Where Will the Children Play?

I fear a little for Kyiv. From my first day here I noted how few children are seen on the streets and in public. Olga once commented to me that Kyiv was no place for children. I have previously commented on how this is a city for the few with cars, not for the many on foot. Though I have traveled on the Metro many times each day, and probably seen ten thousand fellow commuters or more, I have seen only three children--two toddlers, and one infant asleep in a baby carrier. This appears to be the city of the University student, of the worker, of the professional, of the party-goer, of the entrepreneur, of the fashion model, but not of the child. I imagine that outside the City center there are many children living happy lives in happy homes and growing into beautiful young people. Among the most touching things I have seen in my few days in Kyiv are the parks with playgrounds, where each evening a very few parents can be seen playing with their children in the snow, running and laughing, or throwing snowballs playfully. I fear a little for Kyiv. There ought to be children on streets that are safe. This all brings to mind the words of a song I very much liked in high school:

I know we've come a long way,

We're changing from day to day,

But tell me, where will the children play?

Travails of a Pedestrian

Kyiv should be the quintessential pedestrian's paradise, with a miraculous and awe-inspiring subway system which can move one and a half million passengers a day, with more city parks than any other major European City, and with such beautiful and inviting streets. But, as in other things, the forces of commercial interest are squeezing out the little guy. I have been amazed at the brazen gall of the drivers in this City. Crossing a street, even on a "walk" light and in a zebra stripe, can be a frightening experience. Drivers barely swerve around you if you are in the crosswalk. Few traffic controls are enforced, and the sidewalks appear to have become secondary highways for the fat Mercedes, BMW's and Lexus's so prevalent on the road. Tuesday night, for example, when we were stuck in absolute gridlock traffic returning home from the National Aviation University, we had to watch for cars behind us as we walked along the pedestrian path through the trees to the Metro Station.

As I walked through the City this morning, I noted also that most of the sidewalk space is occupied by cars parked overnight by their owners in front of their apartment buildings. And to reserve spots in the public right of way, people have begun to install steel framed locks which can be locked in an upright position to prevent other drivers from "stealing" your place on the sidewalk.

Passing By Grid Lock on a Snowy Evening

I had quite an adventure getting home from the National Aviation University this evening. This was due to a massive traffic jam that appeared to affect the entire city, from the center of the city outward for several miles, as far as the Polytechnichni Metro stop. We first became aware of problems when our bus stopped for several minutes near the large campus that gives its name to the Metro station. Finally, after several more minutes, Olga and I and a few other daring souls got off of our stranded and idling bus and walked through the snow to the wide pathways running through a stand of trees at the edge of the campus. We trotted along with a throng of other pedestrians under the snow covered trees, feeling a little like participants in Robert Frost's poem, "Stopping By Woods on a Snowy Evening," trudging through the snow "between the woods and frozen lake" while repeating over and over the lines, "and miles to go before I sleep, and miles to go before I sleep." There were also many cars who followed us up over the curb and shared the sidewalk with the pedestrians. After several hundred meters, we finally attained the Metro station, whose warm depths felt very comforting to the frustrated traveler. When I got home a few minutes later to the Lva Tolstovo Plaza, I heard a cacophony of vehicle horns out of my window, and looked out to the site pictured above. The gridlock continued for about two hours, until a solitary police officer showed up with white gloves and whistle and little by little cleared out the traffic.

The Shifting Boundaries

I have always been fascinated by the boundaries of things, the margins, where vast changes in society are the most evident. It is at the boundaries where real change occurs, where the first harbingers of future societal shifts are first evident, and where the lingering remnants of the past hold on tenaciously. In my first forty-eight hours in Ukraine I have already seen the moving frontiers of change. Some examples:

Political Boundaries: In the Taras Schevshenko Park I saw an old man in full Soviet army regalia, walking through the swarms of pigeons, his hands thrust in the pockets of his greatcoat, deeply absorbed in thought. Elsewhere I have seen other trappings and memories of the recent grip of the Soviet Union on this land. This is a city with the deep imprint of the Communist past still etched on its face. Most of the buildings (including the one where I now live) are of Soviet vintage, although there appears to be a massive construction boom underway. And I suppose the nostalgia and longing for a simpler time may run deep in many hearts. In every newstand where I have browsed the Ukrainian and Russian-speaking press is filled with stories about the recent elections, and the continuing growing pains of this young democracy. I suppose that the teaching which I will present in the coming weeks is a part of those growing pains. The Constitution of Ukraine provides for the right to a trial by a jury of one's peers in a criminal case, and yet there has not been a single jury trial in Ukraine since independence.

