October 1, 2002
Dear All,
I think you deserve another update on my adventures in Ukraine. I hope I can provide as much entertainment as the last time. My life is indeed challenging and a lot is happening here. Last two weeks starting September 16th were rather somewhat boring at work and exciting in the sphere of social activities. You know me.
At work I have continued doing research on grain market. I think by now I know everything written on the Internet about wheat boards, common agricultural policy etc. If any of you have interesting links or articles or any other information about anything to do with wheat, grain, grain market, grain marketing organizations, grain trade, farm bill, wheat boards, Cargill, companies that trade wheat, etc – please let me know. Anything of the sort would be very appreciated.
The highlight of the first of last two weeks was a research on consumers’ behavior. Sounds cool, isn’t it? Two of us, junior underlings, went to a local supermarket to bug people about filling in our questionnaire. Never thought it could be so much fun! It was. We split people by gender. The guy who was doing it with me dealt with girls. Actually it was his job. I simply volunteered to help him. I took over male customers. They react on me a lot better. It was amazing to observe the interviewer bias in action. The previous set of questionnaires were done by my male colleague alone: all people who filled them are girls from 18 to 25 age group. Two of us doing it together: half people participating are males!
Last week I went to Kherson for a seminar on Green Tourism. Who does not know what it is – explanation – if someone is desperate to get in touch with rural life, he can go to some farm and stay there doing fishing, hiking or working there. We are trying to promote this as an alternative source of income for local farmers.
The minute we got loaded on a train we found out that there thirty odd people going for the same seminar in the same train. I was explained that green tourism got its name from ‘the green snake’ (zelenii zmii) – which is sort of funny way of saying alcohol. After the night of heavy drinking – with me trying to explain that I don’t drink – we arrived to Kherson at 5 a.m. Another hour and a half drive and we reached our destination – a village named Malaya Kahovka where the seminar commenced.
At this point I found that I will have to translate the whole seminar to our Swedish participants. It would not have been that bad if the seminar was in Russian, but it was in Ukrainian, which I do not know! Unfortunately, there was no one else who could have possibly done any translations, who I had to do it. It was really not that bad. Many people from Kyiv speak ‘surzhik’ – mixture of Russian and Ukrainian – which I can understand quite well. Other people told me what they are going to say during the memorable train ride, so I knew what they suppose to be saying. But few people were from western Ukraine – I had no idea what they were saying. Worse, people did not make any pauses for the translation. So I had to try to understand what they are saying, translate and continue listening at the same time.
My social life is blooming as usual. The highlight of the first of two weeks was a football match “Dinamo Kiev” vs “New Castle”. Joe – there is only one football – and it not what you guys play in America. Anyhow Dinamo won two : nil. The meager group of New Castle fans stood there surrounded by the riot police in full gear and 80 odd thousand Dinamo fans. It was great despite the rain. The other highlight was a ballet: rather traditional production of “Vikings”. The Opera House in Kiev is beautiful and dancing men in tights are fun to watch. Lots of house parties (not in my house though) filled the spare time. Among the cultural activities I went to Pechorskaya Lavra – a monastery complex in Kiev with underground caves where mummified monks lye.
This week there are two birthday parties to attend to, one of which is organized by me. Unfortunately it is not my birthday so I am not betting a present. We are going for a ballet again – “Sleeping Beauty” this time. Next weekend I am off to the south of Ukraine to visit my grandmom.
That’s all my news. I am always happy to hear from you..
Lidia
©Lidia Bhaskar, 2003