Happy New Year!

Happy New Year!

       Wishing you all a wonderful holiday season and all the best with the coming 2011!

Maidan Square NY Decorations

In 2004 Maidan Square was were Orange Revolution took place. In Nov and early Dec this year constant demonstrations took place on Maidan as people protested against the new tax code. To stop protests the government decided to put lavish Xmas and NY decorations. So the square is full of Xmas trees. See on  

Driving rules

Driving rules in Kiev are flexible. Interpretation of traffic sings significantly differ in Kiev than for example in A'dam. For some drivers red light is optional. Parking on pavement is a rule. Not stopping on zebra is common.

Recently when driving with Kees on one snowy winter morning Kees suddenly told me: "You are not allowed to drive on this road when there is snow. Do not you see a sign?".
Of course I saw the sign. I even took a photo of it. What I have not expected is to hear such a comment from Kees who spent six years driving in Kiev.
Seems one needs only few months in a civilization to forget bad driving habits acquired while in Kiev.

Dangerous dog walking

On Sunday, Dec 26th around 13 hours, the ex-Interior Minister - Mr. Yuri Lutsenko was arrested. The arrest took place near the Lutsenko's apartment Kiev's Pechersk district.

Mr. Lutsenko was walking the dog with his son when a van appeared from which eleven Alfa specnaz operatives jumped and put Mr. Lutsenko in the van and drove him away leaving the shocked son with the dog.
On Monday the General Prosecutor's Office opened a criminal case against ex-Minister Lutsenko on suspicion of embezzlement in which they cited he gave his driver an illegal payment of 40,000 UAH (EUR 4000). Additional prosecutor explanation about detention is that so far Mr. Lutsenko avoided prosecutor's demands to familiarise himself with the evidence of the case against him which is about 25 volumes big and Mr. Lutsenko cannot obtain photocopies of. Under such condition anyone would  have difficulties getting acquainted with the matter.
But given his slow "familiarization" with his case Mr. Lutsenko will be detained for next 2 months. He shares his cell with two other persons.

It is amazing that an illegal payment of EUR 4000 needs 25 written volumes for building the criminal case around it and that for same EUR 4000 eleven Alfa operatives jump out of the van on Sunday morning while the person walks a dog.

For more on the arrest:
http://news.liga.net/photonews/NF100589.html
http://news.liga.net/news/N1037702.html

Circus

Last week a fight in Ukrainian Parliament got some wide coverage. Five people were injured. There are few fights in the Parliament every few months.

Following the fight last week - this week Roman Vintoniv - the journalist of the TV channel "1+1" decided to go into the parliament dressed like a rabit. His explanation: "If the Parliament decided to be a circus, one should dress accordingly".

Bubik

I travelled to Zagreb last Monday. Due to heavy snow in Europe over the previous weekend most of the airports were closed and flights cancelled. I was to fly from Kiev to ZG via CDG. On Monday CDG opened for some flights including Kiev but my plane was few hours late. On the airport in Kiev I spent time with Valeria - a cheerful 5 year old. She told me everything about her flying to some city she did not know the name - only there is a lot of snow there. Valeria travelled with her mum - Irina, and her teddy bear - Bubik. I learned a lot about Bubik. In few hours we waited on the airport we became close friends. Valeria loves skating and showed me a dance she does on ice. I was impressed. I am convinced Valeria is the future olympic skating champion.

Due to delayed AF flight I would not be able to catch a connecting flight from CDG to ZG the same day. After some conversation with AF they rebooked me on a flight to ZG via Vienna.

In the Vienna's airport restroom I found one young lady sitting betweens two sinks and working on her laptop. Some way to work.

Irrespective of few hours waiting on the airport - cannot complain much. It could be much, much worse.  I actually had almost very good time thanks to Valeria and her blue teddy Bubik.

Pensioners Morning Routine

Every Sunday morning at 10.00 am pensioners gather in Shevchenko park and exercise - irrespective of the weather. They are mostly dressed in yellow - seems to be their club color. While they exercise - they put old soviet style music on.

Visit from Budapest

Kees and Catharina came from Budapest this weekend. Catharina and Igor walked in the park:

Dec 19th

Amazing City Snow Cleaning

Snow storm has not bypassed Kiev. The storm started on Friday evening. Saturday was mostly nice but in the evening started to snow again and have not stopped. But - in the city snow has being cleaned. After last year mess it is such a delight to see snow being removed. 

The most amazing thing is that the park is wonderfully clean. I just could not get enough photos of park paths being walkable.   