Economic Boundaries: The chasm between rich and poor is stunning. It is seen on the streets every day, with women in chic and expensive clothing, stooping in their high heels to drop a few coins onto the knapsack of an itinerant street performer. Yesterday I took a picture of an old Soviet-era car parked on a downtown street, then as I turned I saw that the car was parked directly in front of the display window for a new Porshce 911. My driver on Friday boasted (or lamented) that 90% of the wealth of the nation is controlled by less than 5% of the people, who were smart enough, or unscrupulous enough, to seize control of it after the fall of Communism, and that the vast majority of the population live in very modest circumstances.

Language Boundaries: It is a source of endless fascination how this City apparently operates with two parallel languages--Russian and Ukrainian. I understand that the eastern, heavily populated region of Ukraine is predominantly Russian speaking, that the west half, and the rural areas are predominantly Ukrainian speaking. Here it is a very confusing mixture. It is especially bewildering for someone like me, with a moderate understanding of Russian, because the printed or spoken word all around me may be from moment to moment, Russian, Ukrainian or some bizarre mixture of the two. For example, today I attended Church in the little Mormon Ward in downtown Kyiv. The Church sign in the lobby was in Ukrainain, the church hymns in the Sacrament Meeting were sung in Ukrainian by the entire congregation, the speakers from the pulpit were about half Ukrainian and half Russian speaking, and in a scripture class which I attended, the teacher, who had books for class members would ask, "Do you want Russian or Ukrainian?" I can imagine that even greater changes in language may be in store in future generations, especially should Ukraine continue its definite trajectory away from the Russian influence and toward the European.

Religious Boundaries: There appears to me to be a deep piety and spirituality about most of the Ukrainians I have met. You could almost feel this tangibly as I walked the streets of the City from Friday night to Sunday morning. The City is very vibrant and alive, and yet on Sunday there is a marked change in the posture, attitude and even conversation of the people which I attribute to a deep religiosity in the hearts of most of the people. I have not yet had a chance to make my pilgrimages to the great Orthodox sites in the City, but I did attend, as I have said, the small religious services of the tiny Mormon congregation here. There I was the only Westerner present except for some young missionaries from Europe or North America). The Mormon congregation is lead by a Bishop, who is native Ukrainian and who joined his new religion within the past ten years. This is true of the entire congregation, and I was amazed to see not only young families, but many single men and women in their early twenties, many teenagers, and most surprisingly, a good number of older men and women of perhaps sixty, seventy or eighty years of age.

Travels with Yuri

After I breezed through customs, I passed up a nondescript staircase and hallway into a large lobby packed with people thronging a long roped off walkway, waiting for friends or family to get through customs. I ran the gamut of several hundred people, and presently saw a pleasant looking and very slender man in a leather jacket holding up a sign which read, "Dan Gibbons."

He introduced himself as Yuri Dregolas, (it rhymes with "Legolas," and actually now that I think about it, he kind of looks like a Russian battle elf) and lead me to his late model five speed car in which he drove me the twenty or thirty kilometers into downtown Kyiv, all the while keeping up a cheerful chatter in very good English. He is the son of a scientist, and attended an advanced English speaking school from a very young age, being trained to be a translator. He now works frequently for the property manager from whom the Institute has rented our apartment. On the card he left me, he wrote, "Taxi Driver."

The traffic in Kyiv is OUT OF CONTROL. The flow from the airport was easily 130 to 140 kilometers per hour. In town the traffic was horrendous, and most remarkable by the apparent disregard of all traffic regulations by all drivers. Constant merging, tailgating, driving on the wrong side of the road, driving up and over curbs, driving on sidewalks. But everyone seemed pleasant and amazingly courteous.

On the way into town Yuri played the accomodating tour guide, commenting on Soviet era cars and brand new Lexuses, on the landscape, on the tax laws, on the recent elections, and on the wide variety of buildings. He pointed with especial pride at the "skyscrapers" under construction.

Kyiv is much larger and busier than I ever imagined. Having lived in Europe during my mission, its older neighborhood have a strong European feeling, but there is also a dilapidated, Soviet style decreptitude about other neighborhoods that is very striking. The people appear to be very attractive, happy and positive.

Yuri took me right to our apartment, and upstairs, where we met a girl who had just finished cleaning. (More about the apartment later). I have already arranged for Yuri to drive me back to the airport on November 24th.

From the balcony of the apartment I can see Leo Tolstoy square, one of the main traffic intersections of the city. There is a large, and beautifully renovated building directly across the street, the bottom two floors of which house a glassed-in McDonalds. In front of this building I count this evening easily 40 cars parked on the sidewalk, and there has been a constant din of honking horns (not annoying, but rather oddly pleasant--like Gershwin's "An American in Paris," Annie) all evening.