First Impressions of Ukraine

from letters by Ben and Linda Stobbe, who have recently returned from a ten-week volunteer assignment in Ukraine.

It's interesting to see how your priorities change and you value the small things in life. After carrying up to 30 nice large brown eggs from the market to the apartment in a plastic bag, Linda is extremely grateful that the neighbour gave her a metric cardboard egg carton which holds 10 eggs. We walk the ½ km. trip to the market almost daily, to pick up bread, vegetables, fruits, etc. The bread here is fantastic when it is fresh.

This week we took a trip to Zaporozhye, a city of approximately 500,000 and the site of Chortitza, the first Mennonite settlement here. Kate, our translator and the director of the Centre, does not like to drive in cities, so Ben took the wheel of the

Lada and drove the nearly 2-hour trip. On arriving in Zaporozhye, we picked up more than a trunk-load of medical supplies. The container was located on the yard of the most beautiful Baptist church we have ever seen! The relatively new 600-seat church reflects its roots, with silver domes, three wonderful chandeliers, and a beautifully decorated and painted interior. We fear that some new churches here may be tempted to adopt our North American design features and not portray their own character and culture. This was a refreshing change

Like most of the larger Ukrainian cities, Zaporozhye reflects the new, youthful Ukraine, with fine restaurants and good shopping, but it is still dominated by one-dimensional Soviet apartments which have fewer architectural features than an Abbotsford chicken barn! In this city of contrasts, some women dress as though they are stepping into a Vogue photo shoot, while just outside the city the babushkas tend little garden plots in front of blue and white cottages.
The highway between Molochansk and Zaporozhye is relatively good although dotted with the occasional tractor, vintage motorcycle with side car, buses (which are 10 times the size of a VW van, have half the power, and are trailed by a jet stream of blue and black smoke), Ladas whose drivers fantasize that they are on a Formula 1 circuit, and Mercedes who all have the same wiring problem - their brake lights are hooked up to the horn and the flashing head lights. This diverse country of Ukrainians, Russians, Tartars, Germans, etc. is bound by a common distain for seatbelts and a love for both sides of the road.

On Thursday we went to Tokmak, where approximately 2,000 gathered for an evening of Ukrainian songs, dancing, and fireworks to celebrate Ukraine's 14th year of independence. Even in this predominately Russian-speaking area there appears to be an emerging sense of pride of their Ukrainian past. However, the little kids stole the show. They'd found an abandoned empty wading pool less than a metre deep, where they ran around and played tag, completely oblivious to the sharp edges of rocks, metal grating, and the other activities going on. There was also a refreshing attitude of parents letting kids be kids, giving them space and freedom to enjoy themselves. While there was obvious drinking going on, everyone seemed very well mannered and it was a good community party. The living conditions of the pensioners, the warehousing of the mentally ill, and the overcrowding of the orphanages all illustrate the formidable challenges this country faces. But the laughter of children playing tag in that concrete hole shows promise for the future.

Molochansk (Halbstadt) is poor by our standards but not impoverished. Children appear well cared for and happy. Young people avoid eye contact with us but you can tell they are curious. Older men seem indifferent, women a bit more friendly. The warmth of the staff in the Mennonite Centre, on the other hand, is limited only by language.

As mentioned, the pensioners in this society are hardest hit. Our receptionist, Olga, worked as an English language teacher for many years and served in the defense of the motherland as a loyal communist, yet she is expected to get by with 180 Grievnas a month. To do that she eats potatoes and macaroni--never meat--and supplements her diet with garden produce. Last week, we spent over 150 Grievnas on food for ourselves: chicken, sausage, eggs, bread, yogurt and fruit. But Olga with her excellent English and very classy demeanor never complains; she thanks God for her part-time job at the Centre where, interestingly, she taught English to Molochansk children for many years.

The fields here look prosperous. Although the weather has been very dry, the sunflower fields look beautiful, the cattle corn is sparse but OK and the grain appears to have been harvested. Everywhere people are being forced into the new economy with issues not all that different than what we hear from Victoria. Any salary increase for doctors means there will be fewer doctors. Small village hospitals are being turned into clinics. A factory in Tokmak which employed 10, 000 now employs only 1,000. The massive silk machine factory built at the turn of the last century by Franz and Schroeder is now a small furniture wood shop owned by a larger plant in Dnipropetrovs'k. Young people are leaving the villages and going to the big cities.

This week we had a group of Aussiedler from Germany come to visit. Many of them remember being forced out of these homes by Stalin just before WWII. The leader of the group, Jakob Stobbe, may well be a distant cousin of Ben's! Tomorrow we are off to the Mennonite Church at Kutuzovka (Petershagen) where we'll say a few words of greeting.

If you want more information on the Centre, you can find it at http://www.mennonitecentre.com/P-1.html

Donations are welcome!