Epilogue--Ukranian Response!
Trip Start
Aug 21, 2004
1
8
Trip End
Sep 16, 2004
Kharkov,
Ukraine
Saturday, October 16, 2004
At long last i'm writing about my impressions as for your trip journal. Well, first i decided to read only those pages about Ukraine. When i began reading i couldn't help stop reading it. I was impressed so much. You are a very clever and observant man. You stayed not so long in Ukraine but managed to notice and understand the most vital sides of our life here. You must have a very big experience, and i liked your writing skills as well. Hope you won't be against my giving some comments. I'll start from the beginning. 1st of September is not only a celebration- the day of knowledge -but a tradition. And girls usually wear those stupid ribbons J on 31 May, when the school is over. But probably it depends on the city. And you are right that customer is seldom right here. And a lot of travel agencies can simply take your money but give you wrong tickets. And you are lucky to have seen how we usually celebrate something .i mean 210 years of Odessa.
About our vodka and cigarettes-it is a special story. In towns people drink really seldom, and if you think they drink a lot, so you can imagine how much they do drink in villages, in countrysides. There people produce vodka themselves and it serves as the best bribe as well. And it is also called "samogon", it's got more spirit than even vodka. And well many men who are unemployed gather day by day in the mornings, evenings, time of the day doesn't matter and drink. And not because it's cheap as you say, just it's their habit and pastime.
Bribes-when i told you must be a very observant person i meant this. Yes, you are so right with such a conclusion. Sometimes not bribes help, but you need to be familiar with the person to be helped and be given advice. And a bribe is the simplest way to decide everything you need, to be smiled to etc. do you know how the applicants enter our universities? Not all of them but at least 70%. They give bribes and they are included beforehand. And an entrance exam is just a formality. I could really comment on every sentence, i 'm reading your writing one more time and smiling all the time.
Babushkas. Oh, they are everywhere all over Ukraine selling tomatoes, apples, bananas , potatoes, fried sunflower seeds depending on the season. And these Babushkas are not very old sometimes, they may be rather young, but drank too much in life and can do nothing but sold food,products that were grown in villages. By the way the word "grandmother" is also translated "babushka", but it has a different meaning. Babushkas who sell tomatoes are cold so just because of their age.
And our universities or high schools like to invite foreigners to classes , if a teacher knows about a foreigner (English native-speaker), this teacher tries to catch him and talk to the students, each year we have such meetings, some foreigners come on business, some travel, some are "god-lovers" or how to say.
And what else interesting did you notice here?
And as for golden teeth, i don't know, my father doesn't have ones. J and people here like to demonstrate their golden teeth and jewelry. They think they look powerful by doing so.
Actually not only the Crimea is of great interest but also the Carpathian mountains(in Lviv, western Ukraine) are very attractive. The Crimea is our pride. All the Ukrainian families tend to go there in summer, but not all can afford. And some of course go abroad to Egypt or Turkey.
If you have questions just ask. And good luck, i'm gonna to bed now, it's late , have to learn sth. for tomorrow classes.
Cu,bye, Anna.
