Ukraine Part 3 - Sumy
Meeting Igor's Parents and Sightseeing
I stayed one night at Hotel Sumy while
my passport and visa were documented by security, then transferred
the next day to an apartment across town.
This was the normal
procedure when I was traveling on USAID business.
Igor walked with me to my
apartment as he did every day, so he wouldn’t have to leave his car
untended before we were to leave for the Farmer Training meetings at
rural villages. He was not only my interpreter, but also my driver
and guide during of my stay in Sumy.
We walked to a café for breakfast, then on to his
Father-in-Law’s house to pick up Igor’s car.
When no one else was in earshot, Igor would boast about his
special car—bragging about it being the only classy looking Spanish
car in the Ukraine.
The car was in the makeshift garage he’d built
onto the side of his Father-in-Law’s house, to keep it out of sight.
I was looking forward to doing some sightseeing, learning a
bit about Sumy and the countryside, getting a feel for what life was
like in the Ukraine. But
before anything else, Igor would need to get some fuel.
So our first stop was the pipeline gas station outside the
city; there aren’t any gas stations within the city. In front of the
high wire security fence enclosing the Government station was a line
of government busses and trucks, a half dozen taxi-vans and a couple
of private owned cars waiting in line to get fuel.
We sat in that line for almost an hour.
I tried my best to be
patient. Some drivers got
permission to move up in line, by paying bribe money to the military
guards on duty. Igor was in no hurry and saw no need to spend extra
money on a bribe. When
we finally reached the pumps, he paid one of the guards for the
fuel, they gave him a receipt. By the way, I learned the station is
only open for business for about two hours each day. Then we were on
our way.
“Today we will go my parent’s house,” Igor said
on the way back into Sumy. “They’re expecting us for dinner.
After that we’ll visit the central market.”
As it happened, we came up on an outdoor market
early in our drive. We
decided to have a look, though we probably wouldn’t stay long.
We parked the car and walked across the frozen Psel River,
which flowed (well, not at the moment, obviously) through the center
of the city. It was a
mild day, clear and windless.
Here and there we saw young people ice skating or sliding
along the icy banks.
Along the shore was a line of stands where men and women—mostly
pensioners—sold food and crafts.
I was glad to get a peek at what Igor and I would be seeing
later that day, after visiting his father.
The gray winter backdrop of Sumy made the stands seem all the
more bright and colorful, with their fresh vegetables and brightly
painted crafts. Some
stands displayed artwork like softly painted landscapes, or
intricately patterned Matruska dolls (or “nesting dolls”).
Others were selling everything from wood carvings, bouquets
of flowers, hand painted shirts to coin collections where I
purchased a bouquet of flowers as a gift for Igor’s mother. I also
bought a dozen Russian Rubles as souvenirs which Igor later
explained were worthless. A few stands were covered by tents, to
protect the crafts in case it began to snow and at the far end of
this open market, men were butchering sheep. The carcasses, for sale
were hanging from tree branches.
We walked by the Sumy Arts Museum, where I’d been
hoping to make a stop and learn about the Cossack heritage.
But we found it was closed, as was the theater and the opera
house. We did manage a
stop at the post office.
Igor stopped by there each week, to pick up any mail that might have
come in for his family.
Usually, the mail had already been opened by government agents.
The only person to receive any mail today was his brother,
who had a letter from the government regarding his military status.
We continued uphill to a large tree-lined park
where young couples walked by, holding hands.
Igor lit up a cigarette. “This is where the pensioners play
cribbage and dominos on warmer days.” He blew some smoke through his
lips. “We have a celebration here every year on National Army Day,
when everyone drinks too much Vodka,” he chuckled.
I found myself intrigued by the life-sized statue
of Lenin standing near an old World War II army tank. In the center
of the park, was what looked like a water fountain. Igor explained
it was an Eternal Flame to commemorate those who had lost their
lives in the wars. When I asked why the flame wasn’t burning, he
said the city had no money to pay for fuel.
An old woman in a wool
headscarf and a long dark coat moved around below the monument,
sweeping away the snow with a broom.
She looked up at us and smiled, muttered something I didn’t
catch, then bowed and crossed herself.
(Since the fall of the Soviet Union, it was now safe to be
openly religious in the Ukraine).
Igor said she was another pensioner as he handed her some
coins.
Igor’s parents lived in a nice small two bedroom
home, having moved there from the Collective apartments to spend
their retirement years.
We arrived just as his parents, Vladimir and Elizaveta, were sitting
down to dinner. We
removed our shoes, which is the custom, before entering and I handed
Elizaveta the bouquet of flowers, the customary gift. I received a
warm welcome with an excited smile on her face. Elizaveta took the
flowers into the kitchen to put them in water.
I followed Igor into the dining room (which doubled as a
living room), catching the aroma of lamb chops on the stove, mixed
with the smell of burning wood from the fireplace.
Elizaveta, with the help of her sister, Valeriya
were busy preparing dinner. Valeriya had been living with them since
her husband had passed away a couple of years ago.
