Exploring My Poltava Homeland

I've always known my Dad's side of the family came from Poltava. To me it was just a name of a remote Ukrainian early 20th century farming village where there were nasty pogroms that caused my grandfather Petrov Wolfovitch to relocate the family to America. He left Poltava in 1904 when my grandmother, Olga was pregnant with my Dad. About six months after my Dad was born (in 1905) Olga and all of her children (Sonia, Sam, Sol and my Dad, then named Isidore) boarded a ship to America. None of them ever returned to visit Poltava.

Tears filled my eyes as my train neared the Poltava station. Finally, I was returning to my Ukrainian homeland! Obviously much has changed in the last 106 years! When they left and until the early 1940s, Poltava was a major Jewish center..today there are some Jews, but not nearly the numbers there once were. What has struck me the most was how similar Poltava is to my hometown Palo Alto. I keep wondering if there is some bio-geographical gene that draws people to live in certain places. The overall feeling here is one of friendliness, safety, nature and beauty. Like my visit to Iasi, Romania (my maternal homeland), I feel this deep reconnection with my roots.

Being a second generation American, I was raised pretty much clueless about my homelands. Sometimes we would eat borscht, vatroushki, piroushki and mumiliga; but it was all pretty remote. Iasi and Poltava seemed like distant places in that grand geography of things. Growing up in California, I mostly heard about New York City as my family's cultural homeland. And truly if the two sides of my family had not migrated to New York, there's no way I would have ever come into existence!

The clouds and the light here in Poltava feel familiar. And despite that the Russian signage and language is a blur, I've been finding my way around just fine. Today one of the hotel desk receptionists gave me a note she had typed in Russian to use to buy my final train ticket to Kiev. I found my way down to the local bus stop and showed it to the money collector who then motioned to me when to get off. At the train station, I handed it to the ticket clerk and voila, $11 later, I had a ticket. Afterwards I explored the little market stalls by the train station and then caught a bus into town.

Having completely run out of hair conditioner, I thought I'd try to buy some. It was super challenging trying to figure out what was what by looking a pictures of split ends that then looked magically repaired after using these strangely named products. Suddenly an English speaking Russian woman appeared and explained it all to me. I bought her suggestion and then began to chat her up. She's an English teacher and a tour guide, I wanted to hire her on the spot! Already obligated, she walked me to the Poltava History Museum which apparently has one the best collections anywhere in the Ukraine. She then told me where to walk afterwards to find explore some of the city's spectacular temples.

The museum had no signage in English, but I could tell by the passion in which the Russian-speaking tour guides were explaining things that it was all pretty amazing. Being a seasoned museum-visitor, I could pretty much tell what I was seeing...and altogether I felt I'd absorbed much of what 18th and 19th century life in the Ukraine (when my family lived here) was like. My sense of rootedness increased exponentially!

The Train from Odessa to Poltava

Yes, it was a 15-hour train ride and I shared my compartment with Maria a 62-year old Ukrainian who snored loudly. Despite our apparent linguistic disconnect (she speaks Russian, Ukrainian and German) and I understand a little German via Yiddish we communicated! We drew pictures, I taught her yoga and pilates stretches, shared tea, discussed how little sex she's had in recent years and laughed our heads off!

Train Compartment
View of Ukrainian Countryside

Maria, my compartment mate

Contemplations from a Ukrainian Train

Written as my 27-car train chugs through the countryside....

Despite the cheap price ($35) the train did include sleeper facilities including sheets, pillows and a fuzzy warm blanket. The access of basic things to all feeling could be one of the nice vestiges of communism. I'm trying to sort out what that was all about. Big boxy artless apartment buildings—functional, but oblivious to the human spirit. We humans need art and love. How did Russian passion squinch itself into the totalitarianism of the Soviet state?

Same time having lived my life as an American in the so-called free world, I know all about internal oppressions—psycho-emotional and social barriers that keep us from being all we might imagine. But we do have this sense of personally being in charge of our destinies...that it is absolutely possible to make it big and even get rich quick. The Ukrainians have had the last 21 years to incorporate chunks of these ideologies. It’s no longer a new independence…and largely what I’m seeing are young people who have known no other way – working for wages as well as entrepreneurs like my host Andre in Odessa. There was some begging, largely amongst elders...and no sign of outright starvation as one might find in Africa.

Altogether life is cheap. And being that there’s so little independent tourism, no price distinctions are made between locals and foreigners. Despite that today’s high school students are learning English, amongst many other languages, travelling here as a non-Russian speaker is very humbling. It’s like Brazil – another compelling country with an interior-oriented media. When I scan the countless Russian TV channels (including the Simpsons poignantly dubbed in Russian), I so want access. What is going on? This language sounds like it is so full of guts and glory. I want to speak and think how they all do!

