'The Babushkij (Grandmothers) At the Front Entrance' (Ukraine)

For an intermittent while, while traveling I used to stop here while

traveling and photographing in Ukraine, and got to know some of these

babushkij (grandmothers in Russian), who lived in this 'high class' but

by Western standards very run down apartment building in

Dnepropetrovsk, Ukraine. Since some doubled as building security

guards, when I was there, intermittently, they made sure my things

were safe from the every-present threat of burglary and theft. Your

ratings and critiques are invited and most welcome. If you rate harshly

or very critically, please submit a helpful and constructive comment;

please share your superior photographic knowledge to help improve my

photography. Thanks! Enjoy! John (Oh, and notice the chin whiskers

on the woman nearest, right. --- (Photo chosen by curator Michel

Karman).

interesting characters... they do seem a determined lot, quite cheerful about it too... intriguing horn/trumpet-like composition: tiny woman at left, second one is bigger, the third perched a li'l higher and finally the close-up of the fourth with what seems to be a graphic arrow pointing quite aggressively at her

Yours is a very interesting analysis. I understand and endorse it.

 

This photo, which I had overlooked for posting at time of taking, a while ago, was chosen as being 'fantastic' by famed 'photo curator', photo critic', and 'art critic' Michel Karman (who has a Lucie Award to back him up').

 

He was enthralled by this particular photo, but he chose it in color, and never did see it in black and white, as here.

 

I will end up posting it in color, but on a different forum.

 

Did you notice those whiskers?

 

The foreground woman is married, and her husband is the terror of every young woman who passes by.

 

He'd be promptly jailed in the United States and the subject (if he were employed) of sexual harassment lawsuits.

 

Russian speakers there in Ukraine just fend him off - he's a neighborhood legend - and a person I would never have anything to do with, though he often tried to insinuate favor from me by such things as trying to 'help' me.

 

I always refused.

 

Life is full of changes to make stands against wrongful behavior, even if no one really understands what is being protested.

 

I have been doing such things all my life - starting on my part with protecting the disabled on the playground (my sixth grade teacher, who taught the exceptional on viewing such behavior by me,, told me I should be a politician because of my skills in that regard.

 

I lost a tooth protecting a non-friend from a bully. I intervened as the bully beat a defenseless wimp and suffered the consequences.

 

Later I used those skills on behalf of civil rights, in little ways (not speaking to those who used racial epithets in my presence, and always trying to stand up for what I believed was right, regardless of color -- I am not color blind exactly, ,but I think much more so than most, as my youthful household had a constant influx of orientals, (Asian) Indians, Africans, South Sea Islanders, and all were educated and none was disrespected. In my household, all were respected and never disparaged. I also tutored in Harlem, of course.

 

All were welcome.

 

My first work experience was on a farm together with a foreign student who lived in my house, an Iraqi graduate student in horticulture, who was one of the strongest and most able workers I ever met, as well as an outstanding individual (he married my sister and I never thought anything of it, except he was the best man, period, and he was my friend.)

 

I almost lost my leg breaking up a 'racial fight' a fight between a black man and a white man - but it turned out one had a gun and started shooting, and hit me, and the log almost had to be cut off.

 

I always have tried to stand up for what's right, albeit mostly in 'little ways'.

 

When Ukrainians I knew made anti-Semitic remarks in my presence (I am not Jewish,) I protested. It almost cost us a friendship, but in the end, it turned out the remarks had no basis other than historical enmity -- they really knew nothing about Jews and admitted it. (a small victory for right!).

 

In Ukraine, especially in this more remote, formerly 'closed city', progress on social fronts is slow in coming.

 

I am sure this woman does not view her husband's behavior as more than an idiosyncrasy, if that.

 

In the USA, he'd be in jail and they'd lose everything to lawsuits re: sexual harassment.

 

They're two different cultures.

 

(Also, she's not the babushka -- all the rest are).

 

Maybe no children and no grandchildren because her husband does not even rise to the level of 'creep' -- a word which can hardly describe him -- even physically.

