Have not been posting too much on this blog -- and I should. Must make it part of my routine. Busy with the Christmas book and other projects and -- packing! Off to Ukraine tomorrow! So excited. I love being there. Am leading a tour with Canadian and Australian folks.
I wrote this article for The Ukrainian Weekly back in May 2007 -- it still applies.
See youse later in the summer! Have a good one.
The things we do...
Being There – So at Home in Ukraine
by Orysia Paszczak Tracz
Have you ever come to a place you’ve never been before
and felt right at home? That’s how I felt when I first arrived in Ukraine in
1993; over the years, that feeling hasn’t changed.
Other cities, other countries have beauty, interesting
architecture and historic places. But being in Ukraine, whether in Kyiv, Lviv
or any small town or village, is so much more fascinating to me. Even though I
am far removed from the place – my parents left as young adults – I am so drawn
to it. After all, it is my ancestral homeland, where my roots are found. I
suppose if I did not know much about the place, maybe it would be like any
other tourist spot – old and interesting, and so what?
But, because it is the source of my roots, it is so very
special. I am so at home in Ukraine! Yes, I know, to the people there I am a
foreigner, a curiosity; I might even be regarded as one of those (expletive at
times deleted) diasporans. And yet, often I am taken as being from another city
or the next province. They think I am a native, but just not from right there.
Thanks to my parents, I mastered the language, and only rarely does someone
notice that it is not quite what is spoken there now. But that’s whole other
story.
I love walking around, whether in the city, town or
village – or the open countryside. I feel such comfort and a deep
soul-nourishing satisfaction. It is home in a very deep sense, something that
cannot be explained in any logical way.
The streets of Lviv, Kyiv, Kolomyia, Ternopil and
Ivano-Frankivsk have become so familiar to me that I rarely need to refer to
the city maps. I just head off in the direction I “know” I’m supposed to go.
It’s spooky, but I’m rarely wrong. Of course, there have been times where I
have been completely, terribly, most embarrassingly wrong, with my poor feet
paying the price. On the other hand, quite a few times I have been asked for
directions, and have known what to say.
Once at the Zoloti Vorota (Golden Gates) in Kyiv on a
Sunday morning, a man with a young son asked me how to get to a particular
street. I thought it was down this way but, just in case, took out my guidebook
to check, explaining that I was from Canada. Well, he was from Zaporizhia. We
enjoyed a laugh, talked for a bit, and then they went on their way – in the
direction I had originally indicated.
To be in Ukraine’s shrines or on the actual sites of
ancient history is quite moving.
The first time I entered St. Sophia Sobor in Kyiv, I
sensed this strange physical and spiritual emotion, and was moved to tears. I
did not expect this. Suddenly I felt all that antiquity and history and the
souls from those times surrounding me. Seeing the reconstructed St. Michael the
Golden-domed Sobor is an emotion of another kind. The beauty and majesty of the
magnificent cathedral is one thing, but knowing how ancient it is and what had
been done to it, and how it rose as a phoenix makes it so much more glorious.
Walking along Virmenska (Armenian) Street and the other
oldest streets of Lviv is also fascinating. From the external buttresses on the
buildings, you just know how very old they are. I find photographing
courtyards, gates, doors, and windows and windowsills in Lviv to be especially
satisfying.
One special spot for me is the old Kyiv Hill, where
Volodymyrska Street begins, at the top of Andriyivskyi Uzviz, and where the
remains of the Desiatynna Tserkva (Church of the Tithes, built between 989 and
1015) are visible. This is Kniaz Volodymyr’s town, from which Kyiv expanded
into Kniaz Yaroslav’s town (the areas of St. Sophia and Zoloti Vorota).
Kniahynia Olha’s residence, a palace inthe-round, was located on this hill. The
earthen rampart (val) that surrounded that first town is still there. The
various historical locations are clearly labeled.
Past the National Historical Museum on this hill is one
of the ravines leading down to the Podil, the old lower town along the banks of
the Dnipro River. This was the commercial port part of the medieval city. It
still has two very closely parallel streets named Nyzhnii Val and Verkhnii Val
(the low and the high ramparts). Khoryv and Shchekavytska streets are there,
too, and, in another area, Lybidska Street is near the stream that still
manages to flow within the city. Talk about Ridna Shkola coming alive, as one
of my sons exclaimed.
In a few places, the original pink-hued stonework of
medieval Kyiv is purposely exposed, for example in the pavement on Volodymyrska
Street near Velyka Zhytomyrska. The same stones and bricks made from this local
material are visible in the walls of St. Sophia in Pecherska Lavra, the rebuilt
Uspenskyi Sobor, and other ancient buildings.
The names of the streets, city districts, hills and parks
are testimony to the antiquity of Ukrainian cities, towns and villages. For
example, below the ravine of old Kyiv Hill, the areas are called Honchari
(potters), Kozhumiaky (tanners – remember the story of Kyrylo Kozhumiaka?) and
Dihtiari (tarburners and sellers). Yaroslaviv Val (Yaroslav’s Ramparts) is the
street where the actual ramparts were raised around his expanding city. Volodymyrsky
Uzviz is the street along which – according to the chronicles – people walked
from the upper town to the Dnipro River to be baptized in 988. Virmenska Street
is where the Armenians settled and lived in Lviv from its earliest times. The
village of Pechenizhyn definitely has something to do with the Pechenihy tribe
of Volodymyr’s times. The stories behind the toponyms are endless and, if you
know even a shred of Ukrainian history, so much more interesting.
One place I must visit this summer is the site of the
excavations by Vikentiy Khvoika – the Paleolithic site on Frunze Street in the
Podil. That’s about as far back as our human history goes. Talk about Ukrainian
antiquity, eh?
I am at home in Ukrainian churches, no matter which
denomination. The atmosphere, the reverence, the iconography, the people, the
singing – it is mine, it is familiar, it is what I grew up with. (The only
church that was foreign to me, I later learned, belonged to the Moscow
Patriarchate. Back in 1993 we came to a church in Chernivtsi during a service.
What was very strange and uncomfortable to me was the way the women were
scurrying around, hunched over, heads down, kerchiefs over their foreheads. It
was as if they were afraid to stand up straight, and face the priest, the altar
and the icons directly.)
And so, I will be back this August. Since 1993, I have
been fortunate to lead a folk art and culture tour to Ukraine each year, during
my vacation (oh, that day job interferes). I enjoy showing off my other “home”
to those who join me. In the last few years I have stayed for a bit after the
group leaves to wander the streets of Lviv and Kyiv. And, as usual, I will be
luxuriating in the sheer pleasure of being there.
