Kiev in late December

[Jack]

Flying into Kiev. Already by the 20th of December a fair amount of snow.

[Jack]

Heavy snowfall one night.  All those little white dot's?....snow.

[Jack]

The next morning. As soon as the snow stops people have shoveled the snow away. I saw people out at 4am in the morning, when the snow had stopped, to begin shoveling snow.

[Jack]

Remember Charlie Brown's Christmas tree? And these were some of the better choices.

[Jack]

Maybe some decorations will help the tree look better?

Or, maybe not.

[Jack]

Party on the 28th.

[Jack]

A little dancing.

[Jack]

My date Olya. A pretty good dancer.

[Jack]

One of two of our New Year Eve tables.

[Jack]

Walking Khershaytk on Saturday night.

[Zhena]

Did you show a socials?

[Jack]

a fiancee, we do not have socials. I try to educate guys as to the difference between our parties and the large socials. Sure I would like to find a more professional sounding word than "party" but if we were to use the word "social" many good women would not attend.

[Zhena]

Ok,I see. Just wondered whats that.

[Jack]

View from my Kiev flat. Bosiropka market across the street. Khershaytk street is in front of the market. You can just make out TGIFridays to the right about 200m.

[Jack]

One interesting note about the Bosiropka market.

Question, how many of the buildings currently on Khershatyk are still standing from the war?  Answer, only one, the Bosiropka market. The Bosiropka market building served as a hospital during the war.  All the buildings on Khershaytk today were built after the great Patriotic War and it's easy to see many of the buildings are part of the Stalin archicture design.

 

[dragonfly]

Bessarabsky market! You are mistaken!

[dorogoyroberto]

Bessarabsky market! You are mistaken!

No, sir, he is not. Both are names for the same market.

Roberto
Kiev, Ukraine

[dragonfly]

[user=330]:Ddorogoyroberto[/user] wrote:

Bessarabsky market! You are mistaken!

No, sir, he is not. Both are names for the same market.

Roberto
Kiev, Ukraine

 

 I am not sir! I am a woman!

http://oldkyiv.org.ua/data/besa.php?lang=en - here is a link to web site of Kiev's history! I can be mistaken...but I likved in Kiev several years, worked NEAR Bessarabka and I have NEVER heared people call it as you do it here. :D:D

 

[dorogoyroberto]

[user=894]dragonfly[/user] wrote:
 

":D I am not sir! I am a woman!

http://oldkyiv.org.ua/data/besa.php?lang=en -  here is a link to web site of Kiev's history! I can be  mistaken...but I likved in Kiev several years, worked NEAR Bessarabka  and I have NEVER heared people call it as you do it here. :D:D"

Ms. dragonfly,

Both names are correct.  Bessarabsky is the common  spelling for the market alone, but the structure itself is called the  Bosiropka building and, subsequently, the adjacent market is also known  as the Bosiropka market.

You are not mistaken, you have learned something new. As I have: you  are a lady and please accept my apology for the inaccurate salutation.  Education never ends: it is a series of lessons with the greatest for  the last.

Cordially,

Roberto
Kiev, Ukraine


   

[dragonfly]

 

[dorogoyroberto]

Ms. Dragonfly,

Well, Lilya says foreigners, especially me, are capable of  mispronoucing anything but she did say there is an alternate name for  the market and what Jack posted is "close to it." I should write that  we call it "Bessarabsky" ourselves.

Beat you? Throw stones? Oh, my!:shock:

Roberto
Kiev, Ukraine

[dragonfly]

Ms. Dragonfly,

Well, Lilya says foreigners, especially me, are capable of mispronoucing anything but she did say there is an alternate name for the market and what Jack posted is "close to it." I should write that we call it "Bessarabsky" ourselves.

Beat you? Throw stones? Oh, my!:shock:

Roberto
Kiev, Ukraine

Mr. Roberto,

I wouldn't continue the discussion.  I know 2 names of the market - BESSARABSKY MARKET and BESSARABKA (BESSARABKA is the name of the territory near the market). So yes, you are correct, Jack's spelling of market's name is close to BESSARABKA.

It was a joke about stones!

Have good evening.

Dragonfly.

[Elen]

a fiancee, we do not have socials. I try to educate guys as to the difference between our parties and the large socials. Sure I would like to find a more professional sounding word than "party" but if we were to use the word "social" many good women would not attend.

