Kherson is 230

This year marks 230 years of Kherson. It was started by General Potyomkin, an advisor of Catherine the Great, as a ship-building site for Russia's Black Sea fleet. However, the location proved to be less than ideal for the original purpose -- it was too far up the Dnieper River. But here it is, almost a quarter millenium later, at about 350 thousand people.

The festivities were planned for last Saturday. The day turned out to be quite nice, partly cloudy with some sun, which was great after ten days of rain. Celebration started early in the morning with a sailboat regata on the Dnieper and a hot-air baloon race. After lunch we ventured out to join the fun.The city had been quickly primed (though not cleaned) for the Day of the City. This gateway to a park, below, was repainted and Ukrainian flags were hung. There were 3 location across the city where stages were set up and activities were planned. At both of them someone was performing while we were there.This is the park that is close to where we live. It is THE location for all sorts of open-air concerts and charitable events. Last Saturday there was a huge stage set up ready for national pop-stars to perform. There is usually a VIP section that has chairs and is fenced in. The rest of the audience sits on the stairs that go up from the river. We did not stay for the concert, but we could hear it from our house!At the park, there were food booths set up, one place had fire going for shish-kebabs. It was too bad he had just started the fire and was not close to being ready to cook. We had to opt for hotdogs Kherson-style: bun with a hotdog, topped with shredded pickled carrots, ketchup and mayonnaise. (Mayonnaise is the staple food here.) They put it on everything. Gotta love it!Jamie did the ordering. He tried to order 4 hotdogs without the toppings for the kids and 1 with everything and instead got 4 hotdogs with everything and one with all the toppings and no hot dog.

Saturday is a day of weddings here. We saw 5 or 6 couples at the park getting their pictures taken. Newlyweds usually lay flowers to the 'Eternal Flame' that is symbolic of those who died during WWII. We are not sure what this couple below is doing -- Titanic?In the picture below, local youth awaits beginning of the concert. Though various artists sang on and off throughout the day, the show with the pop-stars started at 7 pm. Many young people got there early to get better seats (or steps?)There was a group of bicyclists who represented a group called "Restore Kherson." The city definitely needs updates and restoration.Looking up the stairs to the Motherland Monument -- a couple of hours later they were filled with a crowd of people. This is a close-up of the stage and the VIP seating. Blue chairs in the background looked like plastic lawn chairs, and the chairs in front of us looked like they had been taken from a school. A fire truck behind the stage for the fireworks after the concert. Thick electrical wires that went from a shed to the stage. They will be gone after the concert. It was interesting to see how they were secured to the ground.
It started to rain so we headed for home. The show went on despite the weather and continued well into the night with fireworks that started at 12:50 am! Nadia and I met in the hallway on the way to the balcony to watch them, and it was a spectacular sight. Fireworks were fired from a barge that sat in the middle of the river. It was beautiful. I did not mind the fact that they ended at 1:20 am.

New School Year (by Julia)

Last Monday, September 1, marked the beginning of a new schoolyear for all Ukrainian students. It is a big deal here, and every school has a special "First Bell" ceremony. Students, teachers and parents all gather to mark the time that the bell rings for the first time that year --and for first graders, for the first time in their lives. As a part of the ceremony, a high school senior boy picks up a first grade girl and carries her around while she is ringing a bell. Speeches are said and maybe there is a small concert. It usually happens outside.

This year we were invited to come to the orphanage. The children had just arrived from the summer camp at the sea on August 28. September 1 was a nice day, and the organizers did a great job with the program. The Principal spoke, some teachers spoke and even a city official came and said a short but sincere and heartwarming speech and presented the orphanage with 2 DVD players.

