Monday Morning Blues … we awake to a miserable, soggy, wet day in Kyiv; breakfast of the usual; gritschke, meat from a recent feast, eggs and coffee. I had intended for today to be a day of walking Central Kyiv; to visit some sites and to gauge the mood; but, maybe not such a good idea today. A perfect day for some paperwork and some catching up; … until, no power; a four hour outage that transpired to be much less; but, nonetheless, a reminder of what lies ahead.
As promised, Valeriy’s wish list arrived from the Microsurgery Department at Okhmatdyt; it made for alarming reading:
A surgical diode laser
X-ray protective aprons and neck collars
Fogarty embolectomy catheter
Venous infrared scanner
Canvas for oscillation saw
Hydrogel dressings for burns
Electric drill Biomed
It made me think more that we were heading to the local builders’ merchants; such is the advancement in medical technology. Valeriy had managed to source all of this from within Ukraine; some would be delivered to Okhmatdyt on Thursday; some we must collect from the nearby Nova Poshta, the express delivery service that, even through these trying times, operates flawlessly across Ukraine; a case of packages arriving almost before you have posted them; and, nothing dumped thoughtlessly on a soggy doorstep. Despite its problems, there’s much we could embrace from this nation.
Today is Oleg and Tanya’s eighteenth wedding anniversary; Oleg is here in Kyiv; Tanya and their two boys are in Truro; a difficult day for both. Tanya is a wonderful artist; I first ‘met’ her as one of the Ukrainian ‘refugee artists’ who so beautifully painted the walls of the Learning Without Borders School in Budapest we helped establish in the early days of the war (today’s picture, LWB Children with The Duchess of York, November 2022).
Oleg and Tanya spoke on the phone; I spoke with Tanya; she said ‘Nick, why can you see more of my husband than I do’; hard moments. There are many things that I find ‘hard’ about this journey; but the hardest, I think, is being the intermediary. Sitting in an apartment in Kyiv, enjoying a meal with a family whose partner or sister or daughter or grandkids we’ve helped to England; their loved ones in a distant land connected by a WhatsApp video call. Not right; full stop.
This was first brought home to me a year ago; Peter collected me from the Hungary-Ukraine border and drove me to Mukachevo to catch the train to Kyiv. He said how I could go for a beer with him today; for a beer with his Son tomorrow; yet he and his Son are unable to go for a beer together. Not right; full stop.
And so, I took Oleg and Dmitry for a meal tonight. We headed to Pivna Duma, a brewery and restaurant serving European and Ukrainian cuisine with its own brewery, brewing craft beer in Ukraine for more than twelve years under the watchful eye of Serhiy Goyko. Pivna Duma has a rich history, a three-time winner of the All-Ukrainian restaurant award ‘Sil’ in the ‘Best Beer Restaurant’ category.
The food (and beer) in this place is amazing. We settled for a shared stater ‘Board of Hot Snacks’ comprising jalapeño peppers, abalone in soy sauce, mozzarella fries, BBQ chicken wings, dumplings and dried salted koryushka (smelts). We followed this with ‘Rulk’; whatever’s that I hear you think; in fact, stewed pork shank, stewed cabbage and beetroot horseradish; delicious; the crackling turned to perfection.
Oh, I nearly forgot; washed down with sour raspberry beer; Serhiy, master brewer, was telling us this had involved the de-seeding of 700 kgs of raspberries. And, the boys insisted I try a shot of a particular seasonal drink; horseradish vodka; more horseradish than vodka; hot.
Not the night Oleg would have chosen but, nonetheless a cherished memory; outside, cold; the first frosts of winter; we pray that Mother Nature, like last winter, will again be kind; the nation is already bracing itself for the months ahead.
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