So if you haven’t heard by now, our family took a long-anticipated trip to Ukraine. Goal #1: introduce our children to Lyana’s family. Goal #2: eat lots of tasty food. Goal #3: Have fun. I am pleased to announce that we successfully reached all three goals (we far exceeded #2 especially as you will find out). Now, in grand Watson blogging tradition, here are way too many pictures and not enough words. You might need to a take a break halfway through.
“10 YEARS LATER” says the pie. Ten years ago Lyana’s cousin Katya made this for me on my first trip to Ukraine and to meet the family.
It is a traditional welcome dish called Schuba. At first glance it looks like pink and white frosting with green sprinkles. Take a bite and you find the pink is made of beets, the white is mayonnaise and the green sprinkles are onions. Inside the pie is herring (yes, the fish). Not the pie you’d expect. 10 years ago I had a difficult time with one bite. This time around I did much better. When was the last time you had a herring pie?
The first morning we were in Kyiv, we decided to do some sightseeing. We headed to Pecherska Lavra-famous Kyiv monastery. First of all, it was a brisk autumn day, but that’s not why the ladies have headscarves (or in Lyana’s case a neck scarf on her head). Two reasons: it’s tradition AND Babushka (grandma) Maya says so. That’s Babushka in the brown coat. One think I learned this trip – listen to Babushka.
Lyana’s cousin Katya has two boys which are then second cousins to our children (I had to look that up). Mark and Petya took to each other very well. Here is one the rare photos of them standing. Much of the outing they seemed to find better seats by which to travel.
This is the monastery itself. Story goes it was destroyed in WWII, then rebuilt to look just like it had before.
Big platform not in use plus any number of bored children equals game of tag.
You see a cute picture of the 5 second cousins posing nicely. What you don’t know is how many attempts we made to take this photo with everyone looking at the camera while standing still. No, not the two little guys. It was the three older-so-you-should-know-better children on the right who couldn’t hold still.
A bit further behind the monastery afforded this picture-perfect view of the grand city of Kyiv.
FOOD!! It’s time to talk about food again. We all out to eat for lunch at a restaurant I don’t know the name of, but it’s main attraction was that it served traditional Soviet-era food. Babushka, who of course lived most of her life during that era, couldn’t understand why we’d want to go out to eat at this kind of restaurant when she could make the same food better at home.
The three Ukrainian stooges. Always together causing mischief – you can tell by their smiles.
Let’s see, I have to try to remember what food we had there. Oh, yes. First they brought out bread platters with three spreads. 1) butter. Strangely, Alex had never actually had butter on his bread before, so he unwittingly tried it and, voila, he has a new favorite. He ate all the butter. 2) garlic/cheese spread. Lyana makes it better, but this was still very tasty. My favorite of the three (you’ll see why in a sec), and I was very pleased to have it. 3) salo spread. Salo is lard, aka pig fat. A hit with the Ukrainian crowd (especially Babushka). Tough to stomach for the Americans. Next came . . . another plate of bread, but this time with slices of bacon? Nope. This bread featured not spread but sliced salo. Here Mark is sampling the latest sliced lard.
Soon the rest of the meal arrived: vareniky, potato pancakes, potato-pumpkin pancakes, strange salads, veal thingies. I had the Chicken Kyiv (funny I know, but I had to do it. I figured it was the best time to try it, being in the city it’s named after.) I was officially stuffed, partly because of my dish and mostly because I had to eat almost all the leftovers on the table because I was afraid to offend the Babushka. My personal goal during the trip was to not offend anyone. You don’t realize how easy it is to mess up when the only way to communicate is through body language. I did a lot of “smiles and nods”.
Just out of the restaurant, we took a quick group photo.
After lunch we went back to Katya’s flat (you know Katya is Lyana’s cousin, right? We differentiated between the two by calling one “Katya from Kyiv” and the other “little Katya”.)
And guess who was there? Babushka Nina!! Not the same kind of Babushka. This one is Lyana’s great aunt. And she brought . . . food!! Then I recalled something Lyana had told me at the restaurant: don’t eat too much because you’re going to have to eat a lot with Babushka Nina. And boy was she right. It’s not as hard as you’d think, though, to eat two feasts in one day. At least when the food is tasty. And it sure was. Babushka Nina is a very good cook. And she made my favorite – Kotlyeti – basically ground beef and pork made into a fancy sausage/meatball looking thing and fried in a pan. She had remembered I liked them when we went to her place 10 years ago, so she made them again just for me (though I had to share with everybody else).
