The Two Ukraines

Perhaps you may have been wondering what I am doing in Ukraine speaking Russian (or maybe you are not). But half of Peace Corps Volunteers here learn how to speak Russian, the other half of course, Ukrainian. Because I studied Russian for a couple of years in college, I was assigned to learn Russian.

The reason for the language divide is a historical one, Ukraine was divided between two different empires: the Russian Empire and the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth. Naturally, the part that belonged to Russia, which was mostly to the right of the Dnieper River, speaks Russian. The part that belonged to Poland, lying on the western banks of the Dnieper River speaks Ukrainian. Eventually Russia took over Ukraine, so the entire country speaks or understands Russian or a mix of the two called Surzhyk. Since my village is on the right bank of the river, we speak Russian

However, despite the language differences, the national language of Ukraine is Ukrainian.. Classes in my school are conducted in Ukrainian, even though Russian is taught. Our local newspaper is in Ukrainian as are all of the signs on the road or in the museum. Further to the East and closer to Russia, Russian is predominantly spoken and is on all of the signs. Students learn Ukrainian once they enter school or pre-school.

   

This is the local newspaper called "New Day". It is in Ukrainian, even though most of its readers speak Russian.

  This is a picture of my host mother and I in  the newspaper. It is an article about the Old New Year's tradition of caroling. This year a group from my school came to my house dressed in folk costumes to raise money for the school.

And lastly, there is an article about me, the work I am doing at the school, and the Peace Corps. That is me in the center, helping a student read.

But unlike English, which in my opinion has no language that is really close to it, Ukrainian and Russian speakers readily understand the two. After spending a year abroad as an exchange student in Slovakia, I came to Binghamton with the idea that I should learn Russian because it was not really to far off of Slovak.. I also felt that foreign languages were vital after seeing my friends in Kosice fluently converse in at least three different languages (Slovak, English, and French or German, the latter three are the most frequent foreign languages studied in Europe).

Learning Russian was not as easy as I thought, but it was not too difficult either because it was so similar to Slovak. All Slavic languages are very close to one another. I think that Ukrainian is a mix between Russian and Slovak, so I do not find it so difficult to understand either. However, Russian is in Cyrillic and Slovak is not, so reading it and writing it are always a challenge. Nevertheless, I think once I am fluent in Russian, which I hope to be at the end of these two years, it will really open up some doors for me.

I hope you are enjoying your weekend and as always, feel free to comment or shoot me an email at laurachaath@gmail.com

My addresses

Some of you were asking about my address, well actually I have two here. This is my address for our office in Kiev. You can only send me letters here: 

PCV Laura Chaath

111A Saksahanskoho St

Kyiv, Ukraine 01032

Or if you would like to, you can send me a package to this address:

Gerasumenko, Jozefa Petrovna          Герасименко Юзефа Петровна

Laura Chaath                                             Лора Шаат

ul. Stepnaya 105                                        ул. Степная
s. Konstantinovka                                      с. Константиновка
Melitopolsky rayon                                     Мелитополский р-н
Zaporizhia Oblast 72365                             Запориская обл.  72365
Ukraine                                                      Украина 

Sorry this needs to be in Russian and English to make sure I get it, but you can just copy and paste and print it out on your computers to make life easier for yourself. As always, anything you send me will be greatly, greatly appreciated. I hope that you can continue to check my blog as I continue to post more frequently now that I have internet in my house. Up next, more pictures of my house and hopefully a clip for tonight's evening news which featured a story on me and my school. 

Have a good weekend everyone!

New Year...New House...New City...New Life!

Hi everyone,

Happy New Year! I am not sure truthfully of how many readers I have left after posting so rarely and infrequently, but part of my New Years resolution is to keep posting on my blog and to do it more frequently. Much more frequently. 

As I said last month, I now live in a new place where I will remain for two years. I live in a village called Konstantinovka, which is known as "the biggest village in Europe." There are 12,000 residents and three schools, one of which I teach at. 

I am sure many of who, or the few of you I have left are wondering about Ukrainian holidays. The biggest holiday here is New Years, which looks like our Christmas, complete with a Christmas tree and a Santa Claus like Grandfather Frost, who comes with a Snow Queen. During the night of New Years Eve, Grandfather frost delivers presents, which children anxiously await for. And of course, people countdown to midnight. This year I celebrated at my counterpart Sveta's house with her and her family. Before midnight I came home and celebrated with my host mother. She had a feast prepared even though I had just eaten, but as always the more the merrier.

This is a picture of our midnight New Years feast. I ate among other things hot dogs, cabbage salad, halupsi,  pilaf, fish, and lots of candy, cookies, and fruit.

  

 The next holiday comes Christmas, which is on January 7th. Christmas is another feast, but gifts are usually not given on the holiday, like they are at home. My host mother had all of her children over, but I went to the nearby city of Donesk for a friend's birthday.

The final holiday is Old New Years, which we just celebrated. People come from house to house, singing carols and wishing people a joyous (old) New Year. This year we had 3 groups come, students and teachers from my school, another group of teachers from the nearby pre-school, and a little girl and her grandmother. The school groups were doing it to raise money for our school and the little girl was doing it for fun. Last night, my host mother's son, son-in-law, and two grandsons came early in the morning to throw buckwheat around every room in the house. The traditions is supposed to bring good luck. When I woke up this morning there was buckwheat everywhere, even in my bed! At school, I had to dump out my boots too.

That's all for know. Below are some pictures and I will try and be more dilligent this year about posting. Happy Belated Holidays everyone and thanks for the Birthday wishes!

 This is a picture of my host mother Yulia Petrovna to my left, on my right is her 23 year-old daughter Katya and to Yulia's left is her 21 year-old daughter Larissa.

 

Above is a picture of the house I live in with Yulia Petrovna. It is a pretty big house with three bedrooms, a large kitchen and bathroom, and a living room that is so big I call it the ballroom.

 

This is me in the main square of the nearby city of Melitopol. Melitopol is pretty fun with lots to see and do. The buildings are really old and beautiful. There are some cobblestone streets too, and as I discovered this week, a good French bakery.