The table was set with what must have been their best dishes
and silverware, as they all matched and had no chips or scratches.
They looked like they’d hardly ever been used.
They were accompanied by tall red candles.
I was the first American they had ever had in their home, and
they felt it to be an honor to have me as a guest.
When his parents and aunt were out of earshot Igor whispered
to me, “I never knew they had candles.”
I hadn’t had a full meal
since I’d left home three days ago, so the greasy lamp chops and
steaming bowl of stew were a welcome sight.
Oh yes, I ate two pieces of that pumpkin pie smothered with
honey. I couldn’t follow
Igor’s conversation with his parents, as they were speaking
Ukrainian. Occasionally
they would glance my way and chuckle.
The time to socialize with guests came after
dinner. Igor
interpreted, so his parents could ask me questions about my family
and about life in America.
They were very curious about how life in America compared to
life in the Ukraine.
Vladimir had trouble wrapping his head around the idea of farmers
living so far from the town where they sold their produce. He was
just as baffled by the idea of every middle-class family owning a
car and especially about women driving cars, driving a car is a
man’s job he told me.
“Why don’t people in America walk or
ride the bus, like we do here?” “Why do they need a car?” he asked.
During the conversation I gathered that Vladimir
and Elizaveta had occasionally vacationed at a resort near the Black
Sea. It is a custom for
Collective workers to be granted a paid vacation once a year,
courtesy of the government. Vladimir invited us to his upcoming
retirement party, culminating a lifetime of work at the Munitions
Collective. He promised
to bring his best vodka.
Smiling, Elizaveta invited me to dance with her at the party and
teach me to do the Russian style Polka.
Vladimir apologized for not giving us a ride to see the
countryside. His car was
parked at his Dacha about twenty kilometers from the city. The car
required antifreeze this time of year, and there was no antifreeze
available anywhere in Sumy.
When I was thanking Vladimir, Elizaveta and
Valeriya for the hospitality and we were heading out the door, the
sun was shining. I
didn’t notice the afternoon chill thanks to the five shots of vodka
I’d been given. It is
customary at social gatherings for toasting to continue on and on.
We drove a short distance, then parked the car next to the
Makarenaka Teachers Training Institute, and an old Orthodox church.
Igor had studied and learned English as a second language at
this institute. I was
interested in seeing the old church, a building from the nineteenth
century. We were greeted
by a young priest in a long black robe.
He could speak some English, and told us the history of this
old church, and of the Sumy Cossack Cavalry Regiment.
He happily told us that people were returning to Christianity
since the end of communism and the church had reopened.
Most of the members were
older adults, mostly women, but he had hopes of starting a Sunday
school for the younger children.
That would have to wait until warmer weather though, as the
church had no indoor heating.
“We worship on Sundays and on Wednesday nights
now,” he said proudly.
It was a miracle the church had survived this
long. During World War
II the Nazis had converted the church into an artillery depot and
barracks, and though the church had been restored for the most part,
one could still see gun turrets over the roof top.
On the other side of the hill was an enormous
outdoor central market, much like the one we’d seen on the
riverbank. The isles
were packed with shoppers.
The area near the entrance reeked with the exhaust fumes of
all the buses and taxi vans.
The parking stalls next to the high fence around the market
were packed with small trucks or wagons, hitched horses or tractors.
In one corner of the market stood two stalls selling used
auto parts. The icy
ground in front of them displayed a couple of older Lada cars for
sale. Igor looked around
for a stand that sold cigarettes, while I wandered through the
market shopping for souvenirs.
Half an hour later we were leaving Sumy on our
way to the Russian border, Igor proudly driving his Spanish car out
of sight from the residents of Sumy. I had asked to go and see the
Russian border, since I’d never been to Russia and this may be as
close to a chance as I would ever get.
Igor had agreed, reluctantly.
After an hour’s drive we stopped at the stone ruins of a
bombed-out church, another interesting site for me to learn about.
It only had portions of its five-foot-thick walls and steeple
remaining; during the War, many people had mistakenly thought this
church would shelter them from the bomb raids.
After driving for another half an hour, Igor
pointed to the border crossing ahead.
We slowed to a stop about a hundred meters from a large
archway next to the Customs office where a line of vehicles were
waiting to cross.
“Quick,” Igor sounded nervous, “take the picture
now, we can’t go any closer.”
I quickly snapped a couple pictures through the
windshield I wasn’t even
finished turning off the camera when Igor was backing away from the
area. We made a sharp
U-turn and sped away. I
could hardly believe we’d driven two hours for that.
I thought about how blurry my
photos probably looked, and the Russian soil I didn’t even get to
touch. I wondered what
on earth Igor was so afraid of. Had that spot near the border been
in some kind of restricted area?
But he was still tense, so I didn’t ask. From my visits to
the former Communist countries, I could sense the people having a
certain amount of fear of their government, a carryover from
communist times.
by Everil Quist, International Agri-business Consultant
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