Kiev

Our program included a trip to Kiev, Ukraine last week and it proved to be a very beautiful city despite the gloomy weather. It is much greener than Moscow and it has a rich heritage. A couple of the guys in our group and I bought a few beers and spent one afternoon just walking around the city and enjoying our drinks and the sights. It's really kind of a nice combination: beer and mindless tourism. We did visit a few interesting sites, which you'll see below.

A statue of who-knows; the point of this picture is that we arrived in Kiev too early in the morning

Natasha, Kyle, Shamella, and Ben at too-early-in-the-morning

This is Mikhail Bulgakov's apartment in Kiev, where he grew up and where he worked as a doctor for the White Army during the Russian Revolution. It was nice to contrast this apartment with his communal flat in Moscow. This apartment was featured as a setting in many of his books, including Preobrazhensky's flat in Heart of a Dog and Master's apartment in Master and Margarita (that's the book that was on my dresser, Emmy).

A statue of Bulgakov sitting next to his apartment

This is a video from the top of an undeveloped hill in the middle of Old Kiev. Kiev, like most Central and Eastern European places, has a significant pagan history. This hill is a place where witches traditionally come to cast spells on the city. You can see why from the view! The next day, we thought we spotted a witch casting a spell because of the way the woman was waving her arms, but maybe that wasn't the case. Anyways, it might be significant that the iron stairs leading up to this hill from the street (Andreivskii Spusk) sit almost directly across from Bulgakov's apartment, since Bulgakov is notorious for writing about the occult.

This is some awesome graffiti I saw one day; it reminded me of my buddy Nathan Hill, who likes robots


The graffiti is on the back wall of a playground

Domo Aregato, Mr. Roboto

This is the original bell tower of the Kiev Lavra (Monastery of the Caves). The Lavra is home to a functioning community of Orthodox monks and is also a UNESCO World Heritage Site, which causes some friction when the monks want to build something in their monastery. Under the monastery buildings are networks of caves that house holy relics and icons. That is usually the main attraction, but I did not take pictures in the cave networks.

In the center is a restoration of the main monastery church

Here is the backside of the same church pictured above. Impressive!

This is the view from inside the monastery: to the left is the Dnieper river, in the center is the extended campus of the monastery where the monks actually live, and to the right is a monstrous (i.e. big and ugly) metal statue memorializing Soviet victory in World War II

One of the four planned Soviet buildings in Old Kiev, which currently serves as the Ukrainian Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Some of the Orthodox churches in Kiev were destroyed and it was planned to build four buildings like this one to replace the churches.

This is a second Soviet building like the one show above

Our group visited Kiev at the same time as President Bush. As you can see, the Communist pensioners turned out en masse to protest his visit and NATO's proposed inclusion of Ukraine.

Red tide

The average age of these protesters has got to be at least 50!

Here you can see the protesters in action! I think one of them is saying "Bush go to hell" with an accent, but I can't tell.

An active church (there were lots of these . . .)

This is St. Michael's, which was only recently completely reconstructed from the ground up. The original was a victim of Soviet remodeling.

This is a mural outside of St. Michael's which depicts (I think . . .) something like heaven and the bottomless pit (hell) in the center bottom

Energia

Energia is the home of the former Soviet space program. It was by far one of the best excursions that our program has arranged. Our tour guide spoke excellent English and was extremely knowledgeable. During our tour, we saw things like a duplicate of Sputnik, Yuri Gagarin's original re-entry capsule, a life-size model of the Mir Space Station, and a couple cosmonaut toilets, too. Today, the remaining engineers at Energia work on commercial satellite-launching ventures.

Sergei Korolev, father of the Russian space program (and the space race)


Yuri Gagarin, the first man in space

The Energia/Buran shuttle model designed by Energia during the 1980's

A contemporary copy of the original Sputnik, which means "traveling companion" or "satellite" in Russian

Me standing next to a huge camera that was launched into space in order to take a picture of the dark side of the moon


These are all models of the first stuff that was launched into space: batteries, solar panels, cameras, and those sorts of things


Another model of space-junk; I can't believe this stuff worked


In the foreground you can see an early model cosmonaut toilet


And here is a later model space toilet, found on the Mir Space Station


The first re-entry capsule was designed for laboratory animals


The next re-entry capsule was designed for Yuri Gagarin; this is the real deal


This gadget is the coolest piece of technology that our guide showed us. It is a gyroscopic stabilizer that was used on the Mir Space Station as a joint between the gigantic modules that comprised the station. The stability that the central axis of the gyroscope supplies when a torque is applied to the gyroscopic frame allows the modules to be rotated with a small amount of energy, which is at a premium in space. Our guide said that each kilogram put into space costs twenty-thousand dollars, so that it's best to conserve on heavy batteries and large motors with gizmos like this.


And lastly, a cosmonaut suit, which comes in one piece; cosmonauts step into the suit from a hatch in the back

My Friends the Bums

Hey, guys, what's up?

Phew! That fire stinks like burning plastic!

You see, there are these bums that have a campsite outside of my apartment building and, I suppose, drink there. It is really a gross sight when the snow melts, because scattered around this little grove is a ton of trash, a self-made bench, and a firepit. Anyways, I've been keeping track of them whenever I see movement down there and I decided to start taking pictures. The other day was eventful, so I took a video. I asked my host mother if she thought that they would enjoy speaking Russian with me, since they looked pretty relaxed sitting around their fire, but she said that it was verboten for me to visit them, since they were probably insane and violent.