 

John (Crosley)

That Mr' Karman's views and mine coincide in a sense heartens me. Perhaps I'm learning to distinguish the wheat from the chaff. I guess I will not get to see the color version. I don't mind. Generally incline more towards monochromes.

 

One pretends to overlook such things as ladies' whiskers...

 

The man seems quite a lech. But he seems 'all bark and no bite'. Else he'd be missing a limb or two. Societies have ways of dealing with such people. More effective ways usually than the path of litigation Americans (and many others, including my own countrymen) favor. Unfortunate he doesn't have children. With his own to worry about he may have reformed.

 

Wise of you not to have become a politician. I don't think you're a compromising man...

 

I once visited your "Be Aware of Your Background" presentation. Couldn't last the course. But plan to return. I must compliment you for undertaking what must have been an arduous (as in 'marked by great labor or effort') task. Taking street photographs I now 'see' the background and try to shoot accordingly.

but I think most Americans if they saw this blown up gallery-size would immediately be drawn to them.

 

Indeed Mr. Karman does have excellent taste. He worked on a doctorate in art/photo art at the Sorbonne, and is a mainstay and standout in the world photographic scene; if your tastes agree with his, it is quite a feather in your cap.

 

I had many long discussions with him over dinner, over what was 'worthy' and what was not -- we don't always see eye to eye, but in the field of 'art', he almost always is right, but there he more than excels. He's having a documentary feature being filmed of his troubled and very interesting life, last I heard before I became deathly ill, and he mentioned he thought I'd be in it (time will tell now.)

 

As to her errant husband, Ukraine is eons behind the western world about more minor sexual transgressors (not molesters, exactly but those who more minimally harass such as this woman's husband, and take it on themselves to present themselves to every pretty young thing who walks by and confront them -- and a creepy looking guy too.

 

I remember once in Russia's famous Mafia-run Cosmos hotel in Moscow a drunken gambler obviously 'connected' came up to my incredibly beautiful wife and started to harass her, and I stepped between him and her, but didn't know I had put my life in danger.

 

Russian (and Ukrainian) women have their own way of putting down the unwelcome advance, but alas with no help from the law, or even much from society. My girlfriend -- later wife -- set me straight about her powers (and my danger)

 

My Russian ex-rather-in-law, a physician had decorated his apartment glass doors with pinups and nobody thought that was unusual -- he was a physician, very highly educated, his brother in law was an admiral, his sister in law THE librarian of the Kremlin and his wife a retired professor. They thought nothing of the sexism in his flat that I could tell.

 

It's just a different society in the East.

 

('I'm sure it's different for those who molest and rape, but remember as a young man learning from a girlfriend the great number of my high school women friends who had been molested by fathers, stepfathers and other relatives and was aghast -- because then nothing ever came of it -- it was just not spoken of and swept under the rug -- a great secret..

 

Two different societies, between then and now, but now somehow there's a movement to deny the differences between the sexes here i the US, something the Eastern Europeans revel in.

 

I wish we could find sensible common ground.

 

John (Crosley)

One of the reasons for different position of men (male) in ex SSSR was tremendous lost of men before (Stalin) and in WW II, you can see it in statistic population diagram, but I am sure you are aware of that fact..Chewbacca or not, with a little help of PS, she could be posted among her generation of woman in any county-club..After 3 hours in beauty-saloon and 200 US$ one could not see the difference..I like compo ( excellent) and b/w. Best regards, vf

I once remember reading an article in an English language Moscow newspaper while I was there 'Where have all the Metro Babes Gone?'

 

The premise was that while Russia has some of the world's most beautiful women, they were hardly to be seen on the probably the world's most efficient and reliable Metro, as well as the most crowded and one used by almost the entire populace of Moscow -- as other means of transport were just way too expensive or non-existent.

 

So, almost everybody in Moscow then took the Metro, which had trains running on all lines every two to three minutes almost all hours it was open.

