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