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Published: August 7th 2009
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The Lenin statue
I guess the main sightseeing place of Zhechkov. Zheckov was quite different world indeed. The town itself has nothing special - it’s a leftover of Soviet Union. The main sight of it is statue of Lenin. It has 3 huge factories around it 2 of them not working - very typical town built for workers. I stayed there with Masha, who is a friend of my grandmother. She has lived in my hometown Siauliai for around 20 years and then after the break of SSSR she had to move out and came back to her home in Ukraine. She became very good friend of my grandmother. Strength and bad luck with husbands (they both had to raise children on their own and work very hard) - I think these are the reasons that connected them so much. Also Masha is well known in her circles for fortune telling. Many people just call her on phone and ask things and she gets her cards and tells them the answers. They even ask advises for what car to buy! Spiritualism is something commonly popular in Russia and Ukraine (I guess Belarus too). People believe in that and live by it. They even have TV show where young people with “powers” compete
or something like that. I have seen just advertising not the show itself (they also have TV show “Ukraine’s got talents” and this one I have seen). How much of that what they believe is true is not for me to tell. I like Masha for her strength and frankness. She respects all life, loves flowers a lot. For example in a shop a signboard was leaning on a flower and she moved it away. Also, she is not religious; she talked to me about hypocrisy behind the church. She kind of reminded me of the Oracle from “The Matrix” who seemed to be just an old lady at first glance. (By the way, Masha surprised me with her collection of video games; though she does not know how to play them, she is eager to learn that, see the photo).
Soviet nostalgia is very strong. You can see it in the way people talk, the way they do things, from their faces. TV often shows old Soviet movies with red flags, happiness of workers and admiration of construction sites and things alike. Quote from one movie I saw there. Scene: a construction guy took up a lady dressed in
a nice dress up the new construction, the wind is blowing, sun is shining and they can see ugly rusty pipes and such things all around them: “Nature is beautiful, - he says, - but this is man made and for me it is also very beautiful”. She answers excited: “Oh yes, I always wanted to come to construction site, I think it is beautiful too”. Yeah, that’s called brainwash. And people do look at those times as “the old good days".
04.19
Easter morning. As Masha is not religious she did not go to church yesterday. Orthodox’ go to church evening before Easter and stay there for whole night, waiting for Jesus to be reborn. And all day they greet each other three times saying “Jesus has risen” “Indeed he has”. I heard a lot of it those couple of days. So, Valodia, a man who lives with Masha, did go to church and got all the food blessed. First thing we had to eat was a red egg and you can keep a lust of egg as lucky charm. After some time Mashas family came and after eating lunch they all went to Mashas mother. According
Factory
Behind houses there is a massive closed factory. to this tradition the younger generation has to visit the older. So in Mashas mothers place 4 generations gathered. I wonder what the oldest couple felt seeing their children, grandchildren and grand grand children all there, and they had to be thankful to them for existing. They must be proud I guess. Everything else was more or less the same as we celebrate Easter in Lithuania - lots of food, drinks and talking.
04.20
Today I had to say good bye to Masha. It was sad, as I do not know if I will ever be seeing her again. She is a magic person.
I got into taxi of her friend and 3 other girls were riding it. One was extremely fun - she bought ice-cream and drinks to all and by the end of trip I was tipsy. Crazy journey back to Kiev for sure. And also she did not even go to Kiev, in middle she said she had to go out as some of her biker friend invited her to go elsewhere. So, in tipsy state I bough a train ticket to Kamenets-Podilsky and had some time to walk in Kiev a bit more.
I got to see a bit of some concert even. Back in train station I bough Tetris and newspaper with jokes - all for my overnight ride.
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