 

The article's authors were not spoofing or writing 'tongue in cheek' either. They legitimately wanted to know where were all the beautiful women they expected to see on the Metro (a number of years ago when EVERYBODY rode the Metro, and there were no limousines for the prettier ones, or SUVs for them, etc.)

 

They did acknowledge that if the women were very young - from age 16 to maybe 24, the very beautiful young women (and girls) seemed to be adequately represented.

 

The next question was 'what happened to all the older beautiful women?'

 

One question was 'did they all go to America (or Europe) to marry American men (etc.)?' Statistics did not bear that out, though. Some had gone, but not enough to account for the loss.

 

Some substantial number of women from all over Russia did leave for America (and some returned rather quickly), but in general, the numbers were small in terms even of the populace of 'beautiful women' compared to Russia' huge population of very beautiful women (over the age of say, 25.).

 

The answer, as I remember it, was that the system just ground the beauty out of such women, and from my experience over 13 years in Russia and its neighbor, Ukraine, I can attest that is most likely.

 

Women of age 25 already are beginning often to show substantial signs of aging compared to say, their American, sisters.

 

One reason: Hard work. In Russia at the time, except for the most spoiled, work hours were seven days a week and a forty-hour work week was unheard of, unless one worked for a Fortune 500 Western firm, and even then, such firms really expected a 12-hour day often six days a week.

 

In fact, almost everyone expected a 12-hour day or they paid next to nothing. In fact most pay then was ;next to nothing' though that changed with higher oil exports and prices, but costs also skyrocketed.

 

I haven't been to Moscow for two years, and it has undergone a transformation. I wasn't looking for beautiful women (I was visiting my cancer-stricken ex-wife's relatives - her father, mother -- at at their flat in a nearby region).

 

But I did pass through Moscow, saw the tremendous building there, spent a day in the city, went up and down Prospekt Mira, and other haunts familiar to me, and really, except for the bustle of new buildings going up and expensive shops abuilding, little seemed changed for the common person.

 

Prices had jumped up, but wages had not jumped up any more than prices.

 

I rode the Metro (subway in America), and did not see older women who looked 'attractive' still, but saw a large number of younger women who did.

 

So, the question remained: Where did all the Metro Babes go?

 

The newspaper's answer then was that they had all got beaten down by 'hard work' and also by a national tradition of early marriage, having children and once having had those children, letting their bodies go.

 

I can no longer speak for Russia, but have detailed and intimate knowledge of Ukraine, which has 60% of its people from the same ethnic stock as those in Moscow and a huge percent of the population speaks the same language generally. The Ukrainian stock is not much different; Ukraine was part of the USSSR, and was devastated by the Nazis in The Great Patriotic War, so that Stalin had to rebuild Kyiv (using his most prized architect, (who actually did a rather good job with its parklike center, compared with the impersonalness of Moscow's Tverskaya Street -- a 'center' of Moscow and other Moscow central areas).

 

Most women in Ukraine (and this was true when I was in Russia, also) who are above the age of 21, hear plaintive wailing from their mothers, fathers and even grandparents (if they live) 'where are my grandchildren?" Why aren't you married'? I want grandchildren.' 'You owe me a duty to have grandchildren.'

 

Ukrainian women hasten to get a 'guy' by the time they're age 20, in general and to be married with a year or two after that.

 

The same also was true when I was in Russia.

 

There are great exceptions, and this is not a hard and fast rule, but it is a general rule, and it is similar to what I saw in America in the '60s.

 

The available, attractive and more marriageable young women in America in the '60s either got married before the age of 22 or went to University and expected to get married soon after graduation -- usually to a male they met at university.

 

None of this business about 'living together' or 'trial marriages' then leaving a 'real marriage' until the '30s' then later having children when the biological clock started to scream in their ears in their late '30s, well after they've started and progressed in a career so they can 'afford babies'.

 

In Russia (what I know of) and in Ukraine for certain (in general) women expect to have children by age 23 or so or most of their mommas have a fit and pester them about what's 'wrong' with them, and 'aren't they too choosy?'

