In the Bleak Mid Winter

So here we are, fast approaching February, fresh from the trials and tribulations of celebrating two Christmases and two New Years. Before going any further, I should explain. I celebrated the traditional western Christmas of over indulgence and cringe inducing adverts that start in August. Here they celebrate the Russian Orthodox Christmas, which happens on the 7^th of January and seems to have introduced religion to the equation.

 Christmas Lights on Prymorski Boulevard

It was certainly odd thing going out the day after New Year and seeing people buying Christmas trees but that’s another story. The New Year I am referring to is the new New Year, i.e. the one traditionally celebrated in major cities worldwide, by pumping obscenely large amounts of fireworks into the sky whilst spreading obscenely large amounts of vomit over public pavements. Here we celebrated with the mother in law and a bottle of Ukrainian Champagne, Chateaux Chernobyl, which oddly despite being the freezer for three weeks was still warm when poured.

Anyway as usual my mind is wandering, so back on subject; here we also have a second New Year, old New Year. Now if you aren’t entirely confused, old New Year is another religious festival, celebrating the baptism of the baby Jesus. Honestly as an agnostic, seeing all the partying going on I was wondering whether there maybe was a God after all.

The point is that we are now officially in the bleak mid winter, my first in Ukraine and guess what, it’s not bleak. Now I know as I write this these are probably famous (hopefully not) last words, but so far the winter has been benign and forgiving. One of my reasons for leaving the UK and returning to sea in 2005 was the British winter. In January 2005, I had just returned from a photographic shoot in Havana and the very next day, I remember sitting in a car on London’s North Circular on the way to shoot a property. I had not moved for about 40 minutes. The rain was not beating down on the roof; it was driving past the windows horizontally on the cold breath of a howling gale. The gently glowing dashboard of my car indicated it was 2 degrees but outside it felt more like the end of days. At this point, I said fuck it I cannot do this anymore and started on the odd and meandering path that has led to my first Ukrainian winter. Now I am sure many of you know that Ukrainian winters can be harsh. Hell if they stopped the Third Reich they can certainly put a crimp in the day of middle aged expat. But you see, here in Odessa we have a certain something that helps us. The Gulf of Odessa. The relatively warm waters of Gulf moderate the harshness of the Ukrainian winter and although it does snow here and can get cold it’s does not have the cruel bitterness that the rest of the country suffers. Nor does it have the rampaging Atlantic storms that wreak havoc and bring misery and darkness to the Sceptered Isle.

So overall and so far it’s manageable. A few days of rain, some snow, a little above freezing, a little below freezing but very little strong wind. In fact so little wind that as I look out of the window of our flat, the trees in the yard still cling desperately to their remaining leaves, and its nearly February. That said, I am still looking forward to spring in this beautiful and endlessly engaging city.

A Few Things

Moving away from my trip to Moldova, I thought I might dwell on some of the subtle and not so subtle differences I have found between the UK and Ukraine. By the way, always refer to it as Ukraine. “The Ukraine” was a part of the Soviet Union and is a term most Ukrainians are trying move away from.

1.     Going to the supermarket for a bag of milk. The first time I stayed in Ukraine, Tania and I rented a flat in the city center. I arrived late so went straight to bed. The next morning, fully refreshed, I was of course, being English, gagging for a cup of tea. Problem was no tea, no milk. So off we went to Tavreya, the Ukrainian version of Tesco’s, to stock up. The tea was simple; it was Liptons (expensive and tasteless) or an unknown brand Ahmed English Tea. Now I am not sure who Ahmed was and how long he had been in England but his tea was pretty good. The milk however was a bit of an eye opener. Sure there were plenty of brands, different types, skimmed, full fat etc, the shocking part was 90% of them were sold in bags not bottles. Tania bought a half-liter, in a cardboard bag and off we went home. These days I have worked out the milk in a bag trick, but in the early days, just getting it to stand up in the fridge was like trying to get a duvet to lean against a wall. So I poured it into a little jug and lo and behold a few hours later it had turned to cheese. Today we still buy milk in a bag but we keep it in the bag, snip a small corner off the top and lean it precariously against the fridge. Never open the fridge door quickly; you will get a milk foot bath.

