Моя Україна (My Ukraine): winter wonderland

We got several inches of snow last night. Kharkiv has an efficient snow-removal system: plows were cleaning up the streets, and workers were shoveling snow onto conveyor belts that lifted the snow up into dump trucks. Not sure where the city hauls all the snow -- probably down to the Kharkiv River.

A few flakes of snow paralyzes Richmond, Va.; people flock frantically to the grocery stores to stock up on food, and the schools shut down like it's nuclear fallout. In Kharkiv, it's a different story: Life goes on as usual. I walk past several schools on my way to the JIA office, and they were all bustling this morning. Parents pull children on small sleds (or push sleds that have been converted into baby strollers).

Above and below are photos of a playground near the JIA office. Kids had been playing here earlier, but I shot these after lunch, when it may have been nap time.



This is in a neighborhood of buildings where the bottom floors appear to be offices (like JIA's) and all the other floors appear to be apartments. People have painted exterior walls and the doors of outbuildings with whimsical scenes. Here's one:



We did more than traipse around in the snow today, of course. I finished the details for a one-day workshop on advanced Internet research for journalists. Several editors have expressed tentative interest in having their staffs take such training. Now, Aleksey will translate my program, and we'll shop it around.

Also today, Selma and Aleksey set up a meeting for tomorrow with one (and possibly two) secondary-school principals. Selma is interested in working with high-school-age students on a school newspaper (I'd help out on that project, too.)

I set up some meetings for next week in Kyiv (that's the Ukranian spelling, which the national government prefers; the Russian spelling, Kiev, is what you usually see on maps outside Ukraine). Selma and I are going to meet with editors at the Kyiv Post, an excellent weekly newspaper that publishes in English, and at IREX, a non-governmental organization that, among other things, also provides journalism training.

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Here are a few items from the Kyiv Post that caught my eye:

The lead photo in the latest issue is of a memorial ceremony to mark the 89th anniversary of a battle in which three hundred students were killed trying to protect the newly created People's Republic of Ukraine against Bolshevik aggression.

And the paper reported that the level of dioxin in President Viktor Yushchenko's blood has decreased by 80 percent, more than two years after the Ukrainian leader was disfigured and nearly died from poisoning during the "Orange Revolution" election campaign.