The Taras Shevchenko Museum

Olga told me on Thursday that she thought I was beginning "to understand the true Ukrainian Spirit" and urged me to pay a visit to the Taras Shevchenko Museum. This I did after a long day of sightseeing in the oldest parts of Kyiv.

My experience was unique and enriching. First, my story of visiting the museum itself. This is housed in a beautiful, ornate and grand residence of the nineteenth century, with eighteen foot high ceilings and spacious rooms. I entered the building, which was as quiet as a church. I was apparently the only visitor in the building at the time. I first spoke to a security guard and two receptionists in the grand marble foyer. They directed me downstairs to buy a ticket. In a warren of rooms in the basement, I found a little woman in her seventies at a ticket desk. She told me the price was five grivnia. I produced a fifty grivnia note. She frowned and then laughed and shook her head. I deduced from this action that at that point in the day (4:00 p.m.) they had not yet had ten visitors to the museum). I dug for coins in my pocket and was finally able to produce the five grivnia admission price. She handed me a pair of hospital-green foot covers, telling me (all in Ukrainian/Russian, of course, as was my interaction with all of the Museum staff) to put them over my shoes. She then directed me further into the warren to check my coat. There was another functionary in the very ornate coat-check room. Mine was the only coat hanging on the many, many coat racks in this large room. She gave me an ornate numbered token--68 I believe, although I don't know why I needed a token for my coat since I was the only one in the museum--and sent me back upstairs.

Upstairs I was greeted by two other women, who asked for my "билет"--my ticket. I produced my numbered token--68--and smiled. Oh no, the woman said. I needed a ticket. The other woman frowned, pointed to my feet and stage-whispered to her companion, "But he has the coverings on his feet." I explained that I was given no ticket by my little septuagenarian friend downstairs, only the token by the coat woman. One of the women then said she would check, so she went downstairs and returned with my "ticket," which was a small crumpled up cash receipt. I was then in business.

Since the women spoke no English, I was given an English script detailing the contents of sixteen grand rooms containing artwork, manuscripts and memorabilia from the life of Taras Shevchenko, the greatest Ukrainian writer.

I had a marvelous time proceeding through this museum. As I entered each room--with high ornate ceilings, chandeliers, long windows with heavy curtains, thick Victorian era carpets, parquet wood floors, intricate wood carvings, etc.--I found a separate woman docent sitting in the room. They would snap on the light for me as I entered, and turn it off as I left--sometimes with great alacrity. It was dark outside by now, and so the docent with no museum visitors in her assigned room was required to sit in the dark waiting for a visitor. Sixteen rooms. Sixteen docents. And me. In two of the rooms I found the new docent alseep, whereupon the previous docent would run into the darkened room ahead of me and find the light. This light followed me around the museum as if I was the prophet Samuel carrying a lighted torch, filling each room with light and then leaving darkness in my wake.

Now to Taras Shevchenko. He was an artist and a writer of the early to mid nineteenth century. In trouble with the Russian authorities because of his Ukrainian nationalism, he was tried in St. Petersburg, then sent in the military for an exploration of the Aral Sea. There he honed both his writing and his drawing. His drawings are very appealing to me, reminiscent of the charcoal and pencil drawings of the German Carl Spitzweg which I have collected.

The other day I bought a copy of his life-work "Kobzar" and found a beautiful poem about "моя Україна"--"My Ukraine".

• Світе тихий, краю милий,
• Моя Україно

(See page 220 in my edition of Kobzar) I copied down the first lines and showed them later to Olga, who helped me translate a couple of unknown words. Well, in the museum this afternoon I found the original manuscript for this very poem. It showed that the first word, had originally been "краю" тихий, which the poet had crossed out and changed to "Світе" тихий.

I am very glad that Olga suggested I visit the Museum. It has been one of the highlights of my trip.