First day at work with the Soldatenkos

On Sunday, Aleksey and his mother Angelina came by my apartment -- with Selma -- and we went to a park near my apartment. The park and adjoining square (with the statue of Lenin) is huge: Aleksey said it's the biggest square in Europe and second-largest in the world. It's called Ploshcha Svobody, or Freedom Square. Here's the Wikipedia entry, as well as a shot from Google Earth.

We had coffee at a round coffeeshop in the middle of the park -- like a Chuck E. Cheese, where a clown orchestrated dress-up and singing games for children and at least one birthday party was in evidence. It was a little loud and wacky, but I'm finding that that's Ukraine!

After that, I found an ATM and got some cash. Then we went to Aleksey's soccer game. (The journalists here have an elaborate system of sports leagues: soccer, tennis, an Olympics ... As Aleksey said, it's a mystery how any of them have time to write stories.)

Then, we hit the MegaMarket. It was in a mall, and huge, and I stocked up for several days.

This morning (Monday), I met Aleksey and Angelina in one of the Metro stations within walking distance of my apartment. We took a Metro to the Botanical Gardens stop -- not a good day to visit the gardens; the sky was gray, and there was snow, rain and hail, in no particular order. The Journalists' Initiative Association has an office a short walk from that Metro station.

Then we spent the day talking about training that we could do during our fellowship. The JIA is very interested in promoting civic journalism; I'll be involved in that, along with teaching about computer-assisted reporting, citizen journalism, blogging and other new media skills. The association is also interested in working with students at National University in Kharkiv -- and that's right up Selma's alley.

On Tuesday, we're going to meet with a local TV news director to talk about specific projects.