A Soviet Bread Truck. Nearly as old as the bread

     2. Finding decent bread. For a country that lived on bread under Soviet rule, it’s really difficult to find nice bread. In the UK there are sections of the supermarkets the size of football pitches devoted to the manufacture of yeast-based products. Here they don’t even add the yeast from what I can see. The bread is tasteless, it’s flat and un-risen and there is extraordinary lack of variety. Some of it has also been on the shelves since Lenin was thinking “I wonder what will happen if I fire that canon”

3.     Another shocking thing is the Internet. Its shocking how much better it is than the UK. In the UK it can takes weeks to install, cost a small fortune, never attain the speeds advertised and if you download anything more than a dozen emails you exceed your cap limit. In Odessa, we have had internet installed in three flats. Each time it has been within two days of calling, its cheap, unlimited and best of all fast. Blinding fast both up and downloading. It is nearly always bang on the speed you paid for and sometimes even faster and nobody seems to mind what you download or look at. It’s the Internet how it should be.

4.     Ring Tones. Obviously in the UK people have ringtones but as a generalization they mirror the British character, subtle, refined and conservative. I wouldn’t say that ringtones here mirror the Ukrainian character; I would just say they are bloody annoying. It would seem that despite being apparently ubiquitous, the mobile phone is used to make a statement. A loud statement. It’s most noticeable on the bus when all of a sudden the sound of Fiddly Sense or Booncey soundly erupts into the atmosphere. The fact that it comes from a speaker the size of my little finger nail and is played at a volume that would make even The Who cover their aging ears makes you want to stuff it up a certain part of the owners anatomy. Its awful in the extreme as well as bloody annoying, especially when the phones’ owner cannot remember which part of their anatomy the phone is currently occupying.

So that will do for today, there a many more differences, none of which justify a full article but which together might make a single one. In particular I am still debating with my conscience on writing about “Soviet” toilet paper. Perhaps if I give you advanced warning on that, the squeamish and those with vivid imaginations can skip it.

Someone’s blown a fuse again

In 1974, in the London suburb of Carshalton, there was a power cut. I was quite young at the time but remember it being about some blokes striking because they wanted to keep their jobs digging out dirty black rocks deep underground. I think it was the same reason my mum had to queue for an hour to get a bag of sugar. Anyway the power was off several hours. The same thing happened in 1987, but was only off for about two hours. Apparently the cause this time was that some storm had annihilated most of Southern England causing hundreds of millions of pounds of damage.

The weather is pretty good here, hot sunny, barely breeze above a mouse’s fart yet so far in the last three weeks we have lost power three times. The last time was last week, whilst I was sat at my computer typing some inane and boring blog that I do to fill my days. All of a sudden the screen went blank, Duran Duran disappeared from my headphones and the fan suddenly circulated even less air than normal.

Fortunately my laptop was charged so I concluded my inane scribing on that, then watched a couple of TV programs I had downloaded (don’t mention that to anyone). 

Odessa with electricity

That took a couple of hours and the end of which the power was still down, as of course was the internet. Boredom drove me back to the laptop to watch some more TV until the battery ran down on that. Ever resourceful I picked up my iPad and started to read some books on the Kindle app. For me, time disappears when I am reading, unless of course its this blog, and when the fan suddenly started to push tiny puffs of air in my direction again, six hours had passed. An entire six hours without electricity and not for the first time.

The following day with copious amounts of electricity coursing through our Soviet wiring loom, the internet went down. This happens anywhere so at first I was not concerned. After an hour of incommunicado I had look at what was going on. No Ethernet connection. This was unusual because if it was the internet service provider, the Ethernet would generally still be connected. Tania called them and they said that the line must have been disconnected somewhere. They would send someone out to check. They didn’t say when.

So without my cyber lifeblood I decided to take a cooling bath cleanse away the sticky humidity. Relishing the cool refreshing water I turned on the tap to the sound of echoic gurgles and very little else. The tap was notable by its absence of activity at either extent of its rotation.

Better in the old days?

So in the space of two days we had lost three services, two of them essential and the water. The water was down for about two hours but it took until the following day for the internet to return.

Fortunately, its all up and running now, until the next time somebody trips a fuse, digs up a water main or cuts our internet cable. Still I wouldn’t have it any other way, it’s the unpredictability that makes living in this country so interesting.  So if this article suddenly stops you will understand exa

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Getting Around Soviet Style

Back in June, I made a short visit to the UK, to tie up some odds and ends in preparation for my life in Ukraine. I flew into Gatwick, took a train to Croydon, where, as I was travelling light, I decided to save money and get the bus. It was a short walk to the stop and the bus was already waiting. I hopped on the gleaming 2 year old vehicle and marveled at its airiness, cleanness and at how modern it was.

“Single to Sutton please” I politely asked

“Sure, that’s £2.20 please” an equally polite driver replied

“Sorry, that’s Sutton in Surrey not Sutton Coldfield”

I nearly dropped the pound coin I had prepared and suddenly realized where all the £2.20’s had been spent. Buying the bloody bus.

