The weekly English-language rag "What's On Kyiv" had a blurb about a book-signing at a cafe not far from me. The book is called The Steel Barons. It was written by a Ukrainian-American lawyer who has lived in Kyiv since 1991, pre-independence. The book is a fictionalized account of his own experiences in the criminal world and the black market of Ukraine after the collapse of the USSR.
I thought it would be interesting to hear this author, so I invited a couple of other staff members to meet me at the cafe. I got there first and was disconcerted to find myself the only person there except for the author and his press agent, also that the stacks of books were all in Russian and that the author was going to speak in Russian.
But the author, Alex, and his press agent were very friendly. The agent gave me a free copy of his book (in English) and Alex chatted about his life in Kyiv, wanted to know what brought me to the city, what were my impressions of Ukraine, and so on.
It turned out to be a real treat to be the first arrival. As the cafe filled up, he kept bringing his cronies over to our table so they could meet "these interesting people" (no doubt, it helped that I was with the director of the school and his wife). Because of us, he gave his speech in Russian, then in English.
The fictional characters in the book are based on real people, some of whom were at the book-signing. These are men who are enormously rich now, due to the privatization of former Soviet-run industries (ie steel mills, mines, oil). They acquired shares at very low prices, taking advantage of the lawlessness of the post-USSR world.
One of the characters is based on the father of a girl at my school. The girl and her father were both at the cafe. "Now you know how my dad made his money," she said to us on the way out.
Saturday, June 9, 2007
Sunday, June 3, 2007
Odessa
At the beginning of May, we had a four-day weekend (to make up for having had two in-service days on Saturdays). I took advantage of it to go visit Odessa on the Black Sea. Odessa is even more heavily influenced by Russia than Kyiv is. A few times I asked for directions in Ukrainian and got startled responses "you're speaking Ukrainian!" yeah, forty words.
A silent movie from the 1920's was filmed in Odessa about the mutiny of sailors on the Battleship Potemkin in 1905. Sailors were told to eat "maggoty meat" (nice close-up of the meat) and revolted. Citizens of Odessa supported the sailors, and soldiers of the Czarist regime fired on them.
One of the most famous scenes in cinematography (not that I ever heard of it before this year) is a slow-motion take of a baby buggy bouncing down the Odessa Steps. I climbed the steps and saw a couple with a baby carriage at the top. "Don't do it!" I thought.
A silent movie from the 1920's was filmed in Odessa about the mutiny of sailors on the Battleship Potemkin in 1905. Sailors were told to eat "maggoty meat" (nice close-up of the meat) and revolted. Citizens of Odessa supported the sailors, and soldiers of the Czarist regime fired on them.
One of the most famous scenes in cinematography (not that I ever heard of it before this year) is a slow-motion take of a baby buggy bouncing down the Odessa Steps. I climbed the steps and saw a couple with a baby carriage at the top. "Don't do it!" I thought.
Wednesday, May 30, 2007
Gazebo
My class of 6th and 7th graders is held on the top floor of a "container", or temp building, made of metal with a flat roof and a lot of windows that don't open. It's suffocating. The kids have been clamoring to have class outside. The other day I relented, so we all descended the hazardous ladder-like stairs and headed for the playground. "Some of you go to the picnic table, everybody else to the gazebo," I told them.
Some of the kids thought this was hilarious. "Gazebo! What means gazebo? That is funny!" "That little building, with a roof and no walls--that's the gazebo," I explained.
Yesterday they came into class saying "Ms. Panneton! we like that word! Gazebo! yes! it is so funny!" So I amended the assignment that was already written on the board: "Write original sentences using eight new vocabulary words" "and the word gazebo" I added.
It was a joke, but Emily in grade 6 rose to the challenge, and wrote sentences incorporating all of the new vocabulary along with "gazebo", i.e. "When I feel tension I go in my gazebo and all is better." "It is entertaining to drink tea in gazebo." "My brother irritate me and I close him up in gazebo."
I laughed and laughed. Emily is one of my favorite students. She's from Poland and arrived this year without a word of English. She's just jumped into the language--but she has an advantage in that there are very few Polish speakers at the school.
In my grade 8-9 combo class, six out of nine kids speak Russian as a first language. In grade 5, seven out of eleven do. But in the grade 6-7 class, there are twelve kids, with German, French, Turkish, Polish, and Russian spoken by two kids each, and Danish and Dutch each spoken by one.
So English has to be the common language, and it is--these kids have learned much more English than students in the other classes. ESL classes require conversation. In the other classes, I tell the students that they can talk, but they have to speak English! In grade 6-7, I have to tell them to quit speaking English, and listen to me! Preferable.
Some of the kids thought this was hilarious. "Gazebo! What means gazebo? That is funny!" "That little building, with a roof and no walls--that's the gazebo," I explained.
