From Friday to Wednesday

There are a few oddly-assorted pics at the bottom.  Also, earlier, I added a wedding picture to my last Thursday post.

We left Nikolaev at 6 and arrived at the airport in Odessa just before nine.  We had to stop along the way at an Azerbaijani gas station to get some coffee.  Andrii dropped us at the airport and Marisia, Joel and I went right to the coffee shop to get another coffee - a very bad coffee it turned out to be.  We visited for an hour until it was time to check in to the flight to Kiev.  An uneventful flight.   Marisia and I shared a cab from the airport since we live in the same neighborhood.  They dropped me on the corner and I walked to the apartment.  I puttered around, showered, changed and walked up to Glossary to see Jenia and have a meal.  When I told Jenia that there was nothing on the menu that appealed to me, he asked me what I would eat if I could have anything.   Half-jokingly, I replied "borsch".   He went and spoke to the chef and the chef said that if I had a few hours to hang out and wait, he would make me borsch.  I did and he did.  It was wonderful.

On Saturday, I knew that the opening ceremony for Kiev Pride would be held.  The location was still a secret.  I checked with Zoryan around noon and he had not heard the location yet, but he called me shortly after that to say he had the location of opening ceremony so we met near Red University and took a take to the southwestern edge of the city to a resort hotel.  The ceremony was supposed to begin at 1 but it really took until 2:30 to get people registered and gathered.  There were representatives from the Dutch, German, and Spanish Embassies.  I was quite disappointed that there was no official representation from the US Embassy.  Bishop Vladimir came in full clerical robes.  I was proud of him for that.

The whole thing was extremely poorly organized.  There were too many speeches.  The sound system was poor.  We were promised that we would be informed about the location of the Pride march on Sunday shortly before gathering time.

There were going to be workshops in late afternoon after a poetry reading.  I didn't want to stay and Zoryan agreed.  We decided to go in search of a late lunch which we did at a Georgian restaurant that had really good ethnic back ground music.  We stayed over lunch for a long time.  We had eggplant roll-ups, filled with a ground walnut/cumin paste.  It was a very different taste and I liked it.  We then had a big plate of greens: green onions, cilantro sprigs, dill sprigs, tomatoes, cucumbers, and sweet red pepper wedges.  We also had shaslik  which is shish-kebabs.  We got beef and pork.  The meat was wonderfully marinated and was served with a savory pomegranate syrup.  We topped the meal off with a cappuccino and took a taxi to my place where Zoryan dropped me off and went on to meet his boyfriend.  It was the largest meal I had eaten since arriving.

We had decided not to have liturgy on Sunday morning because we knew we had to be available to go to the Pride March when we got notice.  There were bands of homophobic bigots spread out all over the city keeping watch for us.  Notice went out that anything obviously "gay" should not be worn because of danger.  We were also advised to avoid the center of the city.  We heard that there were as many as 6000 well-organized homophobes just looking to cause violence and disrupt anything we wanted to do.  Ultimately, the march was canceled and three of the leaders were beaten, one badly.   As of today (Wednesday) he is fine, thank God.  There has been extensive press coverage all over the region and the European Parliament will certainly discuss the matter and issue a statement when they meet.  It's not necessarily a bad thing that we couldn't march.  And Kyiv is not generally a dangerous place at all.  Bigots are everywhere.

Around 17:00, Zoryan texted asking if I'd like to meet him and his boyfriend, Timur, in the center at McDonald's.   Of course I agreed.  We spent about an hour together.  This is the third boyfriend of Zoryan I have met.  I've liked them all.  He has really good taste in men.  I always wonder if "this" is the one he'll end up with.

Monday was a beautiful day.  It was about 80 with a soft cool breeze.  Kostya texted and asked if I'd like to spend some hours together.  We met and had coffee at an outside restaurant and ultimately walked to a local Ukrainian fast food place called Puzata Khata (which doesn't translate well but I would translate it "Comfort Food")  They have just about all the typical home cooking one could want, obviously not as good as home made but great for people who want to have home cooking fast and cheap.   I had compote which is really the liquid left behind when you boil fruit, red borsch, and two kinds of varenyky, potato and cabbage.  It was exactly what I wanted.  We then walked up to a park near a theater and sat enjoying the temperature and the breeze.

I took a down day on Tuesday.  I lazed around, didn't shower, didn't go out and just read books.  It was great.  I'm a the end of my clean clothes.  The washer broke down on Sunday and the repairman didn't come until today.  Fortunately it was a simple repair - it needed a new belt.  I will do a load of wash right now and at 17:30 or 18:00 will meet my friend, Sergei.  I haven't seen him since I arrived.  Actually I was supposed to meet with a different Sergei but that will have to wait.

My time is going too darned fast.  Why, oh why, did I schedule myself so poorly.  I will certainly not be ready to leave Kyiv on 5 June, although I will be happy to see friends in Bucharest for a week.  Here are a few pics:

Zoryan clowning around at the opening of Pride on Saturday:

Sheremet, after he was beaten and had pepper spray in his eyes on Sunday:

While violence was going on elsewhere, here are two people who look like statues dressed in traditional cossack costumes, except for the bronze paint!