All is well enough here; I will draw your attention to the news links at right for further discussion on a very political topic affecting Georgia at this time that I am not at liberty to discuss in open forum. Let us just say that in case you haven’t looked at a map recently, Georgia’s neighbor to the North is Russia. That is all I can say at this time. I am only getting one side of the story, but this side seems really mad, so I am sure that the other side seems mildly annoyed at least.
In other NATO news I just returned from beautiful Ukraine (definite article not needed or wanted; greatly insulting to Ukrainian people, who speak English, mostly Peace Corps Volunteers in Ukraine, news to me). I spent four days in a former Soviet resort outside of Kiev (also known as Kyiv pronounced Keev, please see above note about insulting Ukrainian people) , which except for the Soviet kitsch could have been in the middle of Nebraska. Luckily due to the glories of Georgian Airways (aka Airzenia for those on the inside like me) and their extraordinarily sparse flight schedule we were “forced” to stay an extra two days in Kiev and instead of leaving us in Soviet Nebraska they moved us to an even more Soviet downtown Kiev. Our quite overstaffed hotel (including a reception desk on every floor, but it is a job) was right on the main square of Kiev next to the McDonalds. We overlooked the statue of Lady Victory on a giant column that was put in after the Orange Revolution, which looks eerily similar to Tbilisi’s statue of Saint George which was put in after the Rose Revolution. So I have come to the conclusion that there is a man, or a woman, who follows revolutions around and sells the new government a giant column statue. Just a thought I will have to do some research on revolutions and their architectural aftermaths.Kiev was really nice; I would recommend it to anyone for a visit. It is easy to get around in and the cool things are pretty obvious because they are gilded. Everyplace you look there is a gorgeous church which is covered in gold, there have obviously been a lot of work done recently on these churches, because they are beautiful on both the inside and outside. We were there for the Saturday afternoon, Sunday and Monday morning of Easter, so it was really nice to see all of the people with their Easter baskets going to church to get them blessed. We also went to a Church complex which had “caves”, (in quotes because they were more like deep underground hallways) but they are the tombs for former monks and patriarchs of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church and people go down there to pray. Since many people go to the cemetery for Orthodox Easter these tiny areas were packed with people, paying their respects to these men who are housed in glass coffins in little nooks along the hallways. I thought in would be kind of gross, but they were mostly covered with only an occasional hand or foot sticking out from under their gilded blankets and they seemed to be pretty well mummified. 
After the Church complex we decided to take in some anti-religion, by going to what, in my opinion, is one of the greatest World War II museums in all of the world. It was put in by the Soviets in the late 60’s or early 70’s and all of the information was in Ukrainian, so as for information about WWII it is probably both quite biased and I did not get any factual information from it, but visually it was stunning. Firstly as you walk into the complex you are met a long row of tanks. Then you are met with a giant concrete Cubo-futurism underpass from which you can hear Soviet hymns being played from a long distance and in this underpass are about five Friezes of Socialist-Realism style scenes, androgynous men and women fighting the good fight for Freedom. Then you come upon the main building which appears to be built mostly into the side of a hill with a giant statue of Mother Nation on top with a sword and a shield ( as opposed to Mother Georgia who has a Sword and a glass of wine, but the Ukrainian Mother vs. Georgian Mother is for another time). Inside the building is made completely of red granite and as the woman who takes your ticket tells you many times you must follow the arrows. These arrows lead you through room after room of amazing pictures, letters, wreckage, and thousands of WWII artifacts. It was an amazing experience and well worth the 5 Griven ($1) entrance fee, oh did I mention that Kiev is super cheap.
Julien mentioned the TGIFridays in his last post and there is in fact this delicious American fast casual chain however, Ian, my American sidekick and I did not eat their because unlike the rest of Kiev it was not cheap, but we did have a close approximation of American food at another restaurant for half the price. Julien was a little disappointed in me because when we found a TGIFridays in the Riga airport we went not once but twice in the same day. He is convinced that TGIFridays has figured out a way to bottle the essence of America and dump it all over their burgers, so he was shocked that I would give up a chance to taste a little bit of home in Kiev, but he almost died when I showed him pictures of the Belgian Beer Café that also exists in Kiev. I think his actual exclamation was “And this is Peace Corps?”. I softened the blow a little by telling him that one of the volunteers I was with at training was going to be on a train for 20 hours just to get back to site, so she probably doesn’t get to Kiev, but once every six months or something like that.
I will get more pictures up next weekend when I am in Tbilisi to pick up my dear sister who is coming to visit. I even have some shaky video for you to watch, so there is a lot to look forward to in your inboxes.
I hope all is well with you all.
Best wishes-
Martha
After the Church complex we decided to take in some anti-religion, by going to what, in my opinion, is one of the greatest World War II museums in all of the world. It was put in by the Soviets in the late 60’s or early 70’s and all of the information was in Ukrainian, so as for information about WWII it is probably both quite biased and I did not get any factual information from it, but visually it was stunning. Firstly as you walk into the complex you are met a long row of tanks. Then you are met with a giant concrete Cubo-futurism underpass from which you can hear Soviet hymns being played from a long distance and in this underpass are about five Friezes of Socialist-Realism style scenes, androgynous men and women fighting the good fight for Freedom. Then you come upon the main building which appears to be built mostly into the side of a hill with a giant statue of Mother Nation on top with a sword and a shield ( as opposed to Mother Georgia who has a Sword and a glass of wine, but the Ukrainian Mother vs. Georgian Mother is for another time). Inside the building is made completely of red granite and as the woman who takes your ticket tells you many times you must follow the arrows. These arrows lead you through room after room of amazing pictures, letters, wreckage, and thousands of WWII artifacts. It was an amazing experience and well worth the 5 Griven ($1) entrance fee, oh did I mention that Kiev is super cheap.
Julien mentioned the TGIFridays in his last post and there is in fact this delicious American fast casual chain however, Ian, my American sidekick and I did not eat their because unlike the rest of Kiev it was not cheap, but we did have a close approximation of American food at another restaurant for half the price. Julien was a little disappointed in me because when we found a TGIFridays in the Riga airport we went not once but twice in the same day. He is convinced that TGIFridays has figured out a way to bottle the essence of America and dump it all over their burgers, so he was shocked that I would give up a chance to taste a little bit of home in Kiev, but he almost died when I showed him pictures of the Belgian Beer Café that also exists in Kiev. I think his actual exclamation was “And this is Peace Corps?”. I softened the blow a little by telling him that one of the volunteers I was with at training was going to be on a train for 20 hours just to get back to site, so she probably doesn’t get to Kiev, but once every six months or something like that.
I will get more pictures up next weekend when I am in Tbilisi to pick up my dear sister who is coming to visit. I even have some shaky video for you to watch, so there is a lot to look forward to in your inboxes.
I hope all is well with you all.
Best wishes-
Martha
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