Ok, so let me start by re-assuring everyone that I don't plan to send you all to sleep with a long, sentimental blow-by-blow of the wedding. I've already posted some pics on Facebook, so if you're interested you can head over there. (I'll post the address in a sec.)
For now, let me give you just the bare outlines. The
Zhena* is called Yuliya, and I met her at work on my 2nd day in L'viv. She's an English teacher like me, and completely mad ("Also like you", I guess some of you are thinking). I was immediately interested, so I asked her to be my Russian teacher. (Sneaky man! Though in my defence, I really
was looking for a teacher at the time.)
Over the following months we kind of just became inseparable – like, y'know, a teenaged girl and her mobile, or a crocodile and a German tourist. (Northern Australian joke there.)
By the time we'd hit March or April, Yuliya was already calling me
muzh*, less and less jokingly. And so it went, until finally I rode up to her flat one day on a white stallion (completely true) and asked her if she'd like to marry either of us. I guess my luck was in that day, 'cause she didn't choose the horse – even though, truth be told, he was rather handsome )))
And what else? Oh yeah: the Happy Ending. I became the
real "muzh" in L'viv, on August 31st and September 1st, after I'd got back from my summer job in Finland and Yuliya had returned from her CELTA course in Kiev. It was like we'd rendezvoused in the city especially to get married, which was kinda cool.
Now the plan is to explore the world together ... starting in a few days' time.
I could continue rambling about Yuliya for hours, but I d'know ... somehow it just seems a little out of place, telling you my whole 'wife story' in these pages.
The Manor is supposed to be my "travel and teaching blog" (I'm quoting myself here – how's self-referential is
that?). That's why I went for the Facebook option. In any case, I'm sure you'll be hearing a lot more about Yuliya (a.k.a. The Belle) in future entries. It's my personal guarantee :-)
Meanwhile, the gallery is here, with accompanying details:
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=252767&id=753604782
Let me move on to try and explain my silence on the subject of L'viv**, where I lived between Oct 2009 and July 2010, where Yuliya was born, and where I find myself again now, in the aftermath of a bi-lingual wedding that involved a mountain of organisation and guests literally crossing the globe to be at the Big Event.
*ahem*
So ... at different times during the past year I've started writing L'viv entries, but they never seemed to get off the ground. I just had an awful time working out what I actually wanted to say about the place.
Its status and reputation as a city is quite unusual: among those who are well-travelled within the former USSR, it's disproportionately famous for its beauty, whereas for everyone else (apart from Polish people, who flock there in summer), it seems almost unknown. In 2009, when I was tossing up between L'viv and Minsk, I consulted a number of 'seasoned former USSR traveller'-type people, and they all gave me pretty much the same advice: L'viv is an absolute must. Phrases like "one of the most beautiful of all former Soviet cities"*** were splashed around freely in these advice sessions, so I naturally thought "Ok, cool. Sounds like a promising destination".
Months after that I finally arrived, but the circumstances were not what you'd call 'normal' or 'ideal'. For one thing, I was almost two months late because of visa troubles which had stranded and almost bankrupted me ... so I arrived as a poor, belated straggler.
Also, coming to L'viv was supposed to involve a 'reunion' with my good friend Scott, who I'd lived with in Kazakhstan (and who was 'Best Man B' at the wedding – Ukrainian tradition being to have two of them). But a week or so before I finally made it to Ukraine, Scott came down with pneumonia and was confined to a hospital bed when I got there. I couldn't even locate him in the city, so as to visit him in his 'hour of need' (though I later found out that he was being visited each day by a different local teacher from our school, making him the envy of his fellow patients as they wondered about the foreigner with the endless stream of beautiful young women coming to his bedside. Scott, you rascal!)
So that was ... well, it just cast kind of a weird light on everything.