 

Having a child involves getting fat to have the child, (pregnancy) then an almost mandatory 'time off' from work which is ill paid and involves two years at home with the child (the Soviets highly valued keeping mothers with their children, and paid a pension for two years of mothering, which the Russian kept and I think also the Ukrainians.)

 

In Russia that pension that was extremely small, and I think it's probably so in Ukraine, and Ukraine has tremendous economic problems with an economy that's recently destroyed and banks failing systemically.

 

After two years of living at home -- often with a husband who has taken advantage of favorable demographics (there are more men than women as you point out), things often are not always 'ideal' at home.

 

Drinking is introduced in both countries at an early age - 12 or 13 years old are able to drink if they can get the money over the counter, and they drink without objection in public.

 

Smoke too.

 

Wonderfully beautiful women are available to most men, and men outnumber the women, so the men have developed an ability to 'pick and choose'.

 

If their wife is unavailable because she's taking care of children or in the final stages of pregnancy, I often have heard men say 'I love my wife . . . SOOO MUCH' because she is giving me children' . . . (but I have to go see my girlfriend.')

 

'If my wife asks, when you meet her, tell her I was with you all day Saturday.'

 

I told such men never to use me as an excuse.

 

In fact, a great number of Ukrainian husbands have girlfriends 'on the side' in my experience - and both in Russia and in Ukraine among women I have been in contact with in the last 13 years (hundreds) the stories of mistreatment by men who cheat on them are legion and the same with alcoholic husbands who are abusive - almost by nature, and both countries have a huge alcoholism problem - mostly with males - that's endemic.

 

It's so endemic that a non-drinking male is regarded as 'crazy' according to one tourist service's introductory papers distributed to new Russian tourists.

 

In both countries a true non-drinking male may find himself especially 'highly prized' because he's so rare.

 

Divorce before age 30 is common because of cheating, drinking and also because the husband's mothers devote so much of themselves to their sons, their sons don't learn how to relate to their wives (and momma interference in marriages is a substantial problem for many husbands) and though I haven't seen the statistics I'd be surprised if the young marriage divorce statistics weren't sky high. In my own experience over those 13 or so years, I've literally heard thousands of such stories personally, and not from web sites.

 

Moreover, if a guy is a good earner, almost regardless of age, unmarried women even of very young age may 'target him' and 'chase him' -- even if he's happily married, again based on my experience and because of my experience and acquaintanceship, I have tons of person experience in watching such things and in knowing about such things from one or the other participant,and perhaps hundreds of hours or more in interviews with women about amazingly personal things with young people. I won't tell you how I came to be so trusted, but it's an honest observation, honestly come by - and not involving 'girlfriends' either.

 

Some women of both counties keep their often fabulous good looks late into life, but that's the exception. In Ukraine, a bad diet, often of potatoes for breakfast, lunch and dinner, tends to add bulk rather quickly once the young woman relents and stops the youthful diet of salads.

 

Although the national 'frame' tends to be very thin in youth, for women, especially those hunting for a husband (which is done with some gusto) -- after marriage and children, pounds (kilos) begin to pile on.

 

Startlingly thin (and beautiful) young women, not to be found at all in the US's overfed young female population, soon flesh out beyond those found in America for the same age as the years progress through the 20s and '30s. Of course, there are a great number of very overfed Americans as well, and who have 'let themselves go' but few of them started out with 'great natural beauty' as many Russian/Ukrainians did.

 

By the '30s, many Russian and Ukrainian women would not compare for good looks with their better kept American or European counterparts. Th

Thank you for the kind compliments.

 

This was chosen as among my best by curator Michel Karman a couple of years ago. At the time I did not like it at all, and resolved never to show it; perhaps not wanting to show this woman and her whiskers, and in my mind portray her as a 'sideshow character'.

 

But Michel taught me much, and I keep learning each day about photography as I pass through life, and the more I see of photography, the more I respect his wonderful judgment.

 

I never had anything but profound respect for his taste in general, but for his individual picks, I often had visceral reactions, as with this one.