2010 NY Party

The office had the NY party last Friday. The theme was rock&roll. Everyone dressed up. We danced well after midnight. Kees came from Budapest. Great party:-))

2010 ING NY Party

Back to travel moments - Doors on the staircase (3)

Still have few stories and photos to share from the trip to Kamenets Podilskyi in November.  I stayed in an excellent hotel "Cleopatra".
Had one of the largest rooms in a hotel - ever.
But I was intrigued by a door on the staircase. As one can see on the photo the door is half on the floor landing and half hanging over the staircase. I cannot figure out was it build with the purpose or this some wild idea of some creative architect or builder.

Winter sunset sky

 

Saturday Party

There was another gala party on Saturday. This time the purpose was charity. During the evening we were enetrtained by three bands. I most enjoyed "Zhiguli" whose repertoire are songs from soviet's movie classics. We had great table with fun people. Lucky Olga won the food basket in a raffle. Great fun: http://picasaweb.google.com/gordie26/SaturdayParty?authkey=Gv1sRgCLe8-cCl66-OLw&feat=directlink

Farmak's 85th Anniversary

On Friday I attended a party to celebrate 85th anniversary of one of our clients. The client majority owner and CEO is a formidable lady who took over the company in 1991. In the afternoon I and two of my colleagues attended the official opening of the new production line. The inauguration was attended by the PM. 

In the evening we attended a great party. The speeches while short were full of emotions. Main themes in all speeches were vision, excellence, persistence, quality, co-operation, support. Pride. 

The dinner also had an entertainment part: prima balerina was dancing famous Swan by Saint-Saëns. National Opera prima dona was singing various Ukrainian songs and arias from Ukrainian operas. There was a winner of the national TV talent show. At the end we were all singing and dancing. 

Had fabulous time. Very happy I was invited to attend. Pics at: http://picasaweb.google.com/gordie26/FarmakParty?authkey=Gv1sRgCMCk7KnHwpf9jwE&feat=directlink

CD-R/DVD dispenser

This week on a visit to a client's office saw at the building entrance a strange object: a CD-R/DVD dispenser.
Have not tried if it works. Prices look reasonable.

Glier Choir Concert

Sometime in June I made a post about Zoa Alexandrovna Tompson and how her Glier Choir won International Choir Grand Prix in Serbia.

On Dec 9th her choir celebtrated 10th anniversary. The Glier Choir consists of students mostly 17 to 19 years old. Zoa invited me for the anniversary concert. The Choir was also presented a distinguished Shevchenko medal for achievment.

I enjoyed the concert immensly. Also made few photos and clips.

The favourite was "Коломийка" (Kolomyjka).

It's a folk dance song and I danced with a camera while recording it.

It was great concert. At the end - to celebrate 10th anniversary - there was a huge cake - in shape of a choir.

City's Chief Changed by Decree

No post for some time.
Last two weeks of Nov I have been in A'dam. Upon return to Kiev had difficulties with Internet.

While I was away in Amsterdam Kiev had a major change: the President ousted eccentric mayor Chernovetsky "Kosmos" from his post as the Head of the City Administration.

Chernovetsky "Kosmos" remains the mayor - but without any power.

The post of the mayor and Head of the City Admin are separate in Kiev. The mayor is elected by popular vote and then appointed as city administration chief by the president. Upon election in 2008 Chernovetsky had held both posts. While the president cannot fire a mayor from the post, the president can by decree revoke his appointment of the city's chief. So Yanukovych signed a decree removing Chernovetsky as head of the Kiev city administration and appointed a loyal top local official Alexander Popov in his place.

The mayor's power comes from the position of the Head of the City Administration and as this power was taken from Kosmos - he is now as good as Kiev city mayor as any other Kiev citizen.

Since the presidential decree Chernovetsky would carry out "representative functions" and Mr. Popov "all management decisions".

Similar thing Medvedev has done to Luzhkov - Moscow city mayor.  It is unclear if Yanukovich was inspired to sign a decree following ousting of Luzhkov or by the first snow in Kiev. Some rumours say Yanukovich - as well as millions of Kiev citizens - lost confidence in Kosmos management ability after last winter disaster when city suffered heavy snow fall but no one cleaned snow for almost three months.

Next to appalling mismanagement of snow and ice clean up last winter, Mayor Chernovetsky will be remembered as:
- heading most corrupt city administration in the city history;
- starting bizarre schemes as charging for parking spaces at cemeteries;

- auctioning his kisses;

- auctioning his meetings for (allegedly) thousands of USD;

- recording a song;

- writing a book "How to become a Millionaire";
- giving a press conference in a pair of swimming briefs;
- performing "babushka" type of exercises to prove his mental fitness;
- having Rolls Royce shipped by private charter plane in October 2008 as his Maybach was three years old.
 
And let's not forget his daughter being robbed of EUR 4.5 mio in Paris - while shopping.

Following the change in the city administration the park is amazingly clean with park workers removing snow from walk paths and generously spreading salt to prevent slipping on the ice.

