Flat Stanley gives a tour, part one

Flat Stanley arrived in the village in the middle of March.  My cousin Dave's son is in second grade and we are the furthest away his class sent a Stanley.  I was worried the envelope wouldn't get here, because they closed the village post office,  but weeks after he was mailed,  he somehow made it to our house.

Sorry to say, I did not get the photos of Flat Stanley exploring the village done until the end of the month, and then took him to both cities before making a booklet of photos and getting him out for mailing back to the states.

Just in case it doesn't make it back to the Virginia /Tennessee state line, here's Stanley seeing Ukraine.

Stanley got to read a book about Ukrainian culture and checked out some traditional crafts and costumes.







Stanley helped me feed 30 people lunch, for a week.

Want a cookie?

 

The soup pot is bigger than me!

Stanley made lots of friends in the village.  

Needles our cat

Kolya 

Sasha 

Vlad and his motorcycle 

New chicken friends at Yana's house, too

And the ducks (ootka in Russian) 

Stanley checks out the hatching baby chicks with his new friend Flat Stas. Stas went in the envelope to America.  Here's hoping US immigration lets him in. He's wearing a traditional Ukrainian shirt, called a vishyvanka.

Now Stanley will show you a bit of the village of Nikolaipolia,  or in Ukrainian,  Mikolipolia.  It means Nikolai's field,  just as it did when it was Nikolai Feld when it was settled by German Mennonites in the 1870s.

Stanley out by the highway sign for the village 

 Stanley showing you the Ukrainian cross that someone built outside the village two years ago.  The Orthodox church is the traditional Christian church in Ukraine.  There isn't one in our village, but there are two small evangelical congregations. Orthodox crosses are often found as you enter Ukrainian villages,  towns and cities. You will notice that they have a slanted bar below the arms of the cross.

Geese on the street

The village school,  grades one to eleven

Every house has a fence and a gate to close

The closed post office building 

One of the three grocery stores in town

You can buy delicious ice cream bars

The village church sign

The World War II memorial.
  It's near the playground 

The cemetary on the outskirts of the village 

It's a totally resurfaced highway
 between Dnepro and Zaporosia 

Stanley visited the village playground.  It was built last fall. It is often full of children,  but no one was there that day, so Stanley tried all the equipment.

In our next post, Stanley explores the cities.