since i last talk to you i pretty much have just been settling in. nothing really exciting has happened that i can remember. wake up, get on the internet, study russian, go downtown(there is always something to-do, maybe just not picture worthy). but this weekend was my birthday weekend and it was also kiev day. kiev is a little over 1500 years old. it is the oldest slavic city and one of the oldest in europe. so they have a good reason to have a street festival and fireworks. they seem to have a reason every weekend really. on kiev day they always have the final game for the cup of ukraine. the cup of ukraine is a tournament style bracket that invites all teams in ukraine, no matter what level, to play in. so the final was shakhtar vs. kiev dynamo, naturally the two top teams in ukraine. this happens also to be a very political game because dynamo, the team i am trying to follow, has a fan base around yushenko, the current president brought to power from the orange (peaceful)revolution. shakhtar, based out of donetsk a mining town, has a fan and administration base around yanakovich, the ousted president. but not much happened between the fans that i saw. there were plenty of hooligans though. dynamo won 1-0! after the game, we went down to krishatik to the street festival. here are some pictures from both.