Space Museum Sergeya Korolova

After posting a blog yesterday I decided to visit Space Museum in Zhytomir today. Zhytomir is a small city of about 100,000 people. It is 131 km north of Kiev. The weather was glorious. Sunny. Blue skies. At one point 24 degrees.

While it was easy to get there, it was not easy to find the museum. On entering the city there is huge blue table on which it is written there is the Space Musum in the town. Sadly this was only table in the whole city.

But people were friendly and tried to explain the best they could (although I guess some of them pointed me not in the right direction). After 20 min of driving around the city - I got to the small square with a small building and two big white rockets.

The Space museum is a bit outside the center. It is located in a residential street with typical Ukrainian traditional houses. In the yard of the museum is the police station. Opposite to the Space museum is the house where in 1906 Sergey Korolov was born and which now is his museum.

The museum was opened in 1970 and while seeing outside of the museum I was kind of disappointed once inside I was thrilled. This is one of the most spectacular museums I have been.

Starting with the ticket booth where the lady selling tickets was measuring blood pressure of one of museum guides. I asked the lady if measuring blood pressure is a standard museum procedure. She laughed.

The entrance to the museum is made from same satellite doors.

With me in the museum was a group of visually impaired (blind) people. They all attentively listened and touched exhibits.

Their focus was communication. If I correctly understood discussion the group had with the guide - they were interested in communication satellites. It seems they are connected to GPS through their mobile which helps them in case they get lost. 

The museum has spectacular and in my view unique collection of space vehicles and equipment. There is the ORIGINAL landing capsule of "Soyuz-27".  Original reentry module of "Vostok". Model of soyuz spaceship. Model of interplanetary station "Venera-15".

Next to re-entry capsules there are samples of lunar soil, rescue spacesuit, which was used in-flight Yu Artyuhin and samples of space food. The interesting aspect of the museum is that next to these "space vehicles and other space things there are religious pictures on its walls. Including Buddha. In the center of the musum is the Bible.

To fully relax and meditate there are special "meditation chairs" which swings and have headphones to listen the music.

Overall - I had fabulous time in Space!

Photos of the museum:

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=303979&id=519882852&l=ce46e2c7d6

 

Official museum site: http://www.cosmosmuseum.info/about-en.html

Pensive Lenin - driving moment 2

 In Ukraine almost every city I visited has "Lenin street" and "Lenin square".
Usually on the Lenin square there is a sculpture of Lenin. Most of Lenin sculptures do not have his name - as everyone should know that's Lenin.
So far all Lenin monuments I saw show him in upright position i.e. standing, one hand in the air, showing the way/leading, giving a speech.

In city of Hmelnik - Lenin sits. Very unusual.

Almost original. This is the first time I see Lenin resting on a chair. With almost a pensive look. Reflecting upon Karl Marx? Was he wrong? Perhaps he doubts success of a socialist revolution?

But egomaniacs never reflect. Especially in Soviet Union. No time for reflection when you are busy making life of millions of people miserable.

Sergey Korolev - USSR Head of Space Program, Chief Designer of Sputnik

Entering Zhitomyr, a city about 100 km north of Kiev - stands a huge white marble monument with the rocket. I snaped a photo. I like rockets. My colleague Alexey told me this is a monument to Sergey Pavlovich Korolev. I gave Alexey a puzzled look. Alexey explained Korolev is the man responsible for all early "space" successes USSR made in 1950ties. Only thanks to Korolev ingenuity USSR was ahead of US in the space program race.
Upon returning from the trip I googled "Korolev" and from links below I learned thanks to Korolev USSR was:
- first in sending a dog in orbit (Sputnik 2);
- first in launching large scientific satellite (the 1.3 ton Sputnik 3);
- launching first man, first woman and first three men into orbit;
- launching first extra–vehicular walk;
- sending first craft to impact the Moon;
- launching first to orbit the Moon and photograph its back side;
- launching first to impact Venus.

Korolev also designed and launched the Soviet Union’s first communications satellite and first spy satellite.
He also started an ear of intercontinental weapons as he was first to launch a dummy thermonuclear warhead R-7, which traveled about 6000 km from Baikonur in Kazakhstan to Kamchatka.  US would match R-7 only 15 months later.

Korolev's life story is amazing: he was sent to gulag during Staling purges 1938 when he was 31. He was sent to Kolyma gulag - one of most notorious. At that time he worked on rockets design.
Allegedly he was "saved" from Kolyma in 1939 by his professor Tupolev (plane designer). Tupolev  has also been arrested in Stalin purges but put in charge of a special type of Soviet prison - sharaga. Sharaga is a prison for scientists and engineers who were assigned special projects and given relatively decent prison life (especially when compared to Kolyma) but almost totally deprived of outside contact.
Tupolev’s sharaga was assigned to the design of rocket–assisted aircraft, among other products, and it is likely that he put out a call for specialists, like Korolev, who could help him. Korolev remained technically a prisoner until 1958 (following Sputnik launch) when he was rehabilitated.
Korolev related links:

http://www.centennialofflight.gov/essay/SPACEFLIGHT/korolev/SP5.htm

http://www.daviddarling.info/encyclopedia/K/Korolev.html

http://wn.com/sergey_korolyov

Drive to Kamenets Podilsky - moment 1

Had to go for a client visit to Kamenets Podilsky this week. Its over 500km of driving on typical local roads.