Then there was the epic luggage drama, wherein I tried for three months to convince Ukrainian customs that they should give me my suitcase (which had been 'sent on' from Kazakhstan by my friend Zhazira), until finally they shipped the bag back to its origin without telling me. The result: about 2/3 of my worldly possessions have now been to Amsterdam (a transit point on the suitcase's return journey), whereas I haven't. Plus, I had to start almost from scratch in terms of wardrobe ... oh, and Zhazira has a very effective door stop.
Also, despite some outstandingly fabulous admin staff (feel compelled to mention the name 'Jana' here, just to give my L'viv colleagues the opportunity to nod in heartfelt agreement), my school in L'viv was basically crap.
So I guess you're getting the picture here. These and other things inevitably factored in to my early feelings about the city ... even though I knew that the stuff I've just mentioned was either a) entirely coincidental, b) specific to me or c) both. On top of this, there was the voice in the back of my head telling me that I should be blown away by L'viv, 'cause others had been before me. That also tended to put a slightly odd spin on my early days there.
One thing which was never in doubt, though, was the 'Beauty Factor'. In its low-key way, L'viv is a real stunner. It was formerly in Polish territory, and also a part of the Austro-Hungarian empire, so to say that the centre is pretty and ornate would be an understatement. I mean, everything is rendered on a small scale in comparison to other civic beauties like St Petersburg (almost the 'N' scale to Peter's 'HO', if you're a model rail enthusiast), but in a way that actually adds to the appeal. In good former Soviet tradition, it's also a very green city with lots of parkland, wide verges and large courtyards which lend an air of spaciousness and calm to the whole picture.
For me, though, the best thing about all this architectural treasure is its rather poor state of repair. If you love the painstakingly-restored prettiness of western European cities like Vienna, then forget L'viv. But if you're more turned on by phrases like "faded grandeur" and "atmospheric decay" (which I used in countless emails and
Facebook messages while trying to describe my new environs), then put L'viv on your itinerary for sure.
There's something quite dignified about a city as cute as this one remaining 'natural', rather than tarting itself up and opening its legs for the throng of tourists arriving on Ruin Air, looking for a suitably debauched location in which to conduct their buck's night. I hope L'viv doesn't change its mind about this when it co-hosts the European Football Cup in 2012. That would be a shame.
The city's run-down charm actually became the inspiration for a tradition which I really enjoyed, and which I miss now: the "Photo Day". These were days when I'd meet up with my friend Janet (a photographer), and we'd wander around decomposing squares, along crumbling alleyways and through messy, laundry-strewn courtyards with tangled electrical wires everywhere, taking pic after pic in between coffee/lunch/hot wine breaks.
L'viv is the kind of place where you can do that – and where you'll always find some new and interesting detail to point your camera at. Koroche: from a purely aesthetic point of view, it's a frikkin' gem.
The city also comes with its fair share of odd characters and random weirdness (though in this respect it lags way behind Kazakhstan ... which is possibly one reason why I prefer The Big K). On the "odd characters" front, my landlord and next-door neighbour Igor was hard to beat. If I could take only one memory with me from L'viv (apart from those involving The Belle), it would be this: opening my front door one morning to find Igor standing outside my flat with a power drill in his hand, one finger curled around the trigger, pointing the drill at the ceiling like a starter's pistol and wearing only a tiny pair of US flag-patterned underpants.
This was about ten days after I'd moved into my flat, and a few days earlier I'd asked Igor about getting cable internet in the flat. He'd brought the drill because he wanted to put holes in his walls, so that he could lay the cables. I wasn't so keen on this idea; it was a beautiful old flat, and I didn't want him to destroy the plaster in the walls if it wasn't absolutely necessary. I suggested that we get little pins and just tack the cable to the skirting boards, but in response to this, Igor told me something I'll never forget:
"Entoni", he said.
"Without holes, there is no progress."
