Who Put the "Rain" in "Ukraine"? (4/4/2004)

Complete the following sentence: The rain in Ukraine falls gently on the...

Yeah, that one got me, too. In the afternoon of my last day (of three) in Kiev, it is raining. So I'm sitting among my "colleagues" in Chemonics' field office, typing away at a free computer and reading newspapers online. Gotta love business trips.

Pounding Kiev's pavement for parts of the last three days has made me realize a few things, though, which I thought I'd share with anyone who will listen.

1) I've tried to figure out the Kiev-Moscow dynamic, if there is one at all. It would be cliched (and stupid, and wrong) to say that Kiev is Moscow's little sister. It isn't -- it's considerably older, since Russia, Belarus, and Ukraine all stem from it. It's the birthplace of Russian and Ukrainian Orthodoxy .. For that matter, it is the origin of anything Russian. But on that note, it isn't Russia at all. Or maybe Russia just isn't Ukraine. Are you confused yet? So am I.

2) The national sport of Ukraine must be making out in public.

3) My Russian abilities have obviously slipped since my time in St. Petersburg, but it's difficult to measure how much here -- Ukrainian and Russian are different (though related) and I haven't yet been able to figure out whether people answer me in Ukrainian, Russian, Russian with a Ukranian accent, or all of the above.

4) I had expected to see Kiev more speckled with churches than Moscow (mmm...onion domes...), but it most definitely isn't. The ones they do have, though, are quite impressive: paintings that date back to the 11th century, all that jazz. The most famous is the Caves Monestary, on the south side of the city overlooking the Dneiper river. Beneath several of the churches on the hill, saints' relics are buried in underground labrynths -- you have to (or should) take a candle down to view them. Adding to the atmosphere are the Orthodox monks, walking around with their black cassocks, headdresses, and huge beards.

5) Soviet memorials rock. They really do. There are two massive ones in Kiev (that I know of), both of which overlook the river -- I have a feeling they were put there both to command maximum viewing space and to dwarf the golden-domed caves monestary, which rests between them. The first, and larger, is the "Rodina Mat'", the motherland, as close to a transplanted Pillar of Atlas as you're going to find this side of the Alps. It is an enormous statue of "Mother Russia" (probably Mother Russia, since the Soviets built it and didn't exactly recognize Mother Ukraine" -- but it could be Mother Ukraine, you never know.) raising a sword and shield in remembrance of the World War II victory. At its base are several gargantuan friezes of The Workers heading to war.

The other memorial is one of two brothers (Ukraine and Russia -- odd, since they are usually depicted as Mother Ukraine and Mother Russia), arm in arm, striding toward the advancement of socialist society under the banner "friendship of peoples." The statue itself isn't as massive as the other, but it is encircled by a huge arch -- signifying, at least for the western observer, that the days it depicts are somewhere over the rainbow.

That said, I like Soviet memorials' bluntness: this is who we're honoring, damnit, and we're going to shove it down your throat. They don't drown themselves in useless symbolism, and (thankfully) avoid wild interpretations. Artsy they are not, but at least the honorees would know they're being honored.

I guess my Ukraine e-mail is running longer than my Russia one, so I'll cut it here. Thanks for listening.

Matt