Now you can call me Mr. Cynical, and you would be right, but to me, the bus is supposed to be transport for the masses, a cheap economical way to get about for those on low incomes or those in some rash misjudgment, feel that today, they will save the planet by not driving. The longest I am going to spend on the bus, traffic permitting is about 45 minutes. I don’t need comfy seats, air conditioning or spacious modern surroundings. I want cheap.

Air conditioning Ukrainian style

Here in Ukraine, they have got it right. The transport system had probably seen better days under Khrushchev, by Brezhnev it was antiquated and under Gorbachov it was derelict. Gorbachov gently handed the reins of the stampeding horse of communism over to democracy some 20 years ago, but still the same transport system exists. But that is not a bad thing. Yesterday, I got on one of the multitude of trolley routes that pass our flat. It was ancient; in fact I am sure somebody had carved druid runes into the paintwork. The seats were made of solid Bakelite, the disabled access bore startling similarities to the abled access and as this was a “bendy trolley” it had a big rubber bellows in the middle. This had a hole in it that you could, erm, drive a bus through. The pun was intended. Being a trolley, it was electric so you would expect whisper quiet. Not a word of it, in fact you couldn’t hear any words, there was the screech of metal upon metal, bumps, crashes and of course the sound of car horns beeping because the driver just cut them up.

Granted, the seats are uncomfortable

I had the misfortune of sitting behind an elderly gentleman whose personal aroma could only be described as a subtle infusion of garlic with b.o. The passengers were a cross section of Ukrainian life, Babushka’s, students, mothers and children, in fact exactly the same as on any bus in the UK. Except it wasn’t the same, sure the journey took exactly the same time for the same distance but it cost me 10p. No not a misprint, 10p. Yes it was old, uncomfortable and had I been in a wheel chair, impossible, but I wasn’t and so it suited me perfectly. I had to make a relatively short journey across town, the trolley stopped outside my flat and it cost next to nothing.

Of course there wasn’t much choice, I don’t have a car so it was the trolley or Shankys’ pony, but if I did have a car, I feel confident I would still use public transport. Now, where did I put my Ukrainian AutoTrader?

The State of Soviet Housing Stock

Unlike the UK, where most towns and cities display an infinite variety of housing styles, the Ukraine is stuck predominantly with two. Soviet Social and Russian Renaissance. The latter, is generally a 15 stories plus, modern jerry built structure, often with rounded corners and topped out with orthodox inspired domes.

The Soviet stock seems to have been inspired by Lego; both the shape and building materials. There seems to be about 3 basic designs, 5 story, 9 story and 12 story all of which are rectangular and utterly uniform. We are house hunting for Soviet stock based on two factors, firstly it’s cheaper and secondly its less likely to fall down.

When I first started to look at flats with Tania, it was somewhat of a culture shock. Many of the buildings look like prison blocks, some of them after a riot. From grey breezeblock to cheap and unevenly laid bricks, the exteriors are beyond depressing.

Usually it doesn’t get any better when you enter, the impression of a prison continues at the entrance doors. Heavy, steel and windowless they look as inviting as a cup of tea with Dr Crippen. The more upmarket ones are locked and have either a code to enter or a little magnetic key. In the down-market versions, the doors are open wider than jaws of a nun in a sex shop.

A Once Grand Staircase

It doesn’t even get better with the lobbies. Because nobody owns or generally cares about the lobby areas, they are dark, unkempt, musty and dirty. Some owners have installed nice lights outside the doors to their flats but many haven’t. Negotiating the lobby stairs at night is best done with a Labrador in tow and without touching the handrails. Buildings over 5 stories will usually have lifts. These generally look like the lobbies only a lot smaller. They are dark dank and small, with the ability to turn a career Agoraphobe, Claustrophobic. Rather than rise smoothly up inside the building, they clang and clank, bashing into god knows what jutting into the lift’s shaft. I am not sure if the buttons inside represent the floor you require or your chances of survival.

As dark and depressing as this sounds, its not all bad. When you go through the doors to a Ukrainian apartment its like crossing some sort of mythical border between the third world and the first. Most apartments are well decorated, often double glazed with high ceilings and thick walls. In fact better than most new builds in the UK. The Soviet touches are still there; the central heating will be communal and switched on only outside the summer, a modern boiler is need if you want hot water in July. Unless renovated the pipework will have been fitted with all the finesse of surgeon wearing boxing gloves and the electrical circuits may require you to earth yourself before switching on a light. In general though the apartments are nice. We haven’t really seen a very bad one, apart from the one we are renting at the moment and there have been a few which have been interested in buying. It’s just a shame about the estate agents!