I didn't know quite how to reply to this, and decided it would be best just to shut up and nod politely. But the incident inspired me to add a new item to my list of 'rules for good living' (a list which begins with "Never eat anything bigger than your own head"). The new rule is as follows:
"Never argue with a nearly-naked man holding a power drill".
I think it's excellent advice, and I intend to publish it in booklet form just before I die.
Btw, later when I thought about Igor's statement, I realised that what he'd said had more or less encapsulated one difference between 'developing' and 'developed' nations. In places like Ukraine, the 'Stans etc., there's noticeably more building, renovating, road work and reapirs than there is in the wealthier countries of, say, Western Europe. Construction noise and construction materials are an almost constant presence. Which makes sense I guess, since obviously part of 'developing' is mixing concrete, banging stuff with hammers, and yes, making holes. In fact, without the last thing, nothing would ever be bolted together, and there would simply be no development.
So there you had it: our future depends on negative space. The Way to A Better Tomorrow is through the holes we make in our lives. They are The Way Forward ... and my landlord is a philosopher for our times ;-)
Actually Igor turned out to be a fabulous landlord, providing regular surreal entertainment as well as genuine care and concern for his tenant. He frequently invited me in for coffee, soup and cognac (or whatever else he had), and every inquiry I made about practical stuff in the flat led to a long conversation about Life, The Universe and Everything – and especially about my marriage prospects. Like so many people I've met in the former USSR, Igor worried that I was alone and wanted to try and help if he could. His suggestions were usually more funny than helpful, but it was sweet that he was trying.
Plus he had a cute cat called Elka, who was always worth visiting )))
Igor also saved me from the clutches of ex-militia man who lived downstairs, when water from my bathroom leaked through the floor into his, and the cranky old bastard wanted to hang me over the balcony. So in a sense he was sort of my guardian angel, just like my previous landlady Natasha. Admittedly Igor wasn't
a typical member of his profession – most guardian angels, for example, don't
lift up their shirt in your hallway to show you their multiple stab-wounds, or invite your female friends into their kitchen to show off their weightlfiting equipment. (And indeed, most don't offer you cognac as "compensation" every time you have a problem with your flat or you have to pay a bill.) Then again, perhaps more guardian angels should do these things. You might feel a lot more well-protected if you knew that the Holy Man in your corner was packing some muscle and had survived the occasional knife fight.
There's one more L'viv-related thing I want to mention before I put this topic to rest. It's also pretty high up on the weirdness scale.
One morning during my first month of work, as I was preparing for lessons, one of the admin staff came and warned me not to go out on the street for the rest of the afternoon. When I asked why, I was told that the army was going to spray the city from the air.
Again, "Why?" seemed like the natural question.
The answer was that swine flu had hit the western part of Ukraine – and hit it hard. We had an 'epidemic' on our hands, and also a complete quarantine. Later that day, we discovered what 'quarantine' meant: schools had been ordered to close, the Slovakian and Polish borders sealed, and every road into and out of L'viv patrolled so that no-one could enter or leave. We were stranded here, in what was soon to become almost a ghost town.
During the first week of the quarantine (which happened to coincide with Halloween), people were in a panic. The streets became eerie, with just a few people rushing home, looking scared, faces covered with masks. Government announcements suggested that citizens should stay away from "places where people gather", so most markets and shops closed (except for chemists, who turned a very good profit). Restaurants and bars closed too, and public transport was almost empty.
But you know, creepiness aside, there was something that just didn't add up about the whole situation. The locals were petrified, but to Scott, Janet and I, it seemed somehow 'wrong'. Hard to explain ... it was just a feeling. In any case, the feeling encouraged us to head into town on Saturday night, looking for some Halloween celebrations. (Apparently they're usually big in L'viv, with elaborate costumes etc.) When we did, though, things got even creepier: the old centre was almost deserted, and there was a slight
28 Days Later**** edge to things. We saw maybe 1/2 a dozen people in costume the whole night ... my personal favourite being a guy in a kind of grim reaper-ish cloak with a gas mask. (Practical
and thematic!)