 

Now I have lost that visceral reaction and have even more respect for Mssr. Karman and his choice.

 

I just never knew how valuable photographs such as this were, and never imagined that this was an extension of the genre of 'street' I took . . . . until he pulled this one from a couple of terabytes of captures that he undertook to review and only then after staring at it for two years.

 

Some he chose that I've posted have gotten great reception, others (a couple) have gotten almost no attention at all.

 

But I know, based now on a review of photographic history, why he made the choices he did, and thank him for that, and respect all his choices and for opening my eyes -- he gave me a wonderful gift - the gift of 'insight into something I did by instinct, as well as personal insight into the marketing of such things (which I never have followed up on, regrettably).

 

I've been privileged to have my only photographic 'instruction' from a world renowned 'master' - and not one other person in my entire life.

 

How lucky can one guy be?

 

Some day soon, I may take his advice and actually seek that gallery representation and even museum display he suggested was my destiny.

 

Too many other things (some tragic) have intervened, and I remain an amateur, but with high hopes and dreams.

 

And I hope a knack for taking interesting photos, and with some exposure, maybe photos that will last more than one generation.

 

;~))

 

John (Crosley)

I hope that lady Clinton and US ambassador to the Ukraine are aware of your profound expertness; ashame if that is not the case...Thank you so much for competent, well written analysis.

Three of these women, background, have been wonderful to me, in my come and go acquaintanceship - mostly go for a great long time and always intermittent. (the fourth woman, right, is someone I am not acquainted with at all, in part because her husband, who always has tried to curry favor with me, is someone that I do not want near me for reasons explained elsewhere - a terrible shame, since I do not know her character at all.

 

Life in Ukraine is vastly different than in the US - they've just had their second worse economic contraction in history (the greatest was considered a 'holocaust' by many of them, and a continuing campaign is underway internally to have it declared such -- I don't know enough to understand whose point of view to endorse -- I just know that a great number in the nation starved, but so did many Russians who Stalin sent there to live during a horrible famine -- Ukraine was the 'breadbasket' of the Soviet Union, and now the two former 'sister' nations are quarreling - a great shame, I think.

 

Ukrainians have always felt themselves 'second rate' -- it's really almost a national motto, it's so deeply ingrained.

 

When the Soviet Union fell apart, they had a sizable number of nuclear warheads, missiles, and bombers, but they just sent them to neighboring Russia, which used them as a basis for power, and kept none. Ukraine didn't want to be a nuclear power.

 

They don't wanna fight or assert hegemony over anybody, is the way I have read it, but they've become an international pawn in the push between NATO and their Russian neighbors - a situation in which I don't take sides.

 

Their present leaders campaigned against corruption and inept leadership in the 'Orange Revolution', but are dogged by allegations of the same thing, and the government is hopelessly stalemated, heading toward January 10, 2010 elections, which may be something to see.

 

(the last ones were very interesting, with lots of paid marchers with large flags on poles in phalanxes going down major streets - even if they were not always converts for the specific party and/or candidate, as I learned in talking with many marchers.)

 

For some, it was just a free ride to a major city, like Kyiv, and a chance to get a little pay and spend some time with friends - with little real hope of making converts (for that particular group at that time).

 

It may be different this time.

 

Again,I do not take sides, as I have no dog in this hunt -- I just look for good photos, and if I am lucky enough to return, and good photos are to be had of any kind, I hope to take them, without regard to 'sides'.

 

I can't say it enough: I'm neutral.

 

I'm after possibly great photos, not proselytizing for this or that party or ideology or even candidate (I can't vote, I'm not a citizen, and it would be very out of place for me to push for anything other than a shutter button.)

 

I'm more interested anyway in the human element - the faces, the attitudes and the 'art' that people assume in their everyday lives through their gestures, their posture, their placement, etc.

 

It's the Photo, stupid, and that's all.

 

Nothing more.