I was not prepared for what struck me - how few adults were there. From my school years I remember lots and lots of parents that would come to my school's "First Bell." At the orphanage, most grown-ups were teachers and orphanage workers. However, there were a handful of parents whose parental rights had been taken away that did come to wish their child a happy school year. A girl from "our" class (the kids who have been coming to our Sunday School) had her mother give her a few treats and kiss her before she left. The teacher said that her mother is an alcoholic, and that she was concerned that the daughter might follow in her mother's footsteps. The girl arrived at the orphanage last September but has run away 5 times. She was 9, but apparently, she either did not go to school at all or very sporadically, so she was put in the 1st grade class. I watched that girl look at her mother with love and longing to be with her. Of course, it was time for the kids to go inside, and the mother had to leave, and the expression of pain on the girl's face seared into my memory. The teacher later told me that the parents whose rights have been taken away are allowed to visit the children but are not allowed to take them off the grounds. Some people here think it's good for the child to know who his/her parent is, and to be able to love that parent. I just can't get over the pain of abandonment that those kids have when the parent leaves.

All children at the orphanage had just one lesson that day, and then they were free to play. During this first lesson 2 more relatives of the children from 'our' second-grade class came. One was an aunt, and she took her nephew out for a few hours, and the other was a grandfather with a granddaughter, a sister to another boy in our class. Apparently, the boy just came back from visiting his grandparents in the village, and the grandpa came to wish him a happy schoolyear.

Overall, the whole event made a happy day for the children. I don't mean to diminish the work of the teachers and caretakers there: they work very hard to raise these children. It's just the whole idea of institutionalized childhood that is so hard for me to accept. There was a ray of sunshine for me that day as I learned that one of the girls from 'our' class had been adopted out. Now 'our' class is down to 10 children. And more good news -- by God's providence, now we will have both second-grade classes come to our Sunday School. It is a huge blessing. Now we might have to 'regroup and restrategize' as we will have 17 children from the orphanage come plus the children from our church. Please pray for our church that God will provide the workers and the room to host them all. Pray that the Good News of Jesus dying for our sins would penetrate their hearts that they may bow their knees before their Maker. Please pray that the Lord will give us wisdom as we are becoming a part of their lives.

Russian Musings

One day while on vacation Nadia, Timmy and I (Julia stayed home with two sick girls) along with Mom and Masha and two other relatives took a 2-hour boat ride to an island in the Volga River to the west of Kazan. The island is of historical importance because Ivan the Terrible built it to gather his troops and weapons before attacking Kazan and defeating the Tatar-Mongols. At it's peak the island housed 4,000 people and had 16 Orthodox churches.

The town of Sviyazhsk

One interesting story that Mom translated from the tour guide was that Leo Trotsky came to the island after the October Revolution and set up a monument to Judas Iscariot. He told the village people, who were very religious, that Judas was the first revolutionary. The monument lasted 3 days before the village people tore it down and destroyed it.

The Volga River

Kazan also is home to one of the famous old Kremlins (Kremlin means fortress. There are more than twenty old cities in Russia that have Kremlins.) The Kazan Kremlin is over 500 years old and the outside walls are completely white.

The Spasskaya Tower of the Kremlin The leaning tower of Suumbeke (named after a Tatar queen who mourned her husband in a mosque that was located around this place. Later the tower was built, but the name remained.)

Now that atheism is no longer the official religion, the Tatars have built a huge Muslim Mosque inside the Kremlin walls. This was done to show the superiority of Islam over Russian Orthodoxy and has upset ethnic Russians because it has changed the historical layout of the Kremlin.

The Qul-Sharif Mosque

A traditional Tatar wedding. Many newlyweds go to the Kremlin to get their pictures taken and to lay flowers to the monument of a WWII hero just outside of the Kremlin.

I would say that there was more of an anti-American feeling while there. The news, the Olympic coverage and other things gave us this feeling. For a while I did not know about what was happening in Georgia. Only right before we came back to Ukraine did we get some information on the war/occupation. We only got the Russian side of things: that the Georgians began bombing hospitals and apartments of Russian citizens and that is why the Russian troops went in. I have been able to read a bit more since returning and have asked a few friends here what they think. It is confusing to friends here because most have some Russian familial ties.

And a few pictures of our kids enjoying their stay in Kazan.

Swimming in the cold Volga River

Taking a break from rides at the fair