We headed to a restaurant/ bar called Kriy
ĂŻvka – a
24-hour place, normally packed and rowdy, but on this occasion depressingly subdued. There we caught some of Prime Minister Timoschenko's emergency TV broadcast. She was visiting rural communities, handing out medical supplies and
touching forearms sympathetically, all the
while addressing the camera. Swine flu had gripped the western part of the country, she said, but the government had swung into action and would save western Ukraine from what would otherwise have been its apocalyptic fate.
And there, it seemed, was the rub.
The quarantine lasted three weeks altogether, but in the second week people slowly began emerging from their houses. There was a shift from panic to mere caution, as more and more folks came to an audacious conclusion: namely, that the government had actually
invented the flu epidemic to get itself re-elected. And anyone who watched Timoschenko's speech would have to concede that it was at least possible.
I don't think we'll ever know the truth of this, but in that second week some very suggestive facts and figures began to appear. For example, while a few Ukrainian websites were showing a 'death toll' (regularly updating the number of people who had died from flu), doctors released records showing that the figures had actually been
higher the previous year. Comparing the two, you could see that when the winter of 2008 came along with its usual crop of illnesses, it had killed more people than 2009's so-called 'epidemic'. And every politician in the country had suddenly become a humanitarian hero, trying to show they were the bravest and most compassionate opponent of the killer disease.
Throughout that period, I found myself pondering the significance of it all. I compared it to things that have happened in Australia, like the 'Children Overboard Affair'. There, the government of the day invented a completely fake scenario, designed to make Australians vote for them because of concerns about border security. And shamefully enough, it worked*****. What's worse: when their deception was discovered, the government were allowed to continue ruling the country ... and people even voted for them
again in the following election.
Why? Because in English-speaking countries, if you want people to support you to an unreasonable extent, you 'play the security card'. People there are completely freaked out about their security – perhaps because the English-speaking world includes the 'warrior states' of the last 60 years, who have spent their time since WWII flying/sailing around the world to kill people more or less non-stop. Other countries are understandably sick of that, and people in the English-speaking world kinda know it (even though they would deny it if you asked them).
So during the epidemic-that-wasn't, it seemed to me that the Ukrainian leadership were doing something very similar. In the Slavic world – thickly populated with hypochondriacs who reach for the folk remedies at the first sign of a sniff – you don't play the security card to get re-elected. Instead, you play the 'health crisis card', and you achieve more or less the same result.
Interesting, I mused, how different peoples have their easily-exploited logical weak spots.
Wow ... did I get spectacularly off the point or
what? Sorry.
Anyway, that was my ten months in L'viv – or at least heavily abridged highlights of same.
Along with the good things I've mentioned, there were also some negatives; the racism pissed me off for one thing, as did the more extreme forms of nationalism (especially the "death to all Russians" kind). Maybe more of a drain than that, though, was the depressive outlook of many western Ukrainians. They feel ignored and unwanted by the EU – which ends a couple of hours west of their city – betrayed by their pro-Russian countryfolk in the east, and shat upon by their corrupt government, and hence they see no future at all for Ukraine. There may be some measure of truth in all of these things, but it's massively exagerrated in their heads.
I mean, obviously not
every western Ukrainian person feels like this. (The Belle, for example, has never been one to complain about the slide into socioeconomic decay. For her there are far more important things in life – which was one reason why I found her company so refreshing, I s'pose.) But enough of them do to make "Isn't Ukraine a steaming pile of crap nowadays?" an all-too-regular conversational topic.
I sometimes wanted to yell "Helloooo!!! Welcome to the world, people! You can find poverty, corruption, bribery etc. anywhere from Thailand to Tanzania. Stop thinking that Ukraine is the suckiest country on Earth ... or at least stop telling me about it! You're making me want to leave."
