Orthodox Easter

Last Sunday (April 15th) we got to go to our host family's church. We went with Liliya, Zhenya, and Dima (our host mom and two of our brothers) and it wasn't like a church service, it was kind of a ceremony, as Liliya called it. So everyone brings the food that they're going to eat on Easter in a basket, like meat, wine, and poskas, which are Easter cakes. They look like giant cupcakes. And most people had been doing a Lent-type thing where they do not eat meat and some other things for forty days. When we got to the church, we lined up around both sides of a path that goes around the back of the church and then a priest came around with holy water for everyone and all the food. I was expecting to get sprinkled with the water, but I got DRENCHED!! I was soaking wet! I felt like I had taken another shower! He had a bucket and a broom thingy that apparently absorbs a whole lot of water, and then he would get everyone individually, sometimes several times, and the food too. After he was done, we went back to the house and ate our Easter breakfast - hard boiled eggs, turkey, and poska. They made the hard boiled eggs this pretty brownish red color by boiling them with onion peels and then they also put this plastic stuff around them that sticks to the egg and gives it a cool design. We also played a game to see who had the strongest egg by hitting the tops and bottoms together. It was such an interesting experience! I'm so glad that our host family let us be a part of it!

Our basket

People coming to the church

People setting out their food

Liliya and Zhenya

The poskas have the tall candles in them

Waiting in line to get into the church

Recent Crafts

Caterpillars

Dog Puppets

Arsen

Sophia

Yara

Dasha

Dasha took this one : )

And this one. 

Ilusha

Sasha

Misha

Little Sophia

Taya

Ilya

Dyanmo Kyiv Game

There were a crazy number of policemen at the game!! I've never seen so many in one place before!

Carly, John, me, and Mallory

Shevchenko warming up 

The crazy fan section

Shevchenko leaving the pitch

More police. These guys were blocking the metro entrance.

On April 14th we got to go to a soccer game and it was so much fun! Carly (one of the other volunteers) got free tickets from her school coordinator. Apparently the school coordinator's husband has some connections and was able to get the tickets for us. At first we had so much trouble finding our seats, but then we finally found them and it turns out we had amazing seats!! We were in the business section, right below the private boxes, about 16 rows up, at half field - they were such perfect seats!! It was so much fun! That was probably one of my favorite things I've been able to do here! And then at half time there was free food and I loved that too! I had some normal vegetables for the first time since I've been in Ukraine and I was very excited about it! Dyanmo Kyiv played Vorskla and won 3-0. It was so fun to be able to see Andriy Shevchenko play!! He is actually Ukrainian and I used to watch him on TV when he played for Chelsea in the English Premier League. He is a HUGE deal here! He scored one of the goals and the fans just go crazy over him! They LOVE him! I could not believe how fast it all flew by - it was just so much fun!

(And maybe I should mention that I stole most of these pictures from Carly . . . )

World War II Museum

We went to the World War II museum on April 7th and it was really interesting. It was crazy for me to see Kyiv bombed in places that I have been to and it's just so sad how Ukraine was so devastated by the war. I think Ukraine actually had the highest population loss of all the countries involved. I read that Ukraine lost 19% of its population. At a place called Babi Yar (a ravine in Kyiv), almost 34,000 Jews were killed in one two-day operation on September 29th and 30th, 1941. As I learned online, it was the largest single mass killing for which the Nazi regime and it's collaborators were responsible during its campaign against the Soviet Union and is considered to be the largest single massacre in the history of the Holocaust." After this massacre it is estimated that 100,000 to 150,000 more people were killed there and later the Syrets concentration camp was set up only a few hundred meters away. I found out that Babi Yar is at my metro stop. That was so crazy to me because I just could not believe that it happened so close to where I live. The metro stops aren't even that far apart, but to get to Babi Yar, you get off at the same metro stop as you do to get to my house. Going to the museum was different than learning about WWII in school because it actually happened in Ukraine and the museum was filled with real things from the war, like boots and clothes that people actually wore at a concentration camp, tons of equipment - just so much stuff! And it was really disgusting, they also had gloves made from human skin and soap made from fat. There were lots of pictures of Ukraine and Ukrainian people during the war and it was so, so sad! I'm so glad that I had the experience of going to that museum. It gave me a different perspective on WWII. It also made more sense to me why Ukrainian people never smile. Ukraine suffered so much during WWII and things just continued from there. It didn't get easier for people after the war, during Soviet Union times, so I can understand why smiling would not be a part of their culture anymore. It was also interesting because the Soviet Union symbol (the hammer and sickle) was all over the museum. It is patriotic here and has absolutely no negative connotation like it does in the US. 

This is a WWII memorial on the way to the museum (about a 10 - 15 minutes away by walk)

The view from the memorial (it's on a big hill)

Another memorial

An awesome church we saw as we were walking to the museum

The entrance to the museum

The Motherland Monument - it is 62 meters tall and weighs 530 tons

This is the Memorial Hall

Memorial Hall is right under the Motherland Monument and it's the only place inside the museum  where you can take pictures

It has over 11,600 names of soldiers honored during the war