What I miss the most......

You know, then one thing I miss about Ukraine is the changing seasons.

Yes, Summer in Ukraine is damned hot. My first week in Ukraine was in August 2007 and it was +40 Celsius all week. I could not go out for more than 20 minutes or so and was stuck indoors for a week before I was aclimatised enough to go out without shrivelling up.... not that some would say that was a bad thing.....

And the winter was bloody freezing (yes, thanks, I know I shouldn't start a sentence with "And" but so what!!) -35 Celsius is cold. You think you are cold standing for a bus in zero in the UK. All wrapped in polyester lined coats and woolly gloves. Try waiting in packed snow, with the temperature at -20 or so, wrapped in a huge winter coat and black bear lined fur hat with thick gloves on, and still feeling the pinch....... that's cold.

But back to the reason I liked it so much. Here in England you get used to the NON changing seasons. Its invariably wet, the temperature really doesnt change that much (+20 in summer to zero in winter) and things never really change apart from a bit of red and yellow in autumn.... In Ukraine you SEE the seasons change.

Summer to Autumn was a blaze of different colours everywhere you looked. Golds, Reds, yellows. People putting on thicker and thicker layers of clothing, the first snowfalls in November etc etc.... It was a real spectacle for me to see things change and feel the drops in temperature from +40 to zero..... And to awaken that one night in early November to go to the outside toilet only to find two foot of snow on the floor.... awesome.... I went back inside and got dressed and stood in the doorway for ages just staring at the snow falling.... that was until the wife came out to see why the house was getting cold.... oops!!!...

Then Winter. Well, what do I say. It started snowing in November, and it stayed on the ground right through until March. Snow.... good honest to god thick heavy falls of snow. But, you know what..... nothing stopped. Here in England we get half a milimetre of snow and everything grinds to a halt. Year after year it happens and no-one seems to learn. There I was, the morning after the first snowfall. Living in a village an hour outside Dnepropetrovsk, thinking there was no way I would get to work. The wife assured me it was nothing, so I trudged through a foot or more of snow to the main road to wait for the bus..... and bugger me if nothing had changed. There were all the regulars waiting, cars and trucks tootling up and down the road. The shops all open and sure enough, bang on time, the bus turned up. No chains ro special equipment, just everything as normal. And that is how it was all winter long.... Nothing stops. The only things are if the temperature is -20 for a week the schools close for a couple of days while its all warmed up again... and I get back to England and we have a bit of snow in November. No more than a few inches, nothing at all in some parts and suddenly the busses stop and all the motorways are jammed with abandoned cars. Come on guys, get a grip.... :) The most surprising thing about winter was the extra feelings you get when its REALLY cold. I remember for the first few days of -20 and walking to the bus stop that my face was really painful, my nose to be exact. After 2 or 3 days of this I complained to the wife. She just laughed at me.... apparently the pain was caused by me breathing the cold air in through my nose and the moisture freezing as i breathed in. So I had to learn to breathe through a scarf wrapped around my face. Like some sort of middle aged gangster.... :) Now I know why Russians grow huge beards, its for the winter... :)

Spring was amazing. After months of snow, with everything getting all black and white I was getting tired of the cold and the grey. Then suddenly things start to warm up and the snows begin to melt. Yes, its wet and slushy, but to see outbreaks of green after months of snow is an amazing feeling. You watch as the weeks go by and see new growth, green shooting up everywhere. Spring flowers bloom in riots of colour and the world seems a better place again. It cheers everyone up and people are just so much happier. Contruction is probably the only thing that does stop in winter, and to see all the roads being fixed and cleared and other heavy work being done was also gratifying. It was like the whole country was waking up from some sort of long hibernation again. The temperature continued to climb towards the summer heat.

You just dont get that here in England. Ever.... ah well!! HEre has so much more going for it at the moment that it is still a better place to be. I do miss some stuff tho'......

Now who are you? - Life after Sitecore and Ukraine.

Well. Here we go again.

Firstly I must apologise for those watching (and waiting) for another post. Things took a major U-turn while on holiday here in the UK and a lot has changed.

So much has happened since my last post that I will take it slowly and update you bit by painful bit..

FIRST. Who am I now.

I am now a 44yr old Englishman (no I'm not a "Brit" "British" "European", or any other derivation. I am and always will be "English", so there!!)

Anyway, rant over, I live and work now in the north of England where I am emloyed as a Technical Author by a company called Frog (yes, Frog!!).

For my sins I am married to a Ukrainian .