Of course, if you said anything like this, the usual response would be "Yes, but I think it's worse in Ukraine." At which point you'd just have to give up and let people wallow.
So yeah ... overall, I'd have to say that I felt ambivalent towards L'viv. Then again, maybe it wasn't that the city failed to inspire me, so much as the fact that I was focussed on other things. I remember saying in one email to a friend that "I haven't so much moved to L'viv as moved to Yuliya", and in the last year that has certainly been a fairly strong theme.
We'll see how the story develops from here.
In fact, we'll see very soon, 'cause in two days' time The Belle and I are leaving L'viv and journeying to another continent, to take up residence in our new home town. It'll take us two full days to get there, neither of us have ever been before, and it promises to be a totally new cultural experience.
Give me a week (or six) to settle in, and I'll let you know how it's all going.
Bye!
Anthony.
* "Zhena" = wife; "muzh" = husband.
** "L'viv" is the actual Ukrainian name. It's known as "Lvov" in Russian, "Lwow" in Polish and German, and "Say that again? Nope, never heard of it" in most varieites of English.
*** A pretty huge call, when you consider that the USSR covered about 1/4 of the world's landmass.
****
Cool British movie about a virus that kills off almost all of humanity, and about how the few survivors try to re-group and deal with the new, savage breed of human that has taken over. At the beginning of the film there are stunning shots of central London, in which you can't see a single person. Still don't know how they got those shots.
***** I'm applying the word "shameful" to all citizens of Australia here, not just to the government (who we already knew were evil little hall monitors with tongues that reached all the way to Washington). Anyone who calls themselves "Australian" should be thoroughly embarrassed to live in a country where crap politicians rely on lies and racist paranoia to get elected, where they succeed, and where, when they're found out, everyone just shrugs their shoulders and goes "Politics, huh? Whatcha gonna do?"
, rather than removing the bastards from office. Far as I'm concerned, if you live in Australia, you've pretty much forfeited the right to criticise any other political system in any way ever, 'cause your own system is clearly a frikkin' joke. So there :-P
At one edge of the throng are small groups of men, also lurking. Depending on when and where you are, they either stand expectantly waiting to spring into action, or lean back casually on their motorbikes, nursing cigarettes in their hands and calling "Hello! Xe om?" or "Moto?"* to passers-by. If you show interest, 
As six-thirty rolls around, something new pierces the airwaves**. Beatific music is blasted from lo-fi loudspeakers around the city, carried on cushions of polluted air to the ears of every citizen. And then a voice begins talking: urgent, shrill, and incredibly annoying. If you live near one of these loudspeakers, this morning announcement will finish what the lack of oxygen started, giving you a headache that could last you till the evening. It continues for about 15 minutes, then dies away and allows the army of scooters to once again take pole position in the race to corrode your eardrums.
To be fair, our Ha Noi experience hasn't been completely without adventure, and the city isn't entirely lacking in atmospheric spots. For the first few nights, we stayed in a hotel hidden in a maze of alleyways, which was fun to explore. The first day also saw Yuliya getting acquainted with chopsticks, as we ate in local restaurants, ordering from menus we didn't understand and hoping we'd get something edible that was neither frog, dog nor pigeon. That was kind of an adventure in itself. 
On our first weekend we decided to get out of the city, which gave us a break from the noise, but in every other way it just confirmed the ickiness. We went to Tam Coc: a place about two hours from Ha Noi, where you cycle through villages and countryside to a town beside a river, then row down the river, which goes underneath several mountains. The scenery there was rather beautiful (and quiet!), but again, the villages were ugly, with construction materials lying everywhere and reservoirs of stagnant water that stank so badly it made me want to bring up breakfast. And the weather was appalling. I lost a few litres of liquid just on the bike ride (which was only about 6km ... i.e. no distance at all, compared to my recent 'cycling days' in Finland).
Later we asked a couple of people about this, and they said "Yeah, you have to be careful about re-used food here". Great.
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