 

Now, Vladimir F., thank you for the compliment on my previous, lengthy analysis, but it's only one man's view, albeit someone with some considerable experience, and one man who has had an ability to be close and to gather detailed information, perhaps because as a former attorney (long ago), people instinctively know they can tell me confidential things and not ever be named (in fact, I don't write things down in almost every case, and often don't even recall their name when talking with them, which perhaps they can tell.)

 

I don''t know about Ms. Clinton -- I think she went through Ukraine recently. The Ukrainians I find to be mostly pretty interesting people, though some of the lower classes are not always 'couth' if you know what I mean.

 

And some of those who in other countries would disguise their true 'intent' are, in Ukraine absolutely bold about showing 'who they are' - and also the same (in the past) for many of the Russian women I met.

 

Behaviors which in the US would have been subtle and hidden, have sometimes been pretty blunt and open, among women in both countries, as relates to relations between particular women and 'what they want' from men.

 

It's often not hard to spot a greedy Russian or Ukrainian woman - she will make it very clear, often first off (in my experience) by trying to order the most expensive thing on the menu, and if rebuked or hesitation is shown, may even ask of a new acquaintance 'don't you like me enough?'

 

To which the answer has sometimes been 'yes, I don't like you enough' and 'goodbye' even to the point of walking out in the middle of a meal in a restaurant and on one occasion being followed four or five years ago through a city park by a yelling lovely young thing who telling everybody in no bad English that I would never be welcome in Ukraine again - after I left her sitting in a restaurant for her greedy behavior. I just walked out.

 

I don't take much from anybody, and value goodness above all, despite my long thesis about Eastern European 'looks' above. If not coupled with a good personality and spirit, they don't mean much (except in a photo, and that's a photo I'm not going to take, since nobody's paying me to take anybody's photo, I don't have to curry favor with anybody.)

 

It would be very amazing among educated young women or even older women in the USA to see greed sometimes so blatantly displayed as it sometimes is among Ukrainian and Russian younger women. . . . . though surely it exists and surely the 'girls' in the US talk about it among themselves and assuredly plan and plot for their betterment . . . . but with far more subtlety.

 

Things in Ukraine and Russia, in my experience, have often been far from subtle in relations between the sexes . . . . . and that was absolutely one of the first things that struck me when I first visited Russia -- the complete difference between women's attitudes toward the opposite sex in Russia and later Ukraine, than in the USA.

 

But I am no expert; I only write and tell stories from experience; your mileage (as the auto sticker says) may vary.

 

Thanks for the comment, Vladimir.

 

John (Crosley)

I was reading on the Internet two nights ago, and one young woman's comment especially struck me.

 

She was unabashed in posting what she said was a common saying among Russian and Ukrainian (mostly native Russian speaking) young women:

 

'Every woman is right to love a man's money'

 

No subtlety there.

 

Things unspoken in the West, but nevertheless so often acted upon, are so easily acknowledged in Central and Eastern Europe.

 

John (Crosley)

 

This is a 'luxury' apartment building, built I think under the Soviets.

 

Look at the size and decoration of the front door for this building of about 12 stories.

 

It tells the entire story right there, I think.

 

Some of these women serve on the ill-paid 'security' staff, watching from their inner guard station the front door through a closed circuit camera. You must push a button late at night, and if they are not sleeping soundly, they will 'buzz you in'. sometimes they are sleeping soundly, and if you are outside and in jeopardy . . . .well .. . . oh well . . . that's life . . . . they're very nice ladies (three quarters of them and the fourth, nearest to camera, I just don't know).

 

Imagine, a luxury building in the US with 'security' having such a small front door.

 

This building also has three elevators (lifts).

 

Only one works at any one time.

 

It may be that they are all functional, but even though electricity is very cheap and Ukrainians even don't pay their utility bills and don't get shut off, I think they don't turn on an elevator to save electricity. One is a big, oversize elevator, proper for moving furniture, etc., and they may consent to turning it on if there's a move, but for four or five pieces of baggage, you must take four or five trips (one piece and you per trip) up in a super small elevator with perhaps room for one more person jammed in. The usual working elevator is so small, that one baby carriage and two people have passengers sucking in their breaths, even though two other elevators seem functional, but are 'out of service' to 'save electricity' though likely they would be 'idle' much of the time.

