Saturday at the zoo

Yesterday afternoon, I went to the Boiko School, where the students were pulling together the stories for the final edition of their newspaper. Some of the students mentioned that today (Saturday), Boiko would be celebrating the fifth birthday of its kindergarten program -- and that the festivities would be held at the Kharkiv Zoo. We agreed that this would make a timely story for the newspaper. One student (Paulina) offered to cover the story; I said I'd take pictures. And that's why you're seeing this:



I also took several pictures of non-human animals, this being a zoo after all. It's kind of a sad-looking zoo: Mmany of the animals clearly have seen better days; they looked hot and uncomfortable. The polar bear cooled off in the moat inside his caged area:



Several of the animals had had babies. Here's a baby brown bear, which was being swatted around from time to time by its mother, trying to show who's boss:





The zoo also has a lot of ostriches, which I see all the time, because their pen is along the fence that I pass by almost every day.