1st trip back in 6 yrs

[stanb4]

  1st a quick re-introduction, my name is Stan & my wife Marina & I have now been married 5 1/2 years & we still live on Maui. We were 1 of the "lighting strikes" couples that got engaged after 5 days & drew the ire of LP, but the realistic advice & encouragement of Ken C and Jack. We have a great marriage and are growing stronger all the time. Our daughter is doing excellent in school & is entering 5th grade & is still fairly fluent in Russian. She is also a novice surfer.
  At the beginning of the summer the girls went on their 4th visit back to Ukraine and I joined them 4 weeks later. I had planned to go back last year but circumstances led to me delaying to this year. I flew out of Maui in the am on 7/1, to LAX to O'Hare to Warsaw to L'vov (arriving in the afternoon 7/3). My wife & her aunt came with the driver in a comfortable minivan. I had no problem with customs despite not knowing the address of where I was staying. I took a wild stab & wrote 49 Prospect & they said nyet (lady customs agent & male guard, both young). I said da & pointed to my wife who was insight but out of vocal range & pointed to my wedding band & back to her. Anyway I had started w/ a smile and a privet to both and by the time we were done they were laughing and waving we through. (Lesson learned, know your address.)
  As I was in customs a huge thunderstorm rolled by and the front had passed by the time we got on the road. But about 20 minutes outside of L'vov there was a couple mile long stretch where apparently a micro-burst flattened or broke in 1/2 about a dozen full grown mature trees & dozens more big limbs on to the "highway". We got lucky and were in the lane that went on the far shoulder and sometimes fields & got to maneuver around the damage. It only added 1/2 an hour to our drive and we arrived in Chernavitsi in 5 1/2 hours. So door to door it was 41 hours.
  ( I'll be writing this in installments slowly but surely, as my sis & her family are visiting us now & Dell has a new replacement computer on the way.) aloha...
 
   

[TigerPaws]

Welcome stanb4 and I am sure I can speak for everyone here we are looking forward to your trip reports.

Additionally I am happy to hear yet another 1 week wonder has made the grade, not that I recommend that approach to others it is just nice to hear.

Again Welcome.

TigerPaws

[Rags II]

Aloha Stan! Nice to hear from another of the class of '01.

We sure gave LP fits that summer didn't we? BTW, who didn't raise his ire on a regular basis...he's one opinionated bus driver for sure. Hopefully he's found some personal peace since then.

I haven't been back since '02 so it will be interesting what your take of the situation is. My wife is quite shocked at the changes that have happened in just the last two years.

A toast to you and your's tonight!                                    Rags

[stanb4]

  The 1st night there her mom had a mini feast laid out for us and then I started to get my body clock under control. Maybe its the thrill of travel, but I seem to readjust there much easier than coming home. Weds & Thurs were spent eating, sleeping, visiting neighbors, but with rainy weather we didn't do much and it was fine by me.
  On Friday morning we went to the Chernivtsi airport & flew to Simferopol via Kiev. The flight there was uneventful except for the funny noise the plane made, but once we got there it was a different story. Even though our tickets said Boryspil, we landed at the other airport. Of course at 1st there was no info, but for us it wasn't a big deal as we had a 4 hr layover. So shortly a bus showed up for us to transfer, but the people that had people meeting them we rather pissed. Everything was fine at Boryspil until 5 minutes before boarding an agent for good ole' Aerosvit calls out something followed by my name. I stand up, he says ticket...passport and grabs both from me & starts to walk away. My wife stops him, she yells at him and then he hands me my ticket & passport back and she says she'll be on the next flight. We board and I see that my original seat was given to 1 of their pilots. So instead of bumping a single person they broke up a family of 5. Fortuneately my wife got on another 1 of their flights that had been delayed 3+ hrs and got in 20 minutes after us. Two hours later we were in Sevastopol at my wifes grandparents. He served in the Navy for 40 years starting in '41.
More to come soon...aloha

[stanb4]