Exploring Odessa

I took a local bus into the center of town and cautiously looked around. With all the signs in Russian, how would I find my way back? I noted buildings and fountains and corners, trying to keep my orientation. The signage was a complete blur--it all looked like gobbly-gook... just how my efforts at pronouncing anything comes off to my Russian listeners. They quickly shake their heads letting me know I am absolutely incoherent and that there is nothing they can do to help. Then sometimes, just to get even with the universe, I'd pretend I understood them, just to engage in social chatter. I feel like I completely get the Russian emotional core -- the parts that talk in sweet patter, that at the drop of a second can transmute into a passionate roar or a perfectly-staged shouting match. The Russian range is my range--we access all dimensions.

I wandered around an open-air market place, chatted up some high school girls who reported that they are required to study five languages - Russian, English, French, Polish and Latin. So different from mono-lingual America! I then found my way to the train station to book a train to Poltava, my Dad's birthplace. The 7 PM train was full and I was offered a place on the 1 AM train. It sounded like a really slow train, but then what am I here for but to experience it all? I paid about $35 for the ticket and continued to wander, checking out the Russian version of McDonalds, one of the few American corporate exports. Same food, much classier presentation...and very popular! I tiptoed by a church where honey, flowers and apples were being sold and then blessed with holy water by a priest. When I began to focus my camera on the blessing, the priest motioned me away... And I then scurried into a cell phone store, trying to buy a Ukrainian chip for my phone. My phone is apparently incompatible with the local technologies, so I guess I'm stuck with asking locals to lend me their phones to stay in touch with my hosts.

Then I attempted to retrace my steps back to where I got off my bus into town. It was useless. Nothing looked the same, but I did remember I'd been on bus 168. Suddenly, I saw one whiz by, though I was nowhere close to where I'd been dropped off. The street I was walking on seemed quite industrial - not the buzzy downtown with cafes, banks, and fancy shops. I showed someone the card from the hotel (which is really a card from the car wash because the hotel does not have a name) and he showed me where to board the 168. It was a super-long (and crowded) ride with passengers handing crumpled bills to the driver as they stepped off the bus. I found my way into the car wash and up into my room, congratulating myself on managing to find my way in and out of town!

Peace Sculpture (adjacent to a war mongering missile sculpture)
Juices, Apples, Flowers and Honey for Blessings

Ukrainian Students

Honey and Apples in Open Air Market

Seasoned Shopper Examines the Produce

On the Beach in Odessa

Beachside Beer and Snacks

Me in the Black Sea with Birds...

The water was very cold!!!

More of me...

Out of Chisinau and into the Ukraine

Somehow I found my way to the Gar Auto Nord bus station to purchase a ticket to the Ukraine, being careful to book the route that bypasses Transdienstre where huge visa fees have been known to levied on unsuspecting travelers. The following morning I caught a taxi to the bus station and located the mini-van that would be my transport to Odessa. Once the van was packed with passengers, the 3 1/2 hour journey began. Roadsigns became more Russian ... and everything felt more remote. At one of the passport check points, a kind female passenger showed me the ropes for accessing a very smelly toilet including handing me a wad of her personal stash of toilet paper. Sooner than I'd imagined, we arrived at Odessa and I was immediately accosted by taxi drivers. They all looked slimey and I felt bewildered. Eventually I gave one of them the phone number for Andre who was my AirBNB host. A call was placed and after a bit of back and forth on the phone, Andre determined that the guy was a rip off artist and proclaimed that he would come and get me himself.

The moment he arrived (I'd borrowed a local cell phone in that I couldn't figure out how to dial Ukrainian numbers on mine) to explain where I was standing, Steve and Kathy from Winnipeg, Canada appeared. They were truly bewildered having spent the morning biking around Odessa looking for a place to stay. I suggested that Andre might have rooms for them as well and for the next 22 hours, we became a trio. Andre has a carwash that's about 10 minutes by car from the beach and has recently built a bit of a hotel on the top floor.

The rooms have modern furniture and AC and for a night it was fine. Cathy and Steve's bed collapsed in the middle of the night, but that's another story..which isn't mine:) We found our way down to the beach and the Black Sea. Things for sale included dried fish, Odessa tzchakis, and beer. Being super-hungry we ate -- pizza, chicken kabobs, and salad. And then I tried taking a dip in the Black Sea. It was cold...the kind of cold where one needs to take a very quick plunge in -- otherwise it's just too cold! Being a photographer, Steve readily sorted out my camera and documented my experience...

My Chisinau Digs...Basic and Interesting!

Vic - the mad Russian artist/musician
Sergio (my host) and Me in Front of the House

The two Polish Bicyclists (also couchsurfers)

Front of House

The Kitchen!