Top ten cool things you can see or do in Ukraine (and not in Canada)-I've been working on this one all February, trying to get some ideas from the boys for it, so its not just my opinions!
1- See dogs use the crosswalk (and/or cross on the light)- this one is from the boys- sorry I never have my camera to get a good picture of this!
I hear that Ukraine is trying to “cleanup” its semi-friendly homeless dog population for the Euro-Cup, but I don’t know why- they are one of coolest things about Ukraine – people feed them- you can see them tossing dogs bones and scraps, and best of all (with the crazy traffic) those city dogs cross the road at crosswalks, with or without people using them, and even cross at the lights. I think they have figured out the babushka method of crossing the road- stay close to the grandmother while crossing the street- who’d run over a granny?
One of our friends was walking up to a pedestrian crossing where the light wasn't working with a middle-aged Ukrainian woman. There were two twentyish guys standing there- so she said in English they'd go when the boys went. One guy said something in Russian to his friend- turned out they were going across when the babushkas did!
2- Cherry verenikiy -think pyrogies filled with cherry pie filling. In Ukraine they are not pyrogies (that’s a more pie-like thing or a fritter even. But you can get verenikiy filled with kartoshka (potato- Seth and Jonah’s fav), mushroom/potato, and liver/maybe there is potato in there but you can’t taste it (not our favorite- we bought some frozen ready-to-cook ones accidently the first summer and fed them to a stray neighbourhood dog) or cottage cheese. Now we can read some of the ingredients, so we stick to potato.
3- Walking to the store- I think this tops Seth’s list. Everyday in winter, sometimes twice, the boys walk down the street to one of the stores in the village. They buy our daily bread supply but mostly they are there for candy bars, and when its warmer- one of the many kinds of ice cream bars. Jonah wore sandals on his feet until there was snow in December, and I’m sure they will be back on his feet as soon as it melts- like he’ll be ditching his coat for a windbreaker or less.
4- The circus- Near the top of the boys’ lists-as seen in an earlier post in February.
5- You never know what you’ll see on top of/behind a Lada on the highway- Rugs, furniture, lumber and steel, roofing materials, anchored to the front hood and the back of the roof rack. A load of hay like in the photo, or hay in bags on top, animals- cows,pigs, chickens in crates- in a trailer behind, vegetables in a trailer, boxed and tied on top and/or cabbages and watermelons piled to the roof in the back seat of the car is a sight.
6- Shishlik- Ukrainian BBQed meat- stop at a restaurant in the summer, or buy a bucket pre-marinated and really to skewer and cook over a wood fire – Garry likes pork, I like chicken, it comes with skisklik sauce (pretty much ketchup) and thinly sliced raw onions in vinegar.
7- High heels- Ukrainian women get dressed up to leave the house. Yana, the 27 year old that milks for us, gets all dressed up to walk down to the village store- she looks like a different person! Go to the mall and the girls look like models, dressed in the latest fashions, and walking around on incredibly high heels. In fact, many middle-aged women are in high heels, walking the city streets for miles. Garry tells me that the president of Ukraine- recently said that Kiev is the place to be in the spring when the women start to undress and skirts rise- or something like that- I think he was recommending it for a summit.
8- Fruit trees- as written by Jonah-in Ukraine there are apple trees, cherry trees, peach trees, pear trees grape vines and walnut trees and we don’t have very many fruit trees in Canada. In Ukraine people have fruit trees in their front yard and they get a lot of fruit from them because of the warmer climate. (compared to Manitoba anyway!) He missed nectarines- and yes all these grow in our yard, and Jonah loves applesauce.
9- Fruit juices- Ukraine sells more kinds of fruit juice than you can think of- cherry is our favourite (you can mix it with Coke to make cherry coke too), black or red currant, pomegranate, mixed types, green apple types are tart, and even red orange juice. Ukrainians also love to drink compoot- boil some fresh or dried fruit and drink the liquid- with some very cooked fruit floating in it, cherry is most popular, you can get it at Puzata Hata all year.
10-Gassy water- not my choice in drinks, but Ukrainians will tell you it’s good for you to drink in the summertime,when its hot. It really tastes like Alka- Seltzer to me. Some visitors like it a lot- think club soda. I look for the word bez on water bottles- it means less or without, so my water is plain. By the way every product in Ukraine has a label that says bez GMO. Right- that’s no genetically modified ingredients- not sure if everything really is, but it’s got a sticker saying so!
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