art attack

This weekend I had the pleasure of attending a gallery crawl, organised by Olechko, who is herself a fantastic artist. The full details of the galleries and displaying artists are all on her blog because she was a good little gallery crawler and took notes. I, meanwhile, just dreamed about the thousands I need to gather up somehow to buy the scrummy works I saw.

We visited art galleries in the Podil area, the oldest part of Kyiv, and all bar a few imitators were full of charm and nothing like the stiff scene at home. The art just isn’t marketed commercially and we found ourselves fingering artwork in back storage rooms worth several thousands of dollars. The accessibility is a dream and I hope that I can invest sometime.

For some pictures of Podil, my favourite part of the city, click here.

an uplifting experience

It finally happened to me. After months of heaving up the six flights of stairs in a vague effort to save ‘lift credits’ and hopefully lessening the total impact of my potential journeys in the wonky lift, it conked out this weekend. With me in it.

MDF and I had just completed a mammoth shopping trip, and after unloading the car I skipped off merrily* into the building shouting over my shoulder that I would take the lift first as it would be too tight a squeeze with the two of us and our shopping.

No sooner had I pressed go, when the lift rose a few feet and shuddered to a halt. Oh eek, I thought, after pressing all the buttons quite frantically and getting nowhere. Then I remembered I had my mobile so I rang MDF to explain my predicament.

My hero then sprang into action, calling the rental agency to get them to get hold of the lift people and getting a pair of pliers to jam them between the outer doors in an effort to get me some air.

In the meantime our nice French neighbour heard the commotion and came rushing out to lend a hand. He called his secretary who also called the lift people.

I meanwhile was jabbing the emergency help button inside the lift and ’speaking’ to a grumpy sounding woman on the other side. She kept telling me ‘I don’t understand you’ in Russian and I kept saying ‘I don’t understand you’ in English and Russian. Yelling our address in Russian (impressive right?) into the wall didn’t seem to have much effect. This was the first time that I really really regretted not making an effort to learn proper Russian.

Then I started getting a little panicked after this ‘conversation’ and wondered if I’d ever get out. Why the problem, you may ask? You already have a load of booze and food with you. Well, our lift is 40cm x 90cm which is a little tight at the best of times. It was also 37C outside. A little warm for comfort.

Also, I had consumed a bladderful of water before we left the flat as it was so blinking hot, so I was eyeing the beer bottles and working out how I might empty and fill them up again. If you can see where I’m coming from. Coupled with the fact that the food was 1kg of cherries, the thought of being stuck in a lift for the night wasn’t too attractive.

To cut a long story short, the ‘rescue team’** arrived after 20 minutes of making a phone call. This is jolly good considering ‘tomorrow’ usually means ‘next week, whatever’ in Ukraine. They brought all sorts of complicated looking equipment*** and quickly wrenched open the doors allowing me to leap to freedom.

So why the long story? Well, a lot of people I know in Kyiv all mention the worry of getting into their lifts, but I am not sure everyone has thought about the really basic action to take.

Without further blathering, here are MindtheGap’s top tips for turning a potential lift horror into an uplifting experience (sorry if this is teaching granny to suck eggs, but this gappy granny could have done with these tips before!):

1. always take your mobile phone with you even if you are just nipping out to empty the bins, have a fag, whatever.
2. always keep your mobile fully charged. Sounds like common sense, but mine was half full, and faced with a few hours in the lift it wouldn’t have lasted. That would have been horrid.
3. learn how to say ‘I am stuck in this lift’ in Russian. Thanks to an emergency text to Little Miss Moi who is a good little student of Russian I can now tell you that you must say ‘Ya ceichas v liftye. Oh nye rabotaet. Pamagitye pazhalusta.’ You could also try ‘elevator kaput’ – you never know, it might have helped…
4. learn how to say your address properly in Russian.
5. keep a record on your phone of the lift number and the number of the rescue company – helpfully this information is held on the outside of our lift!
6. try to get stuck with people you know around you – the soothing tones of MDF and our neighbour did help keep the panic levels at bay. It could be something to do with the French accent though.
7. upon escaping, down something cold, wet and alcoholic very quickly.

* as merrily as one can with a crate of beer, fizz, juice and 1kg of cherries.

** they were from the Andy Capp school of workmen, complete with fags dangling from their lower lips.

*** looked like a strung out wire coat hanger actually.

This is the inside of our lift. And before you even think about asking, that brown stain was always there before this weekend.

things I love about summer (in kyiv)

forgetting how yucky winter was.

it’s green everywhere – Kyiv is one of the greenest (in terms of trees) cities in Europe.

everyone* is happy.

my neighbours actually say hello to me.**

wearing flip flops everyday (when all the local wimmin are in sky-high stilettos which I still can’t fathom).

the markets are packed full of gorgeous Ukrainian fruit and vegetables – even things I haven’t seen in the UK.

stuffing our faces with raspberries so ripe you have to eat them in a day.

being totally aware of and appreciating the seasons and making the most of the summer knowing that in a few months it’s back to cabbage and dodgy potatoes.

last week, being hugged by a neighbour (who runs the agency) in the street . Good lord.***

when it reaches 50C**** in the afternoon, going to the park and lying in the lush grass under a canopy of trees where it’s at least 10C cooler than in the street.

as above, but adding a chilled bottle of Moldovan fizz and some friends. At the equivalent of £3 (for the bottle, not the company), that makes it even more enjoyable.

picnicking on the island and not seeing anyone for miles.

sitting at my computer with the window open and hearing the folk music wafting (jingly jangling) up from the Georgian restaurant below.*****

realising that I now have a reasonable handful of friends following the spring where people seem to come crawling out of the woodwork. And then realising that I’m not the only one who fretted throughout the winter because I had no friends.

actually sort of looking forward to winter where I can snuggle up in a cosy cafe with a book while it’s -20C outside. This is because I now know where the good places are, having been able to explore in summer, and knowing that I might be able to share that coffee with a friend or two.

