Antoninas birthday....

At eight in the morning I had to get up and come to Toninas place. We were prepaing food and vegetables for the afternoon. Had breakfast and packed everything. In the city center we met all the other friends of Tonia and had a beer to start our little trip. 15 people tons of meat and beer and vodka...nice weather....perfekt, what cold you need more?? Your destination was the island in the Nipper. This is a recreation area with natural sand beaches and partly still standing (warm) water. The island is so big that we had no one round us. We where cooking ukrainian soup and prepared our shashlik (meat) on the fire and had a delicous meal. Beer and voka were hande out and we started ro have a realy unforgetable afternoon/evening. Playing volleyball and naked swimming in the Nipper did the rest to make a perfect day. Unfortunately Tonia decided to pass away at four and we were not able to wake here up till nine. We had our troubles to get her home but this can and should (at least once) happen to everybody. All the people I got to know here in Ukraine I got to know through Tonia and Mischa. They are great. This warm hearted and friendly environment is amazing for me I really would like to stay here longer or even to live here. All the impressions and advantures I had here were just a result of the outstanding integration which Tonina made possible. During my stay here I transformed from a tourist working here to an ukrainian living a great life here. Everything I saw wouldn never be possible to see if you are just a tourist.

Parachuting....4300m...

Saturday was THE day! We finally decided to do it! Parachuting in Kiev is what everybody should do. The sport komplex TSCHAYKA is one of the most famous in Ukraine to jump. We also had the possibility to watch 25 women breaking the national rekord in formation jumping. I came there and got the number and had to wait for 2,5 hours. After a lot of coffee and tea it was time to get the instruction. The language problem was none because he just gave me a picture with all the steps which I have to do bevore, during the flight and while landing. We entered the old rusty Antonow and got up to 4.300 meters. I was the last person to jump out of the plane and so I had enough time to see how the others do it. You stand there and just see the clouds. You lean forward and fall out...I tried to breath but in the first few seconds it was just impossible...I thought now it is over! Then you come out of the clouds and see the earth rapidly coming closer. The adrenalin rushe into your head for the second time. The parachut opens and you are sinking slowly to the ground. You look around and have a great view of the surrounding area and Kiev. Right after the landing my knees where shaking and I had the feeling to be immortal in this moment. It was great.

Hello.

Now it is allready my fourth week in ukraine and I still love it. The weekend was quite entertaining. Thursday RnB night in PATIBA. A terrible friday in work. Then it started - 2 hours of sleep and finally dinner with antonina and mischa and 6 or 7 other people. One girl was completely wasted (drunk) but easy to ignore. She always wanted to dance. A nother girl, Marina 27, could speak a little bit german and made me very happy. She works for a pharmacy company and has a child in Kharkov. It lives with her parents. On saturday misch invited me to join him and a friend and drink wine from the Krim area. His friend has a amazingly big house in the "dattcha zone" outside of Kiev. I would guess 350-400 m2 and extremly good wine. Mischa was called by a girl and had to leave and so I went with him ack to the center. Bad idea!!! Finally the wine, the beer and the vodka broke me and I woke up the next day at home and could hardly move... Sunday was just another day in bed. I was ill.

Foto of the main stage in Swirsch. bevore the concert began.
The camp. I mean just apart of it.
Ther she is again.
The three of us. I seem so tiny.

Antonina. It may not be the best foto of her. (she is a little bit drunk)
Mischa. He runs an online news magazine in ukraine. He is great fun but does´t speak english
Metro at 6 in the morning. You are alone!!
Church some where near Lviv
Kreschatnik at 6 in the morning. The only person you might see there are hookers (geting breakfast).

Some pictures

The view out of my office on the 12th floor. Kiev has a perfekt public transport system.

My office.
The view from Maidan on Kreschatnik Street.
Maidn Nasaleschnesti (Independent Square)
My neighbourhood.

Original

The original advertisemant of the festival:

According to the Svirzh World Music Festival web-site, the format combines traditional music of the world cultures and modern music with national elements. In addition to more than 60 concerts on three stages, music and literature, dances and handicrafts, cuisines and dramatic art almost from all corners of the world will be presented during the event. In particular, it is planned to begin morning on a dancing pavilion with yoga to go ahead in the rhythm of dance of various nations of the world: Afro-Cuban dance, Afro-Arabian fusion, Indian dance, Ancient European dances, Argentine tango, Oriental dances, Salsa, bachata, cha cha cha, Irish and Armenian dances, Nigunim, Jewish dances Ukrainian folk dance.

World Music Festival!!!

This weekend was a really good one. We (Antonina, Mischa, I) went to Swirsch near Liviv. That means more than 850 km over bad streets and to see a lot of poverty in the countryside. We started at six in the morning and I was realy lucky that we had a good car. A brand new Honda Civic. Liviv is in the western part of ukraine and was once a part of the Habsburg Monarchy. This is why the buildings look like in Salzburg. Because of the lack of money to restore the buildings it all looks a little bit broken. But it is not like they would not care and so they try to do the best. The outcome is one of the most beutiful cities I have ever seen, with amazing parks, a car free inner city, nice restaurants, and many young and open minded people. We were in a restaurant where they tryed to make it look like an underground army meetingpoint in sowjet union. The entrance has no sign and you just open a door and stand in a 2x2m room next to a guy with a maschine gun. He askes you for a code word. "Are there any russians?" would be the translation. After we told him that there are no russians he opened a secret doo behind a book shelf and we could go down into the basement. It was amazing how they decorated all the resaurant. They designed it striktly in the original way like it was. You really get the feeling how the revolutionists had theyr meetings down here.

Swirsch:
It is a small village 50km outside Liviv. It was nearly impossible to get there because there were no signs to impement where the festival could be. The world music festival was ment to have five stages where over 30 bands from russia, moldvia, ukraine, usa, germany, uk performe. On friday the event was great and we danced a lot till dawn. When the first sunlite came up we decided to go to bed. The tent which we slept in was actually made for two persons so you can imagine how we where lying in there. It was really packed. Saturday morning, or better say lunchtime, we went to a castle near by and found a small lake to swimm in. Afterwards we went to a village where we bought some beer and were sitting in the shadow and talking about travell expiriences. After we came to the conclusion that it would be too far to walk back to the camp; we had the glorious idea to aske a guy with a horse trailer. He finaly agreed to take us there.
We came back to the camp and foud out that they started to take down the main stage and the rock stage. We were supprised and had no idea whats going on. Later this day they told us thaat the organizers have left the szene and have stolen the money of the tickets. They didn´t pay the musicans or even the owners of the stages. But the show had to go on and so the rest of saturday night they just played on one stage (a smaller one). The mood of the people, the weather and the beer was so good that in the end nobody cared.
On sunday the police closed the whole camp and everybody had to leave a quick as possible. They din´t even had the permission to do the festival there....thats just ukraine.
On sunday night we came ome to kiev and Antonia and I decided that this is not enough and went for a beer. Monay was another half day off. Monday night I met again with Antonina and we wnt out for dinner.
Today (tuesday) the metro was stuck in the tunnel and after twety minutes we finaly made it to get out save. I had to take fucking taxi to get to work!!