 

That's life in Ukraine.

 

(very new luxury buildings are not set up thusly, and are modeled more on the Western vision of an apartment building, but some of the very very old apartment buildings, especially in Odessa and Kyiv (maybe Lvov, too, which has some historic architecture, were built around the time Paris was getting some of its loveliest architecture. My present (temporary) digs, have about a 3-4 meter ceiling (huge internal 'volumes' and walls in portions that seem three feet thick possibly because they may be 'load bearing' for the rest of the building.

 

I looked at one building, built in the 1800s with 12 stories and NO elevator, except one.

 

It had a huge, ornate staircase, leading to the 12th floor - surely climbed by hardy people and shut ins -- well they were shut ins.

 

Except for the wife of one very, very wealthy resident on the top (penthouse) floor.

 

He had extraordinary (for then) wealth, and commandeered the center of the stairwell, to install the world's tiniest elevator.

 

Really, it makes those tiny elevators in France which are cages for two people look like Giant elevators and has walls made of board. It feels like it'll fall any second and often does not stop exactly at the chosen floor.

 

People avoid that elevator out of fear and walk up ten stories to their tenth floor 'walk-up' just out of a little caution.

 

The elevator was one man's love for his wife -- who would have been a shut-in were it not for that elevator, one of Ukraine's first in an apartment building.

 

No Western elevator inspector would even get into such a contraption much less a sane westerner (I guess that places me outside the real of sanity, as I have poor knees and legs, especially after summer's illness last fall left me weak, and I had to take the damn contraption up a half dozen stories.

 

Dormitories in Dnepropetrovsk at a major university are 12 and more stories tall and have NO elevators. Students are extraordinarily fit.

 

People remark how 'thin' and 'fit' students and young women in Ukraine look.

 

Besides eating potatoes for three meals a day for many, that is one answer, I think.

 

Give them 'sliders' from White Castles, In-N-Out Burgers, Nathan's Hot Dogs and delivery pizza then give them elevators, and they'd be as fat as American women - but also might live as long (truth is that Americans, despite obesity live extraordinary long lifetimes and it's increasing (due to ceasing smoking, no doubt).

 

Me, I choose to live on a first floor.

 

Elevators in Ukraine are notoriously unreliable.

 

Sometimes, so is electricity, and nothing beats trying to go down in daytime emergency stairs with no lights and by 'feel' only (because such stairs are 'internal' as they are sealed off from ventilation -- to reduce fire hazard - although if there's afire at the bottom, then they become chimneys.)

 

In the neighborhood of this building, about two or three years ago, one building was there one minute and three minutes later it was a pile of rubble.

 

Residents had complained to authorities of a 'gas smell' which was not acted on -- and they did so regularly.

 

One day the whole apartment house blew to smithereens.

 

I saw it.

 

It could not be photographed.

 

True rubble does not photograph well, just like charred wood from fire.

 

Posters in the Metro in Kyiv warn of gas fire and explosion danger and tell to dial 101 (the fire department).

 

Gas stoves do not have automatic shutoffs in case the flame goes out (your apartment will fill with gas until you walk in the door and flip that light switch 'on' with the 220 volts jumping the switch contact in a big spark and voila, another apartment building bites the dust.

 

Life, Ukraine style.

 

Lots of adventure.

 

Not often.

 

Lots of nice people.

 

Just a little on the 'raw edge'

 

People struggling to overcome all those things.

 

Just that 'catching up will take some time' and their government is pretty busy with its infighting', according to the IMF.

 

(me, I have no opinion, not being politically savvy).

 

I just turn on my gas with a match, and if it goes on, great, and if not, and I forget, my flat will fill up with gas waiting until someone flips on the lights and there is that great big spark!!)

 

And goodbye Photo.net

 

;~)))))

 

John (Crosley)