or-so-word story illustrating the mining culture that’s existed in the area for decades and highlighting the future of the illegal mines, called “kopanki,” and what their disappearance would mean for the Torez community.

You can read the story over at Matador Abroad or Glimpse. You can also view my photos of the mine and the miners on Flickr.

Posted in Culture, Encounters, History, Journalism, Life, Media, Politics, Soviet Union, Travel, Ukraine |

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.

Posted in Culture, History, Journalism, Kiev, Life, Russia, Soviet Union, Ukraine |

If there’s something Ukrainians born in the U.S.S.R. pride themselves on more than their mosaics, it’s their cosmonauts. So I wasn’t so shocked during a visit to Konstantinovka to find the sides of bloc apartments along aptly named Cosmonaut Blvd. adorned with mosaic images of Soviet cosmonauts, including the renowned Yury Gagarin – the first human in space.

The buildings, built sometime during the 1960s, have seen better days. Many of the tiles surrounding the mosaic images have fallen off, leaving the building with a sort of scarred look. But the mosaics themselves remain mostly intact, if a bit faded.

After nearly two years here, I’m afraid a lot of the novelty I felt upon my arrival has worn off. Few things surprise me anymore. I’ve slipped into a life of routine similar to the life I had back in Portland. I think this would happen if you stayed anywhere long enough. But when I come across things like these images, remnants of a strange past – in this case, a Soviet past – that sleeping part of my mind that was once awed by everything around him is awakened.

“I live in the former Soviet Union,” I thought to myself when I saw the mosaics. “Wild.”

Posted in Art, Culture, History, Konstantinovka, Russia, Soviet Union, Travel, Ukraine |

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.

You can see more of Skaykhet’s photographs here and here.

Posted in Art, Culture, History, Journalism, Kiev, Life, Russia, Russian, Soviet Union, Ukraine |

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.

Posted in Chernobyl, Culture, Environment, History, Journalism, Life, Media, Russian, Soviet Union, Ukraine |

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/

Posted in Chernobyl, Culture, Donetsk, Food, History, Journalism, Kiev, Life, Media, Politics, Protests, Recent reads, Russia, Russian, Soviet Union, Ukraine |

I came across this poster today and thought it was interesting for a couple of reasons. It was done by the well-known Soviet artist A. A. Kokorekin in 1943. He created a number of propaganda posters in the 1940s, during and after the Great Patriotic War (World War II), most of which I’ve seen. But I’d never seen this one. Also, I live in the region of Ukraine known as the Donbass – the industrial, eastern most part of the country.

The poster reads: “Donbass is released! Miner, revive powerful Donbass!”

Posted in Art, Culture, History, Russian, Soviet Union, Ukraine |

The Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars’ “dialogue” series this week discussed all things Ukraine.

Guests Blair Ruble, director of the Kennan Institute for Advanced Russian Studies, and Mark Medish, a former senior staff member for the National Security Council, covered economics, politics, corruption and more with host John Milewski.

As Medish put it, Ukraine’s still experiencing “growing pains.” Ruble said it’s a “good news, bad news” situation here. The good news being that Ukraine is still independent 20 years after the fall of the Soviet Union, with many valuable resources. The bad news being that the political system hasn’t been able to capitalize on the assets of the country.

If you haven’t tuned into “dialogue” before, I highly recommend it. The program, aired weekly, explores world news, ideas and events through conversations with public figures, scholars, journalists and authors.

You can watch dialogue’s “An Update From Ukraine” in its entirety HERE.

Posted in Culture, History, Kiev, Media, Politics, Russia, Soviet Union, Ukraine |