Yesterday they came into class saying "Ms. Panneton! we like that word! Gazebo! yes! it is so funny!" So I amended the assignment that was already written on the board: "Write original sentences using eight new vocabulary words" "and the word gazebo" I added.
It was a joke, but Emily in grade 6 rose to the challenge, and wrote sentences incorporating all of the new vocabulary along with "gazebo", i.e. "When I feel tension I go in my gazebo and all is better." "It is entertaining to drink tea in gazebo." "My brother irritate me and I close him up in gazebo."
I laughed and laughed. Emily is one of my favorite students. She's from Poland and arrived this year without a word of English. She's just jumped into the language--but she has an advantage in that there are very few Polish speakers at the school.
In my grade 8-9 combo class, six out of nine kids speak Russian as a first language. In grade 5, seven out of eleven do. But in the grade 6-7 class, there are twelve kids, with German, French, Turkish, Polish, and Russian spoken by two kids each, and Danish and Dutch each spoken by one.
So English has to be the common language, and it is--these kids have learned much more English than students in the other classes. ESL classes require conversation. In the other classes, I tell the students that they can talk, but they have to speak English! In grade 6-7, I have to tell them to quit speaking English, and listen to me! Preferable.
Tuesday, May 29, 2007
More governmental upheaval
But not a word of it reached me until I got emails from a few people asking what's going on there anyway? Armed troops clashing in the streets? The president has taken over the Ukrainian equivalent of the National Guard? I had to talk to Roman, my Ukrainian-Canadian friend, and read a Ukrainian news blog to see what was happening (link, hopefully, at left).
Troops were called in, but the ones I saw were DISarmed and buying water. Yushchenko claims he called in the Interior Troops to maintain calm during the Ukrainian Cup between Donestk and Kyiv (seems likely. This is like the Superbowl but with vodka instead of beer. It took place at Respublikansky Stadium, the metro stop closest to my apartment. Rivals were massing all over the place, wearing their colors)
Concessions have allegedly been made between Yanukovich and Yushchenko. They sat together at this major soccer match to show solidarity, I guess. Roman said that the government is in "its usual state of chaos" but that things have gone too far in the democratic process for them to go backward. That's encouraging.
If the link works, you'll be able to read about the confusing series of events that led up to these concessions, maybe an infant democracy at work, maybe something else.
Troops were called in, but the ones I saw were DISarmed and buying water. Yushchenko claims he called in the Interior Troops to maintain calm during the Ukrainian Cup between Donestk and Kyiv (seems likely. This is like the Superbowl but with vodka instead of beer. It took place at Respublikansky Stadium, the metro stop closest to my apartment. Rivals were massing all over the place, wearing their colors)
Concessions have allegedly been made between Yanukovich and Yushchenko. They sat together at this major soccer match to show solidarity, I guess. Roman said that the government is in "its usual state of chaos" but that things have gone too far in the democratic process for them to go backward. That's encouraging.
If the link works, you'll be able to read about the confusing series of events that led up to these concessions, maybe an infant democracy at work, maybe something else.
Sunday, May 27, 2007
School performances
School was miserably hot on Friday. Happily, there were two special activities--I took my classes and we just sat and watched and sweated.
In the morning, grade one put on a play, written by the teacher, Gael Harrison, (an author! look for her book "The Moon in the Banyan Tree" about her experiences as a volunteer in Vietnam). The play was called "Seven Dwarfs in Search of a Fairy Tale" and featured the dwarfs blundering into one fairy tale after another, looking for home. It's hilarious to watch little kids act--my favorite was the witch stating "now I'm going to eat you ha ha ha ha" in a completely expressionless voice.
Then in the afternoon, my buddy Steve the band/music teacher had arranged for an a capella group from Yale to perform. They were great--they sang and replicated the sounds of percussion instruments with their voices. So now we know what the grade 5 boys will be doing for the rest of the year. One of the students was from Arlington, so we got to chat about our shared zip code.
In the morning, grade one put on a play, written by the teacher, Gael Harrison, (an author! look for her book "The Moon in the Banyan Tree" about her experiences as a volunteer in Vietnam). The play was called "Seven Dwarfs in Search of a Fairy Tale" and featured the dwarfs blundering into one fairy tale after another, looking for home. It's hilarious to watch little kids act--my favorite was the witch stating "now I'm going to eat you ha ha ha ha" in a completely expressionless voice.
Then in the afternoon, my buddy Steve the band/music teacher had arranged for an a capella group from Yale to perform. They were great--they sang and replicated the sounds of percussion instruments with their voices. So now we know what the grade 5 boys will be doing for the rest of the year. One of the students was from Arlington, so we got to chat about our shared zip code.
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