From Prosperity to Despair

Ukraine is a country of social contrasts. There are ultra-rich people who drive Bentleys and buy $1000 neckties. And there are people who are struggling every day to make the ends meet. There is almost no middle class. Our friends are the perfect example – some of them are very wealthy, and the others are not sure whether they’ll have a dinner on the table every night.

There are lots of beggars on the streets. Unfortunately, it became a lucrative business, and very often mothers with infants asking for money, are not real mothers – they are just renting the babies for work. There are disabled people, who in many cases are not disabled, but are made up to look like disabled. And there are old people. These old women singing with mezzo-soprano voices for money, or old men, veterans of Great Patriotic War, playing the accordion, just break our hearts, and we always give them money. It’s very hard for the average Ukrainians to make the ends meet. The groceries prices in Odessa are very similar to ours. The prices for clothes are astronomical, I’m not even talking about the boutiques in downtown – they are always empty, I don’t know how they stay in business. I went to the children’s store, which was not the most expensive. Do you know how much is highchair? $260. Car seat? $350. Snowsuit? How about $330? It’s no wonder there are so many orphans in Ukraine – poverty is everywhere.

Despite the amount of money changing hands everywhere, Ukraine is still very much a cash society. People are getting their paycheck in cash, paying bills in person in cash, and of course using cash in the stores on the daily basis. Everybody seems to be very proficient when calculating money :) For example, if my purchase in the grocery store comes to 14.30 grivna, and I’m about to pay with the 20-grivna bill, the cashier will always ask me to give 30 additional kopiyka coins so that she can give me 6 grivna even as a change. In some cases it’s not as easy! For example, yesterday I bought something for 15.90 grivna. I was asked to give 1.15 grivna more in addition to my 20 grivna bill so that she could give me one bill of 5 grivna and one coin of 25 kopiyka back!

Here are a couple of other observations I made:

Everybody smokes in Ukraine. And they are smoking inside in their own apartments! Every time we are invited for dinner, the hosts are smoking at the dinner table! Though the last time we had dinner with friends, we finally made everybody to go outside to smoke, so at least we were able to inhale a clean air for a change :)

The wedding rings are worn on the right hand. I think it comes from Russian Orthodox Church, though people of all religions wear it on the right hand. The wrong perception there is that only Catholics are wearing their wedding rings on the left hand. When we moved to the States I started wearing my ring on the left hand, as everybody else. Guess what? One of my dear friends finally asked me yesterday: “I apologize, but did you convert to Catholicism?” And I explained that people of all religions wear their wedding rings on the left hand in America, whether they are Jewish, Christian, Catholic or others.

The superstitions are still the same, and even more. I forgot some of the customs I recently wrote about! One of our friends showed me the picture of his 15-year old daughter. Of course I oohed and aahed and said how beautiful his daughter is. He immediately started knocking on the wood and pretending to spit over his left shoulder! I totally forgot that you are not supposed to say good things about the children, even as old as 15 :)

And finally I have a bit of good news. There is a real possibility that we’ll have a court session this week. But I’m afraid to jinx it, so I won’t say anything more :) Stay tuned!