The view from Vinnitsa

We just got back from Vinnitsa. Long trip: Selma, Angelina and I did a two-day workshop on civic journalism on Friday and Saturday; then Selma and Angelina went to Kiev while Yulia and I did a workshop on computer-assisted reporting on Sunday; then Yulia and I caught a train to Kiev Sunday evening; then we all met up to take the overnight train from Kiev to Kharkiv (it left at 10:30 p.m. Sunday and arrived around 6:30 a.m. Monday).

The training went well; the participants seemed pleased. We included a lot of small-group discussions and exercises:



We didn't have much time to explore Vinnitsa, but I did get to the museum and other sites pertaining to Nikolay Pirogov, a famous doctor, scientist and public figure who lived his final decades in Vinnitsa. According to Wikipedia:

He is considered to be the founder of field surgery, and was one of the first surgeons in Europe to use ether as an anaesthetic. He was the first surgeon to use anaesthesia in a field operation (1847), invented various kinds of surgical operations, and developed his own technique of using plaster casts to treat fractured bones. His name is one of the most widely recognised in Russian medical history, and he is considered a Russian national hero. ...

Pirogov introduced the system of triage -- dividing injured soldiers into categories. He also encouraged the female volunteers as nurses. And he's credited with saving the leg if not the life of Guiseppi Garibaldi during the war to liberate and unify Italy.

Here is a photo of Elena, one of the reporters who attended the workshops, and Yulia, our translator, outside the Pirogov museum:



Across the street from our hotel in Vinnitsa was a nice restaurant called Tete-a-Tete. On Saturday night, Angelina, Yulia and I had dinner with Igor, one of the workshop participants who operates the city's radio station. It was an interesting discussion: Besides being a media executive, Igor is also a deputy in the city government. Angelina feels strongly that that's a conflict of interest; Igor argued otherwise.