Massachusetts Daily Collegian

A free and responsible press serving the UMass community since 1890

A free and responsible press serving the UMass community since 1890

Massachusetts Daily Collegian

A free and responsible press serving the UMass community since 1890

Massachusetts Daily Collegian

The World Beyond Amherst: Ukraine offers an authentic taste of Eastern Europe

Olga Deshchenko

“How one drives on these roads,” reads a dusty sign along a highway, “is the true reflection of one’s soul.” A mere 15-minute drive down a Ukrainian street is enough to conclude that most drivers in the country, assuming the sign tells the truth, have rotten souls. Black as charcoal. The redundant flat fields and countless trees that surround the roads further explain why Ukraine, a nation slightly larger than France and situated in Eastern Europe, is far from being considered a trendy tourist hotspot.

However, if one does manage to survive the typical, widespread reckless driving and explore this once-dubbed “breadbasket of Europe” in depth, the discoveries could be immense. Ukraine is yet to be exploited by tourists eager to hastily sample some culture and feed on souvenirs; this is exactly why this country is able to offer the raw authenticity of its people, traditions and life to its visitors. At times, it is overwhelming and deviant, but those precise experiences are at the heart of all commendable travel.

A Friday summer evening stroll through Krishatik, the most famous street in Kiev, exposes a capital city in the middle of a social and economic transformation. The long street is tightly lined with designer clothing stores and expensive eateries, fighting for breathing room and customers. The locals, dressed in their Sunday best, walk along Krishatik slowly, celebrating the end of the week by having a couple of drinks at a nearby bar or by enjoying a lavish dinner with some friends.

Teenagers start out the night by purchasing as much beer as they could physically carry. The legal drinking age in Ukraine is 18 years old, but who bothers to check?

“If the kid is old enough to look over the bar stand, he is old enough to drink,” explained a local pub owner. “Life’s harsh, you know?”

A brown paper bag around a beer that one plans to drink in public is not a standard in Ukraine. In fact, that notion is absolutely absurd. Sporting a beer, especially an Obolon, a Ukrainian beer company that prides itself for being “the beer of your mother country,” is considered to be cool. Hard liquor can be purchased as easily as a Coke at a grocery store, but it is often too expensive for teenagers to get their hands on. Nevertheless, drinking vodka at Krishatik elevates teenagers to the highest levels of adolescent coolness.

Middle-aged men are more often seen with a bottle of vodka, some shot glasses and a chess set, gathered at the corner blocks of the streets that cut through Krishatik. They often debate about politics and discuss weekly news, until they drink enough to soothe their heated conversations and focus their attention on chess matches and chain smoking.

The hundreds of people who spend their time on this busy and popular street come from different socioeconomic classes. Some are affluent businessmen or just poor students, while others are newcomers from the countryside, driven by the thirst for a better life in the city. On weekend evenings, the barriers that separate these people lose all validity. Together, the crowds brew a fusion of vibrant conversations, loud laughter, games, spontaneous songs and dance; the mixture’s success is secured with a little help from alcoholic beverages. For Ukrainians, on Friday nights Krishatik serves as a communal escape from the weekday cycle of laborious regularity.

Located at the southern tip of Ukraine, Kherson is a small city, but it is a fair contender to Kiev in terms of modern Ukrainian culture and a plentiful night life. Built on a decree issued by Catherine the Great in 1778, Kherson is known for its exceptional public parks, sweet watermelons and historic ship production factories. Despite all the possibilities to spend the night out in town proposed by countless bars, restaurants, theatres and clubs, Kherson fails to mask its social inequality as well as Kiev does. Its continuous struggle with poverty is more than evident.

The residents of Kherson reluctantly walk out of shops where the cost of food and clothing are beyond their materialistic reach. Secondhand stores, a recent sensation, have gained noticeable popularity in the past five years as the gap between the working and upper classes continues growing at alarming rates. The face of poverty in Kherson is harsh, as economical problems and impracticality of the government come to light. Elderly people, many of whom are retired teachers, are forced to beg on the streets; their pension is not enough to sustain them.

The Soviet Union’s presence still lingers in the city of Kherson and its outskirts. One of the prominent streets is named “Karl Marx,” while numerous monuments of Lenin signify essential points of business, culture and education. However, the relationship between communism ideals of the USSR and present-day Ukraine is nowhere in sight. Lenin’s statues, as if old habits, remind Ukrainians of the past, but do little to stir any course of action.

“Many people don’t realize this, but we are still trying to recover the crumbs of our breadbasket, a legacy of failed communism,” said a local produce merchant.

The residents of Kherson and its surroundings gather their crumbs with the help of free enterprise: numerous outdoors bazaars that line certain streets are a party for all the five senses. Sellers lure in customers with an astonishing selection of fresh meat, dairy and produce products. The competition between farmers and villagers who sell their homemade milk, sour cream and cheese is intense, forcing buyers to scout the bazaar for the best deals. It is wise to go to the market on an empty stomach, because a small tasting of the product is often the deciding factor of the purchase.

Those who choose to buy their food at the bazaar know to come early; at 6 in the morning, the just-picked apples are still covered in dew. The raw milk is still warm, giving off the slightest smell of grass. Nevertheless, what one purchases is just as important as from whom the purchase is made. The goal is to avoid the mistake of amateur bazaar shoppers: keep the wallet away from “???????????,” people known as “re-sellers.” These merchants simply purchase the products from local farmers for lower prices and hike up their cost at the market in order to make profits. “Re-sellers” fail to stand for the integrity and quality of their products, thus making it more difficult to buy from them with confidence.

While major Ukrainian cities are hungrily inhaling the free enterprise system that drives the world economy, the aroma of capitalism does not reach the villages, the small and cozy houses that are stacked along stretches of wheat fields. With no running water or acceptable pavement, these villages hold on to the roots of traditional Ukrainian life. The villagers rely on their own labor for survival, as one lonely store, which mostly sells household goods, sticks out like a sore thumb in the regions where tractors and cows use the roads more than cars.

These villages carry the spark of those small-town, closely-knit communities. The countryside consists mostly of elderly folks whose kids have moved into the cities because of the demands of modern economy. For those who stay behind, a relaxing and satisfying retirement is not a likely possibility. Despite back pains, diabetes or high blood pressure, these aging parents and grandparents are early risers, getting up at the crack of dawn to spend the day working in the fields.

Although farm work is often harsh on the body, it does wonders for the Ukrainian rural spirit. The notion of aging is only evident through physical characteristics, but wrinkles and fine lines do not coincide with the psychological effects of growing old. The villagers’ drive to work for their survival and well-being keeps their minds sharp and their spirits high. Aging in the countryside of Ukraine surpasses the physical limits of the deteriorating human body, and as if for com
pensation, heightens wisdom and mental strength.

If the people residing in the villages, the true breath of Ukrainian traditional living, are not enough to place this country in its own category of exceptionality, the rustic nature that surrounds them will certainly be a convincing factor.

Encompassed in the thick, gloriously green fern trees are massive stretches of animal and plant life kingdoms, thriving without any contact with the human world. Here, the air is so fresh and clean that the act of breathing itself is surreal. Perhaps the silence, piercing and powerfully disturbing, is what allows nature to claim its territory.

It is unlikely that the peace experienced within these Ukrainian forests, overlooking the uneven rows of village houses pinned across the horizon, exists anywhere else. This peculiar contradiction, a fleeting sense of fear accompanied by a simultaneous gushing of tranquility, makes the 12-hour flight across the Atlantic Ocean well worth it.

Olga Deshchenko is a Collegian staff writer. She can be reached at [email protected].

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