Oh, The Irony

When I opened my invitation letter to Peace Corps the first thing I did was look at the country I was being assigned to. Ukraine. Hmmm, what did I know about Ukraine? Not much. Cold. Kiev and Odessa are major cities. Snow. Chernobyl. Ice. Used to be part of the USSR. That was about it. Seriously, being from New York where we have been known to have some trying winter conditions, I prepared myself for what would surely be the coldest, fiercest winter I have ever experienced. At least I had a leg up on the volunteers from Texas, Las Vegas, Florida and Southern California, some of whom had never even seen snow before. It was going to challenge my fortitude in every way and I would hopefully come out stronger on the other side. When I arrived in Razdol’noye it was summertime and dealing with the heat brought on its own set of challenges. I got through it and around September began to discuss my worries about the upcoming winter months and the difficulties I would surely face. The thing is that Razdol’noye is in (or on) the Crimean peninsula and people were doing their best to assure me that compared to the rest of Ukraine our winter would be relatively mild. I remember one time telling a friend that I wanted to buy one of those giant, warm fur hats and he told me that our winter would only last about 2 weeks in February- hence spending that kind of money would be a waste no doubt. Those hats are good for people in the rest of the country, but not here- was the general consensus. Then winter started in earnest and soon came the snow, the ice, the cold temperatures, and the wind. That damn wind. It was enough to test my ability to remain upright and coupled with the real temperatures in the negatives (Fahrenheit) any outside walking was dangerous…at best. It would howl for hours on end, which seemed like days. My apartment was so cold I slept in my kitchen for a couple of weeks just to be closer to the radiator. I limited my time out when I could, but work and market shopping had to be done. As I walked, mumbling to myself things like “this sucks”, “is this what I signed up for?” and “damn this could possibly be the most cold I have ever experienced” I also reminded myself that this was exactly what I imagined living in Ukraine would be like. Day in, day out for a few months I weathered the storm, so to speak, and I listened to Ukrainians complain about the weather. “It’s so cold” they would say. “Sim, is it cold enough for you?” [I am pretty sure I wrote a blogpost last year about this phenomenon] and trying to convince them that I had prepared for this was something they couldn’t believe. A couple of times after relatively minor snowfalls they arranged for special sauna days to allow people instead of dunking in the cold water basin to actually run outside and roll around in the snow. They acted like they had never seen the stuff before. In fact, it was the first in 30 years that the Black Sea froze. They were shocked and I thought it was normal. But, as much as it sucked, I was getting through and hoped it was somehow making me stronger.

Lenara wanted her picture taken after one of these "major snowstorms"

This year? Well this year is putting everything into perspective for me. It started in about October when I started to see friends mention snowfalls. There were virtually daily posts from all areas of the country about the amount of snow or the effects of said snow- usually in the form of reported falls. With each passing day I thanked my lucky stars that we had skirted yet another storm. I would look out from my kitchen window onto the field in front and see that the brown of the dead grass and weeds had not been obscured by any of the white stuff. There were just more days hovering around the 32^oF mark. Well, the days and weeks went on and I continued to hear others’ tales of woe. And people whose posts started out as “hooray, our first snowfall” had turned, over time as they always do to, “when will this mess end?” or “Snow? Again? Seriously??” All the while I was realizing that this was exactly why things were so weird last winter. I see now that this winter was more of a typical Razdol’noye (Crimean coast) winter than the anomaly that was last years’ winter. Of course they had a special sauna day last year when it snowed! They hadn’t seen a snowfall of that magnitude (a couple inches) in years. Of course they complained of the freezing temperatures! They are used to winters hovering right around freezing and those subzero temperatures were a rarity for them. They were walking around collectively last winter saying “we’re not prepared for this”, while I was saying that I was experiencing exactly what I expected. This winter I walk around saying “I wasn’t prepared for this! Who would have thought that any place in Ukraine would have a winter significantly milder than that in New York?” As my friends and neighbors say this is normal, it took me a year to understand what they were talking about.

Why am I writing about this today? Winter is over. We have had our first spring days in the 50’s that felt oh, so good. Well, this past Saturday March 23, we had our first snowfall that would last more than 24 hours. This winter we did have a couple of overnight flurries that stuck only until about lunchtime. But this was the first snow that did not melt right away. On the same day the volunteer posts continued to go crazy. They got 50cm (a little more than 1½ feet) of snow in Kiev which caused a transportation emergency. We got a letter from the Peace Corps office warning us about traveling to some of the hardest hit areas. And of course there was the whole barrage of “what happened to spring?” posts.

 

A typical winter storm for Razdol'noye. A rarity, but a normal amount. This was Saturday.

This was Sunday. Going, going...

This was Monday. Snow is pretty much gone. Back to my classic view from the kitchen window.

Weather is a funny thing, I have learned. What I saw as normal, Crimeans saw as an anomaly. And now what I see as the oddity (a snowless winter) they are sitting back saying “yeah, this is normal.” It is the irony of me coming to Ukraine to experience a winter milder than New York is something that I might have a tough time selling once I get back stateside. I know I would have a hard time believing it had I not lived it.

 

Having some fun with Lenara. This was a day in the 40's and I demolished any existing doubt that I was the crazy foreigner this morning. Lenara walked into work and reported that someone we know was sitting in a cafe and had seen me on the street. She then texted Lenara to ask if I was sick (the ONLY explanation for wearing these clothes!). Funny though, on these days many women wear above-the-knee skirts, but no one questions their mental capacity.