* that’s a lie – almost everyone.
** sometimes, as opposed to none of the time.
*** actually, I’m not sure this is a likeable thing about summer but what the hell.
**** sort of – maybe 40C.
***** at 11pm when the folk singing turns into drunken warbling with glass smashing it does become a little tiresome. Although as it’s summer I can be a bit more forgiving than normal.

give us our daily bread

Having recently written a post on Zimbabwe and commented on Zimbabweans’ resourcefulness, I came across a recipe blogger based in the country; Carolyn at Field to Feast. Her recipes use foods available in Zimbabwe. I was amused to see that she had written about the Zimbabwean government’s latest strategy of forcing food retailers to cut their prices (by as much as a half) in response to rocketing inflation. The inevitable panic buying followed, stripping the shelves clean. Some resourceful retailers had held their products back off the shelves so they wouldn’t be bankrupted by the hugely deflated prices, but were quickly stormed by ‘police’ ordering them to restock their shelves.

Carolyn wrote about her husband’s recent shopping trip where he emerged triumphant from a desperate crowd with a loaf of bread in each hand. This prompted Carolyn to say that finally it may be time for her to learn to bake bread. How’s that for resourcefulness? I just hope there will be enough flour.

believe a ukrainian and you’ll believe anyone

I’ve heard this said numerous times but I fall victim to the wily tales crafted by my fellow residents* of Kyiv every time. ‘Never believe a Ukrainian is what “they” say’ but I so wanted to believe Olga** and the story of her liver-diseased dog who miraculously recovered to become a world champion after imbibing regular doses of red wine. It sounded feasible to me.

The next trip down gullibility alley happened this afternoon when our cleaner came and asked if I wanted to buy some of her new cleaning fluid. She has joined up with that well known American cleaning chemicals company, Amdram***, where she operates as a disciple spreading the good news to those who will listen.

So after her explanations which of course I didn’t understand, she presented me with a catalogue – all in Russian of course, which of course I didn’t understand. So she called over a friend, Varenyky****, from the agency across the hallway to translate a couple of product descriptions I thought I might be interested in. And I kid you not, this is the conversation:

varenyky: oh yes this liquid is very good. It’s organic you know. Very very good. My auntie puts the used washing water on her plants and they grows big big big.
me: oh. Really?
v: yes. Hmph. You know, hahaha, my auntie has dog, and he was eeel*****, very eeel. And you know, she give the dog some drops of cleaning liquid in his water and he gets better.
me: really? She gave him cleaning fluid to drink and he got better?
v: yes, of course. Its organic, all natural.

So, 400 Hryvnias****** later, I am awaiting a truckful of cleaning fluid I probably don’t want. Honestly, I’d believe that grass is blue if anyone tried to convince me hard enough.

* except I’m not a resident as I don’t work here, can’t work here, have to leave every three months etc etc blah blah blah.

** not her real name

*** nor its real name

**** nor her real name either

***** that’s eeeel, as in sick. Not the slippery river creature.

****** I’ll leave you to work that out in your local currency as I am too embarassed to quote it in pounds, dollars etc

the environment: a novel approach

All around us there are signs of climate change that we can’t ignore. For example the 42C days we had at the start of the Ukrainian spring and the cold 15C days that are marking the British midsummer (some might argue that 15C is perfectly normal). Not a day goes past without someone or other publishing their idea for how we can minimise our impacts on the environment.

Being a bit of a greeny, I was naturally drawn to this article published on a Zimbabwean blog which details the government’s efforts to reduce it’s impact on the environment by concentrating on emissions.

You can read the full article itself but here are a couple of amusing extracts:

“…Zimbabwe has taken some bold initiatives to deal with emissions. It started phasing out petrol and diesel a few years ago. [NB as a child I remember sitting - some people even camped over night - in petrol queues, and modern day Zimbabweans continue the practice].
This has seen the introduction of the pedal bicycle police patrol…

…A few weeks ago it announced that it was doing away with electricity in cities… [NB again, power cuts were a feature all those years ago and are even more a part of life now - often 2 or 3 days at a time].

…Then it came up with a marvelous population control plan, donating a third of its citizens to other countries”.

I heard an amusing quote recently musing on the fact that the ever resourceful Zimbabweans are never going to react to the appalling political situation and its knock-on effects on everyday life because “…when the electricity fails they light a candle, when the candles run out they light a fire.”

In a horrible place where inflation is predicted to hit 15,000% at the end of this year, humour is about the only thing the Zimbabweans have left.