And what's that difference ( except a name)?

[Turboguy]

Well if a party is like a social but it is smaller, and if you called it a social not as many girls would attend.  If smaller is better wouldn't that be an improvement.   Just kidding Jack

[Jack]

Hello Elen, and Turbo, sorry it has taken me a few days to reply.
 
To answer your question Elen "what's the difference just besides the name".
 
Elen, I think it is safe to assume for some time now you have heard many ladies talking about how bad the experience was for them in attending the large social that they went to? I am sure you have heard some of the many stories these ladies have reported. Stories like 200 ladies and 20 men and most the ladies had to stand along the walls of the club or banquet hall where the social was held. And these ladies all had a number on their name tag, not a name, like cattle. These 20 men each had their own table and interpreter and they would point to this woman or that woman and have his interpreter go get her and bring her to his table and he would talk to her for 10 or 15 minutes, send her back and choose another lady and repeat this process time and time again. Have you heard stories like this Elen?  Have you also heard stories that maybe 70% of the women who attended the social never got to even talk to ONE man! Or that some ladies had taken an overnight train ride just to attend this social thinking she might meet a good foreign man only to be one of the many ladies who never even got to talk to one of the men and she could be seen leaving the building crying. Have you heard stories like this. Well not only have I heard of these stories, many, many times, I actually saw this happening. And Elen, it made me sick to my stomach and the last time I attended this type of social. How degrading of an event to these wonderful women.
 
Funny thing at the time when I saw this I said to myself if I were running the show, if I could ever do this, I would do it a lot differently. Little did I know later on in my life I would have such an opportunity.
 
When we did our first party we also called it a social. Big mistake. Many fine ladies that the guys had wanted to invite told us they would never attend such a social. These women did not know any different, like you, to them a social was a social. The events we have are so much different from the big socials I knew I had to come up with another name. I thought and thought and asked others what name could I come up with for our events as we could not use the word social. All I could come up with was the word party. I admit party just does not have the serious ring to it that I would like, but I could not come up with another word to call or event and I knew I could not use the word social if we wanted good and sincere ladies to attend.
 
So how are our parties different from the big socials? First let me say from the time we first started our first party until now the great number of differences between us have decreased. Our competitors saw many of the things we were doing and over time many of the things we do have been copied, for which I am glad. One example was when we first started NOT ONE of the large social providers paid their interpreters to work. These single and attractive ladies were told they could have the honor of working their social for free and in the process their was a good chance they would be able to meet good foreign man for themselves, and many did. Talk about a conflict of interest. I am using an interpreter who has an interest in me, and I'm not really interested in her, what the heck is she telling these ladies I am interested in? You guess it, many golden opportunities were sabotaged. When I pointed this out on our website within a few years all the major social providers began paying their interpreters. Yep, I can hear them now, the big social providers were cussing me again.
 
Elen we will not have 200 ladies for 20 men. Well I should say 15 men, most the large social providers today dream of having 20 men per trip but that does not happen so often anymore. We will not have 200 ladies for 15 men, we will not have 100 ladies for 15 men. We prefer to have 12 men and 60 ladies. Big difference I think between 200 ladies and 60 ladies don't you think Elen. We try to keep a 5 to 1 ratio. Oh I know, you and the antidate girls are going crazy with even this five to one ratio but I have to also look at it from the men's perspective, after all they are spending a lot of money to make this trip and they would like to meet a lot of ladies and this is the best scenario we could come up with for both the men and the women. Elen, if we have 12 men we will have 12 tables with 7 chairs at each table. Their are five ladies at each table and a chair for the man and his interpreter. Every lady has a place to sit, no standing along the wall for 3 or 4 hours. Every lady get's to meet everyman. You read that Elen? At big socials many ladies never even got to speak to one man, and our parties every woman get's to meet every man. We provide free drinks, juice, Champaign, food, sweets and snacks to the ladies and men. We also have games and gifts. And after the first two or two and a half hours of our parties, after all the guys have moved from table to table meeting ladies, it's dance time! And can these ladies dance. Talk about putting American women to shame, can these Russian and Ukraine ladies dance.
 
And Elen after every party we have ladies who come up to us and tell us they hope they are invited to another Firstdream party.
 
So Elen, those are just a few of the many differences besides just the name.
 
And yes Turbo, we think smaller is better.