  The biggest change that I noticed was in the cars...they were a lot nicer, with brands I didn't expect to see. There were lots of new car dealships. The one I noticed the most was the amount of Lexus's there were, being that my wife said she never saw 1 there before 2 years ago. I also had never been out of western Ukraine before, where the roads were improved a bit. So it was nice to see that the rest of the country has much better highways and roads. I also saw more very nice houses being built & finished. There is also more modern stores, supermarkets and malls popping up. In Sevastopol we shopped in a market thats larger & nicer than anything we have here on Maui. And in Chernivtsi their "home depot" is 4x the size of ours.
  I also noticed the banks are paying 10-13% on deposits and getting 18-20% for loans. The economy is growing about 8.5%, thus I'd assume the inflation rate mustn't be far behind, maybe 6%/yr. probably more. Meaning those with money can get ahead, but those w/o will fall farther behind. Especially since the older people are less likely to use a bank, since they lost everything in '92. Of my wifes mom's 2 best friens/neighbors, 1 uses the bank and this year is using the interest for their 2 week Black Sea vacation. While the other doesn't & is always talking about how expensive things are...figures.

[stanb4]

  It was great being in Sevastopol & finally getting to meet my wifes grandparents. We hit it off right away, as they could see we a very close couple and that Katya really looked at me as her dad. Them hearing it for 5 1/2 years is 1 thing, but seeing is believing.
  They have a 1 bdrm, split 1 bath with a very small kitchen with 9 of us for meals, showers... w/ 7 there for sleeping( & far from a record.) There was my wife, her mom, aunt, our daughter & I joining grandparents & her uncle who live there and his son, who lives there for the summer. The last 2 slept at friends down the street.
  I read up a little about Sevastopol before arriving, but I never knew they only have hot water 2 days a week, Friday & Saturday until it runs out. We did get there on a Fri, but I adjusted quickly to the boiled tub of h2o and bath ladle shower. Her mom converted to the home h2o heater, but grandparents have debated which brand & gas or electric for a couple years now... I gave them 2 more years before I came back. But we really want it for them & their convenience.
  While we were there her uncle Sasha was off work recovering from a bad collar bone break. His son Oleck also took a week off from his summer job. He's 16 and speaks pretty fair english. So when we took our daily roadtrips bombing around in Sasha's many times rebuilt 1982 1300S burnt orange Lada, there was actually 4 out of 5 that could speak english & 4 0f 5 Russian... (more next time...aloha)
 

[ScottinCrimea]

Hi Stan,
     I'm enjoying reading your report.  Just a couple of observations:  ON top of the 18-20% the banks charge for loans, tack on an upfront "commission" of 12% plus various other little fees that jack the interest rate to above 30%.

Is the hot water deal year round and city wide?  I know some parts of Simferopol have the water shut off at night while our area. being in the city center, is never without water.  My wife says our partment now only gets hot water for a couple of hours in the morning and a couple of hours in the evening, but this is just a summer thing they are doing to save money.  For those with their own boiler, it's no problem.

I'm curious which market you talked about in Sevastopol.  Is that the new Rainford store?

[stanb4]

  We can't remember the name of the market, but the mall translated into "Big Pockets" mall. It had a car dealership on the bottom and you road a flat ( no steps ) escalator up to the rest of the stores and market. When you got up the food court was behind you, stores to the left & right and the market straight ahead. It was near the old ball shaped radio tower. My guess is its on the southwest side of the city. Her grandparents lived a few blocks from Victory Park.
  From what I know the hot water for 2 days is year long. I'd think anyone that can afford it will get a hot h2o heater, as I don't see the govt spending the $ to fix that antiquated of a system.
  As for the banks, I think in time rates will come down on both ends as more European banks enter the Ukrainian market and when the high rates bring the rapid rate of growth down. In these conditions you have to be a saver, not a borrower. And foreigners are in better position to take advantage of the financial opportunities now present in Ukraine than the majority of Ukrainians.

[Kuna]

Stan,

I'm enjoying reading your observations and will look forward to following your TR.  If you've got photos of Sevastopol it'd be great to see them too!

Kuna

[Jack]

Hello Stan the Man, glad to hear from you and see you are doing well.



LP, you out there reading this?    If so Stan is saying  "naww na nu na naaaww...told you so".   

[stanb4]

Aloha Jack, yes we're doing great. My wife has her own little biz in the condo management/cleaning industry here & last year made more $ than I did. She's a young go-getter and I'm getting lazier. Right now I'm 1 month into a 6 month vacation as the hotel I work at is under a total renovation. Pay & insurance to live on Maui. Right now our biggest crisis is my daughters big toe, yesterday she stepped on a sea urchin while surfing...