We started early in the morning and by 9 am were ready for some breakfast and coffee. We stoped at cafe called  "Zholud" (acorn). The reastaurant was empty. No clients but us. Amon many empty tables one table in the corner of the cafe had a sign "reserved". 

The waitress - Elena - approched us and told us we can sit anywhere - but not at "reserved" table. It's a guess how Elena knew we had not booked the table.

Classified Foliage

Another gorgeous autumn day in Kiev. Amazing blue sky. Wonderful foliage. Mood somewhat spoiled by a stupid (what else?) policeman who got upset with me taking photos of a foliage. Pretended I do not understand Russian. Asked him in English and with some pantomime if he wants me to take his photo. He was puzzled first. Frustrated next and than a bit agressive as I continued to do the "foreign blond" act. Finaly he gave up. This happened by him suddenly turning his back and moving few steps to his partner who watched us all the time while smoking.  

After the policman left us, I instructed Igor to mark the teritory close to where he was standing. Igor obliged.

In retrospect the whole thing was weird. That taking photos of a folige gets a policeman off the tangent is the first one for me. Never thought foliage might be a restricted subject. Anyhow here is the link with - by Kiev police standards - highly classified photos taken today http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=302041&id=519882852&l=c1af8531ff


Almost forgot - today is the day of the October revolution. About hundred of die hard communist and as many policemen gathered around Lenin monument on Shevchenko bulevard this morning.

Autumn in the park

Wonderful weather over the weekend. Sunshine. Cristal blue sky. Amazing autumn colors.

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=299552&id=519882852&l=dd95834339

Concerts

Recently attended three excellent concerts.

First I was lucky to listen to Jamala in Cristal Hall. Jamala is something like Ukrainian version of Amy Winehouse. Powerful voice. Very energizing. More about Jamala at http://www.kyivpost.com/news/guide/chatroom/detail/84554/.

Next was Keiko Matsui concert. It was excellent in spite pf a small technical glitch with her keyboard during her first song. Something was wrong with her keyboard.

She was very graceful about it. In a very Japanese way. Once a technician fixed the problem - she loudly prayed to the keyboard to stay healthy during the rest of the concert. Very sweet. The prayer worked. It was a great concert. During the week I had to go with some colleagues for a client meeting. The meeting could not go worse. Following the meeting driving back to the office to ease the gloomy atmosphere I mentioned I was at Keiko's concert. Turn out the colleagues was too and enjoyed it as well. While we spoke about the concert the driver Gennady started to look for a CD. Found one - inserted it and it was her first CD Deep Blue. Gennady has not attended the concert but is Keiko's fan. 

Yesterday went to Kiev Jazz festival. First it was Oregon. This was very nice.
Relaxing. Classic guitar combined with soprano sax , bas and drums.

Lee Rintenour followed. Fell asleep and left early. No photos. Seems I am not such a big jazz fan.

Fun at Stedelijk

Some fun stuff in the Stedelijk temp exhibition:
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=282772&id=519882852&l=0553ab5f16

A'dam Window Shopping

For some typical A'dam window shopping go to http://picasaweb.google.com/gordie26/ADamWindowShopping?authkey=Gv1sRgCOvdvKnnh9ftuwE&feat=directlink

Stedelijk

 After years of undergoing restoration the Stedelijk has a temporary exhibition. Even if the exhibition is only until Jan 2011 - I am delighted as the museum was closed for years. I planned to spend about one hour. I stayed much longer. Which is strange as due to restoration most of the space in the museum is empty. It is fun to walk through empty rooms. I indulged in a fantasy of being an artist. I wondered how would my work look on these crispy white walls.

The exhibition incorporates few videos. I found the most funny one from Lucia Nimcova. She filmed  people in some Slovak village doing physical exercises. For me the disturbing video is "Enjoy Poverty" from Enzo Martens which he shooted in Congo. There is some japanese project where visitors read numbers. One can apply to read numbers at the museum info desk. One should read one hour. I also liked project "Measuring the Universe" - the participatory work where visitors - if they want - can on any of four walls leave his or her mark of heights, name and the date of birth. It's kind of different dimension of Gauss curve - most of us are in the same height band at at that range the walls are black - while outliers' names and data remain very visible. I am not sure if all of it is art but I had a lot of  fun. Will post more photos via picasa.