All Estate Agents are Equal

Lying, cheating, swindling. These are all words that spring to mind when describing estate agents. In the UK they are renown for their high-pressure sales, ruthless behavior, pinstripe suits and BMW’s. Its exactly the same in the Ukraine, with the exception that the pin stripe suit has been replaced by jeans and a leather jacket and the BMW is replaced by … err, well nothing. Of the several agents we have met here in the last few weeks, the most striking feature has been the lack of wheels. Not a Lada between them, nary a Trabant in sight.

Fortunately, the money grabbing ruthlessness is still much in evidence.   One of the agents we were using continuously allowed Tania to pay his bus fare when travelling between properties. When we put in an offer on a flat, it turned out his fee would be in the region of $2000. And for that, we would be sorting out most of the documents on our own. To put that in perspective, $2000 will get you a very good Lada with low profile tires and an almost matching spoiler.

The Ukrainian property market is not unlike the Klondike gold rush. An unregulated and tangled madness, with everyone digging for gold but quite often getting stung when the mine collapses.

Let me explain a little. In Soviet times, life was pretty simple. You lived in a flat. The flat was owned by the state. You paid a little rent. Easy. When communism collapsed, in many cases ownership of the property went to the occupants, either for free, or for a stupidly small fee. Overnight a country of tenants became a country of owners. This was all very nice until some owners starting getting knocks at the door from complete strangers clutching fistfuls of documents. These documents, it turned out were the ownership papers from before 1917. They had been handed down generation-to-generation and now the pre-bolshevist ancestors were laying claim on their properties from beyond the grave. Except in many cases they weren’t. Sensing some easy money, some enterprising people set about forging papers and trying to evict people from their own homes on the basis of a 1917 document printed on an Epsom inkjet and aged with weak tea. It was a mess.

Adding further to this mess is the tax regime. If you sell a house within 3 years of buying, the seller has to pay 5% tax, the buyer 2%. Now, the wonderful estate agents, explain to the sellers that although the house will sell for say $40000, we will declare its value at only $10000. Wonderful, thinks the seller, I will save a huge tax bill. Whilst this is all very nice for the seller, the buyer moves in to his $40000 flat, and finds his insurance company will only insure it for $10000 and six months down the line, there is a knock at the door from the tax man trying to work our why your lovely home has devalued $30000 in the last 18 months and presenting you with the previous owners tax bill.

The estate agents know all of these problems but being silver tongued wankers, they manage to explain away all these problems with all the easy charm of a conman cheating his own grandmother. The problem is, most people fall for it and as such, the mess just gets bigger and bigger. We however are boxing clever. We are using a solicitor to advice us on these situations, and they are good solicitors. They must be, they drive BMW’s

A Pint with Pushkin’s Brother

Last night, I was temporarily evicted from the flat as Tania, my gorgeous wife, awaited our landlady. The reason for the eviction was simple, I am foreign which means I am money. Tania did not want the rent to suddenly double when the landlady hears me speak pidgin Russian with a broad Surrey accent.

So I went for a beer. There is a little bar at the end of our block that sells a quite palatable Ukrainian beer called Avalon for 10 Grivna a pint, about 85p or $1.20. Seeing as my pidgin Russian does extend to “Good evening one large beer please”, I found myself with aforementioned beverage on a comfy seat in the Dolce Vita bar on Shevchenka Avenue.

I had barely put hops to tongue when a late mid aged guy came in, bought a pint, and carefully avoiding the thirty or so spare seats in the café, plonked himself down next to me. Very next to me. It didn’t take a rocket scientist, and I am not one incidentally, to work out that he was drunk, exceedingly drunk.

He started chatting to me in Russian despite my valiant efforts in Russian to tell him I was English. Eventually the penny dropped and he started to talk to me in pidgin English, the pidgin being the identical twin to its Russian Surrey counterpart. He was a writer, he told me, brother of Pushkin and Chekov he added. I was surprised at this, as although I would never win Mastermind using 19^th Century Russian authors as my specialist subject, I did know that a. Pushkin and Chekov were not related and b. they died a long long time ago.

He continued, mainly in Russian swapping into English to say something derogatory about the lady owner of Dolce Vita before whipping out a book. It was his book he told me. He was going to write a dedication in it and give it to me, he declared. So he got out his pen, which oddly had no refill in it. Did I want the dedication in English or Russian he asked, I dodged the question fearing that this gift would require some for of payback, either monetary or alcoholic.

It took some moments for him to realize that despite his frenetic scribbles inside the book cover, nothing was happening. He looked over at the young waitress and asked her for a pen. Whether she saw the pain in my eyes, or whether she was just the world’s most inefficient waitress, I don’ know, but the fact was, she did not have one. I breathed a sigh of relief, gulped the last 200 mls of Avalon, made my excuses both in Russian and English and bolted for the door.