I Have TWO Russian Library Cards Now!

This past Wednesday, with the help of an official-looking letter from the director of my language school, I was able to gain admission to the Central State Sechenov Medical Library. During my first trip to the library, I was able to find two full card catalog drawers of bacteriophage-related scientific papers from the 1980's and 1990's. Although I didn't have time to order any articles (I had to leave to see the Bolshoi present Prokofiev's opera War and Peace), I marked a handful of them down in my notebook, including an article about Soviet biowarfare. Apparently, some Soviet scientists during the 1980's were assessing the United State's capacity to wage biological warfare and proposed to use bacteriophage to combat bacterial weapons. Very interesting . . .

Tallinn

Of all three Baltic capitols, Tallinn is by far the most Western and the most stunning (although I thought that Riga was the most interesting capitol). The old town is laid out in a very beautiful area, next to the coast, which is visible from the bluff where Toompea Castle sits. While I was there, the sky was clear blue and the temperature wasn't too low. I walked around Toompea Castle at night when I couldn't sleep and saw some beautiful views of the city lights from the bluff. At the hostel, I met some Danes, one of whom tried to convince me to become a socialist. It was interesting to talk with him.

This is the tallest tower of Toompea castle, built by the Danes

This is the view of Toompea castle (Castrum Danorum) from beneath the bluff at night

This is the exquisite Alexander Nevsky Orthodox Church

This is the present-day Parliament building (built by Catherine the Great) which sits across the street from St. Nicholas Church and is flanked by the walls of Toompea Castle and the bluff that were in the second picture

A view of the old town from the heights of Toompea Hill; St. Olav's church stands above the other buildings and the Gulf of Finland is in the background

A steeple that looked like it was glowing

A protestant church on Toompea Hill

One of the charming alleys among the shops, embassies, and administration buildings on Toompea Hill

The Parliament building at night

An alley leading to the Old Town central square

The Gothic town hall of Tallinn's old town

The city walls and towers of the old town and the tower of St. Olaf's behind them

This is a video of the old town square in Tallin at night, beginning with the town hall

Riga

I took the 4 hour bus from Klaipeda to Riga and arrived on a very gray, stormy day. It didn't last through my four-day stay, however, and for a couple days, there were clear blue skies. In Riga, I found my favorite cathedrals of all the cathedrals in the Baltic capitols: the Dome Cathedral and St. Peter's Cathedral. Each of the gothic-style cathedrals had impressive stained glass windows and the Dome Cathedral had a huge organ inside. I rode an elevator to the top of St. Peter's and battled the wind to take still pictures of the old town from above.

The Dome Cathedral, with a Christmas tree in the square

The stained glass windows inside of the Dome Cathedral

The pulpit inside the Dome Cathedral, which belongs to the Latvian Lutheran Church

The altar

Some of the organ pipes suspended on the rear balcony in the Dome Cathedral

The tonsury in the courtyard of the Dome Cathedral

A pagan sculpture dug up from the courtyard of the Dome Cathedral and covered with coins from visitors

An attempt at taking a still photograph of the Dome Cathedral from the top of St. Peter's Cathedral; the wind was blowing so hard that I could lean into it pretty steeply without falling

The steeple of St. Peter's Cathedral, from the top of which I took the previous picture

The dark interior of St. Peter's Cathedral

The old town of Riga from the top of St. Peter's Cathedral

The "House of the Blackheads" (what a terrible name), where rich, unmarried German merchants used to live (I suppose they were traders within the Hanseatic League, because Riga was a member city of the League and the building was built in the 14th century, during the operation of the League)

Town hall at night

I started to enjoy wandering the streets at night, because everything was so well-lit and colorful in the old town

If I ever return, I hope to stay at this particular hotel

The interior of the Latvian National Museum of Art

A Latvian painting of a swineherd

Also a painting by a Latvian artist

When I was in Riga, I was lucky to see the commemoration of the liberation of Latvia from the Soviet Union on January 20th. Here is the procession. Below is a short paragraph that I took from one of the Latvian Institute's webpage:

"January 20: Commemoration Day of Defenders of the Barricades in 1991.

Already in autumn 1990, reactionary forces increasingly became established in the government of the Soviet Union. It was in their interests to stop the Baltic peoples' move towards restoring independence, and in January 1991 the leaders of the USSR in Moscow took a decision to restore the old order in the Baltic. Latvians from all over the country rushed to Rīga to build barricades and defend the independent power structures. January 20 marked the culmination of violence by Soviet forces hostile to Latvian independence. Soviet special forces seized the Latvian Ministry of the Interior, a gun-battle ensued and several people were killed."

Laying flowers at the graves at the foot of the Monument of Freedom

The Monument of Freedom

Detail of the statue at the top of the Monument of Freedom

This is the central esplanade in the Riga old town, and seeing as how it was such a pleasant ambiance, I thought that I should videotape it

The Russian Orthodox Cathedral

Inside of the Orthodox Cathedral; just after taking this video, a priest politely asked me to stop taping and I felt really bad about it, but I'm still posting the video, hehe!

Doesn't this look like classic Stalinist architecture? It is the tallest building in the Russian part of Riga, right next to the giant Russian-style outdoor market

This scene made me feel like I was on another planet, with the mood and strange buildings surrounding me. Riga really has the most interesting mixture of architecture of all the Baltic Republics. Sadly, I didn't take any pictures of the art nouveau district, which is a well-known example of the style.