When people ask me what I do for a living i normally say "I write stuff...", but its a bit more than that. If you really want to know well.....

I write stuff.....

A break

Today I go on holiday. 6 weeks returning to the home country. Boy I am looking forward to it, but I dont know what I look forward to the most. smooth roads with no gaping potholes half a meter deep, busses that arent "stuffed up to the windows", being able to get something done without paying a bribe, or simply a nice warm beer with fish and chips and mushy peas?

Maybe its the fact that I am going "home". When I first came to Ukraine I promised myself I would never use that term in reference to going to the UK as "wherever I lived with my partner was home", sorry but no. England is my home, and will soon be ours I think. Once we return from our trip to England I think we will be discussing our long term future here.

Its defeatist but life is too much for me here. I am constantly angry, or frustrated, or both at the things going on around me.

Only time will tell. Iwill let you know on my return at the end of July. In the meantime enjoy the posts already here. As I have said before, its not a rant, or an angry blog, believe it or not its just the truth.

The great divide

Hmm, where to start on this one. For those that dont know, Ukraine is a former republic of the old Soviet Union. As such there are many soviet relics plaguing Ukraine and many other of the former republics, which they still have to overcome.
One of the more obvious ones to a well Ukraine-travelled foreigner (I have a job in east Ukraine and family in the west and make the journey regularly) is the east-west divide.
Let me give you an example.
Language - In the west of Ukraine they speak Ukrainian. "So what?", I hear you say, it is their national language. This is true, and Ukrainians are a bilingual race, speaking Russian fluently too, but the national language is Ukrainian. So then, in the west they speak Ukrainian, and in some places Russian is not taught anymore and people are emerging from the generations below mine that do not speak much Russian at all. In the East, however, it is a different story. Russian rules. I have been verbally insulted several times in the east with the phrase "we don't speak English here we speak RUSSIAN", and they do! Everywhere you go Russian is the FIRST language of east Ukraine. everyone knows Ukrainian to some extent but its Russian they speak first. They say in the West that you know a tourist from the east of Ukraine because he will talk to you firstly in Russian. :). Although the signs and documentation are all in Ukrainian, the spoken language is Russian.
Another example?. Ok, religion and traditions.
The west of Ukraine is steeped in local traditions and deep in the Ukrainian Orthodox church. people still believe in and celebrate old traditions and have traditional values and celebrations in their daily lives. Things like traditional anniversaries, local heroes from history, weddings, etc are still steeped in traditions with traditional clothes, music and dances. Religion is a major part in everyone's life with churches well attended and religious blessings in the local language on many occasions. When passing a worker, for instance, it is tradition and action too to bless him in his days work "bozhe pomohay" is the phrase used (sorry about the poor spelling). The east, well, what can i say. Its just like living in Soviet Russia. What's a church? Sunday is for meeting your friends, shopping and getting drunk. Religion plays a very poor part of life here. I see little in the way of tradition at all and its very sterile and staid in its ways. As for "bozhe pomohay", what does that mean? I have never heard it once here in East Ukraine.

Sadly, this is a divide that will be hard to cross and may be a permanent marker within Ukraine's future here. I hope that the traditions and values of the West will survive the stiffness of the East, and personally I think they will. But the divide will also remain and create unnecessary tensions as we can see in other countries that have such marked divides.

Sights and sounds. 3

Some of the stuff I have seen here that has turned my head...

Observation: Why do overweight women with large bags always sit at the back of the marshrutka and always want to get off when its full of standing passengers?

Sights and sounds. 2

Some of the stuff I have seen here that has turned my head...

My partner and I were walking through the village and heard from behind us a car and loud music. As it passed I realised it was an old Moskvitch, with one side panel missing. Driving it was a young man with his expensive sterreo turned up full, blasting out some russian music. As it passed me and my partner, we could not help but laugh as we saw that the drivers door was missing and the driver was sat on an old plastic crate, steering wheel in one hand, beer in the other with a cigarette hanging from the corner of his mouth as his head bobbed backward and forward with the music.

Sights and sounds. 1

Some of the stuff I have seen here that has turned my head...

I remember walking home in the village and coming upon the rear of a large trailer. This trailer was about 2 metres wide and 3 or four meteres long and piled upon it were the remains of a large tree cut into pieces, trunk, branches, roots and all. Two middle aged men with saws were talking at the side of the trailer and drinking beer. As we passed the trailer I expected to see a small truck or two large horses hitched to the front of the trailer. Imagine my surprise when all i saw was a small and incredibly fed up looking donkey....