our friend paula from the states, lyala and a great medieval warrior!

our little cousin paula

meeshka hanging out at the river

the "weeds"

lyala playing in the "weeds"

i haven't been doing much since my last post. i have been playing chess online with some of yall and i finally started to look for a job. a couple of my friends gave me some good leads but i have not heard anything yet. then again it has only been a couple of days. today we went to the hydropark here in kiev. the hydropark is a large park like central park in the NYC, except it is on an island in the middle of the river. we didnt explore the whole things, we just rented a row boat and row row rowed our boat in the river. i didn’t take any pictures because i am scared to get my camera close to water, but i do have some pictures from when we were in chernigiv getting the car done. there are these strange "weeds" that grow all around cheriniv like any other weeds. they grow in medians on the road, in front of peoples houses and beside the sidewalks. check it out.

The bureaucracy is crazy here! Here is the story of getting our car registered. First, we had to travel to Chernigiv because that is where lyala is registered. So we started on Saturday afternoon. Yep, the ‘dmv’ is open on Saturday and closed on Sunday and Monday. This a good thing. The first step is to get an inspection to make sure the cars current paper work matches the vin numbers. There are about 5 or 6 numbers that have to match. Like the numbers on the frame and the engine and such. Well, there was a problem, there are welding marks around the vin number, so we had to go get it looked at by an expert. We were given the experts cell phone number (weird) and met him in front of a children’s hospital (weird). He looked and looked. Then we went to his office and he got some more tools and looked and looked for about two hours. He made us sweat it, telling us things like we will confiscate the car if it was stolen or chopped. He finally decided that the car was wrecked on that side and there was no fowl play like the car had been chopped. Then comes the punch line. He told us for $200 USD that he would make sure all the paper work went smoothly and quickly. Ha! Well lyala has a uncle that works for the transit police. So we contacted him and asked him what to do? It so happens that lyala’s uncle was the boss of the guy who tried to get a bribe from us. Needless to say we got our paper work from the expert on Monday afternoon. Tuesday: we had to get proof that the car was not stolen from the head transit cop office and get the paper signed by the head cop! So that took all of Tuesday morning to get this done, then lyala had to leave and go to a meeting in kiev. On Wednesday we spent all day in the main ‘dmv’ office to get the license plate. We got there at 10am and left around 7pm. All the filing and paperwork is done by hand so it is slow and they close an hour for lunch, and we waited around so we wouldn’t lose our place in line. So at 7pm we got your 3 month license plate. Since we bought the car in a different oblast (like a state) they have to contact that oblast and get some paper work, then we have to come back it 3 months to get the final registration. And still not done yet. Now we need a technical inspection sticker. On Thursday we went to get that and the key in the ignition got stuck and I had to spend most of the day fixing that, including waiting on a locksmith take it apart and could not get it back together because he lost some pieces. So I had to buy a new one, not a big deal only about $10. They call these Lada’s “do it yourself cars.” Now I understand why. So Friday we got to the technical inspection place and they said that we need a stamp from the ‘IRS’ to prove that our taxes were payed and a medical examination to make sure you can drive! But luckily at closer inspection of our paperwork, the current technical inspection that the previous owner had was valid and the ‘dmv’ forgot to give us the sticker. So back to the dmv, but they realized they messed up and gave us the sticker immediately. We are pretty much done now, except in Ukraine noone has the right to drive anyone else’s car. Only family members can file the paper work to be placed on the car’s passport (paperwork). So lyala has to prove that I am her husband and an untranslated American marriage certificate is not good enough. We will bring that paper work back when we go back in tree months I guess. For now I can only drive while lyala is in the car. Not a big deal I guess. And to think that we were going to buy a car in Bulgaria and try to import it! Glad we didn’t do that. So all is good now!

the "red bomb"

I guess last but not least, we bought a car this week. It is a Russian made car called a VAS or Lada. It is a 1.5l, 5 speed, carbureted sled! We don’t need it to get around Kyiv, but if we want to take Meeshka anywhere we need it and also to travel to Lyala’s mom’s house about 110k away. So I guess we should say that we bought Meeshka a car. All the imports are sooo expensive here. There is about a 50%(just guessing) import tax. I saw a 2003 VW golf IV completely wrecked selling for $7000. Lets compare imports, a 2003 Honda accord coupe 3.0 is $39,500. Yes that is in US dollars.

Later, for now.

For the 4th of July, on July 2nd, they actually had a US independence day celebration at a rugby stadium put on by the American chamber of commerce for charity. We went to that and I had some really good BBQ, in Ukraine! It was hickory smoked beef filets with a really good hickory sauce. I won a state naming contest and won a rip off of twister called tveester, again no copyright laws here. It is amazing how many Americans cannot recognize states like Minnesota and Arizona.

meeshka, lyala and i playing chess in our park

lyala, the communist guard, guards a gate on krishatik

jazz concert at the summer theater in the park in front of the presidential house

presidential house

Ukrainian parliament building

What do we do when we are not traveling you ask? Well let me tell you. We usually go and explore Kiev. Remember that this is a huge city and if we explored it everyday for the rest of our life we would still not know all of it. Needless to say, there is a lot to explore. We try to find English speaking movies at the theater, which hasn’t happen yet. All the movies all over dubbed in Russian. That’s ok because we can buy all the movies on DVD that just came out on the theater at every train station. We go to concerts in the park. We play chess. I am on the internet a lot.