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Nicknamed the Iron Maiden, Brezhnev’s mother, Mother Motherland, and the slightly off-color, Tin Tits, an angry goddess dominates the skies above the Dneiper River in Kyiv. Weighing 1,000 tons, 15 times the weight of Lady Liberty, and reaching 68 meters into the sky, conveys the shock and rage of war. Dynamic and fierce, the surprisingly girlish and vaguely eerie face commemorates the Siege of Stalingrad and memorializes the 200 days of the Battle of Stalingrad during the Second World War. Over 1.1 million Soviet soldiers died during the bloody weeks, and more than twice as many Russian civilians perished as well.
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During the summers when wheat does not grow and at times when hope drains away from the soul, Ukrainians turn to faith. From farmhouse to farmhouse, men and women once worshipped wooden icons, ones they believed were endowed with a mysterious power to link the soul of a mortal with God. Peasant icons were mostly conspicuously displayed placed prominently on a table or in a wooden cabinet draped with embroidery.
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Walking through Kyiv’s repository of history and travelers will find vendors selling old Lenin busts, Wehrmacht medals from World War II and banners proclaiming communism’s glory. Andrew’s Ascent or Andriyivky Uzviz is Kyiv’s most popular street with tourists and locals alike. Named after the Baroque St. Andrew’s Church, this street has earned its reputation of being Kyiv’s Montemarte.
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Beleaguered by the tide of films with a Russian revisionist point of view, Ukrainians in Hollywood are busy promoting Ukrainian interests in films and television. With the birth of the Hollywood Trident Foundation in 1999, the voices of the Ukrainian diaspora are coming to the entertainment surface.
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You may remember the actor playing the role of Curly, the ornery and wizened cowboy in the film, “City Slickers” as Best Supporting Academy Award winning actor, Jack Palance, but this actor, once proudly laid claim to his Ukrainian heritage. Jack Palance, born Volodymir Ivanovich Palahnuik in Pennsylvania coal country was third of five children of Ukrainian immigrants.
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Do not travel more than 100 kilometers from Kyiv or you will end up on a one-lane rutted dirt road with fallen trees and bandits waiting to ambush your car. Fact or fiction? While the early motorways in Ukraine may have been fraught with geographical and human hazards, and though cars are still scarce commodities for most Ukrainians often preferring to travel by overnight train to their destinations, in the ever confident traveling world, the country of Ukraine is sometimes best explored by car.
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In centuries past, young people told their Christmas stories on tiny two-storied wooden structures made of wood. Vertep, the basis of modern-day Ukrainian puppet theater, had its beginnings centuries ago at the Kyivian Academy when students wrote and performed their plays on a tiny stage. The ‘actors’ were actually puppets made of wood with a wire connected so the puppeteer controlled the character’s movements. Accompanied by vocalists and instrumental ensembles, young people once took their Christmas dramas on the road, traveling from village to village.
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Solemnly marching through a fresh snow, an old man, dressed as a goat, leads a small procession. Behind him, a woman carries a canvas bag and a second man hoists a six-pointed star attached to a long stick with a light in its center towards the night sky. Followed by three other shrouded figures clasping musical instruments to their thick coats, the leader knocks on the first door. When the door is cast open, warmth rushing into the frigid night, the leader asks, “May we sing you a song of Christmas?”