You may have been wondering where we stayed. Well, the city is full of concrete block apartment buildings. Lyana’s cousin’s building is right next to that cousin’s father’s building. So we stayed in her uncle’s flat on the 22nd floor (yikes) and her cousin where we visited everyday lives on the 18th floor. Funny story: there’s a lady at the front door to each building (a doorlady?) for security. As long as Lyana was with me, we’d get in fine, but when I’d try to get into the buildings, even with a key, the ladies would stop me. I never knew what they were saying or why I looked suspicious. I would just do my best to spit out names of family members who I was visiting. Finally Katya had to tell her doorlady to stop stopping the American guy and to let him in.
Not far from their home is this field where the older boy, Mika, likes to play football. Despite the cold, mud and potholes, we had loads of fun.
Of course, not all the fun was playing soccer. Alex (and soon Mark joined in) found his own game to play: pigeon shooing. Not the same as horseshoes and no, it did not involve throwing the pigeons. Anytime Alex saw a group of pigeons, he’d run after them screaming. Very loudly.
Mark and Petya, though unable to communicate verbally, did not have a difficult time working together on this little project of theirs, I like to call “emptying everything off the bookcase and onto the floor.”.
Where’s Mark? And I thought I wore camouflage pajamas. This was Mark’s and my bed during our stay in Kyiv. The last night we were there I finally figured out how to sleep comfortably on it – horizontally, much like Mark is right now.
Alex and Lyana had this nice bed. I would have slept here, but because Alex and Mark wouldn’t fall asleep in the same bed, I was upgraded to the sofa bed and Alex took my spot in the luxury suite.
Katya was happy to have her own little bed, even though it collapsed on her or tiipped over if she moved the wrong way. All in all, we were extremely comfortable there and very grateful to have a nice place to stay (thank you Uncle Sasha and Aunt Halia!).
One day we decided to go to the mall to play at the “Labyrinth”. It was cold and rainy so we wanted to find something to do inside.
Found this fantastic store on the way. Apparently it’s very popular in Ukraine. I wonder why.
And this is the “Labyrinth”. Turns out it was just like Chuck-E-Cheese, complete with pizza.
It’s late and you can probably tell I’m getting tired writing this post because the details are becoming sparse. In fact, my eyelids are droooping a bit right now. I’m so tired I don’t even want to delete that extra ‘o’ in drooping back there. OK, just a few more pics.
Katya, Mika, Alex. There, plenty of details. Besides, a picture says a thousand words so why am I bothering to write any of my own.
This was a typical scene as we hung out together at Katya’s flat. We’d just lounge around talking, eating, talking and eating. Babushka Maya made plenty sure that I was always fed. And if I emptied my glass or cleared my plate, the next thing I knew she was filling the glass with more homemade compote or heaping more homemade goodies onto my plate. I had to actually leave food on my plate for her to stop. And that, my friends, is why I gained a few extra pounds that week.
Kyiv was fantastic. Lots of people have been asking me since I got back how my trip to Ukraine was, and I tell them that it was fantastic. We didn’t do a lot sightseeing – that’s not why we went – we visited family and reconnected (or created new connections) with family and friends. And that was worth every dollar/pound/hyrivna we spent.
And finally, here we go, on our way out. The night train from Kyiv to Lviv. Departure: 10:40 PM. Kids slept the whole way in their bunks. Only room for four in the cabin, so who’s the fifth wheel in this family? Yup, me. I had the privilege of sleeping in the cabin next door. My cabinmates were a man who was not shy to walk around with his shirt off and a slightly largish lady who snored all night (and didn’t turn off her phone till midnight). She was nice though, so I should be kinder too. :)
Finally, for those who made it to the end of this post, I would like to reward you for your courage in confronting such a daunting task as reading this post and also for your commitment in completing your mission to read it.
A game. The six shots below were taken each from one of the photos in this post. Can you find which zoomed in snapshot belongs to which photo? (Yes, this game is your reward because I like games. They’re fun.)
Stay tuned for Lyana’s posts. They are much better than mine.
Rob
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