Adventures at the Monastery

Dear Friends and Family,

(Bill writing)

Today is Thursday, but I'm writing about our trip to the monastery on Tuesday. This is a long post, but contains no information about the boys, so feel free to skip it! We will post separately about the boys.

This is not our best post, but perhaps our most entertaining. Read on...

We were picked up at 7am, because our driver, Zhinia, told us that there was a lot to see there. (As far as where "there" is, we're not exactly sure, but think we drove north to get there). We slept most of the way there, but our driver stopped 30 minutes before reaching the monastery so that we could get some drinks. I ordered coffee, and had learned to ask for "coffee Americana" in order to receive a normal sized cup of Joe; otherwise I'd receive something about the size of a double shot. Apparently the Ukrainians associate large servings with Americans...go figure. There were some folks peddling some wares there, so we browsed a bit. The most interesting stall was one that was selling dried fish, which included everything you can pull out of the ocean, including stingrays! Yum!

After that, we finished driving to the monastery; all told, the drive was 2 1/2 hours long. We quickly decided that it was worth the drive. The monastery was a collection of buildings laid out on the sprawling grounds in a symmetrical pattern, each complete with onion domes. There was a fancy stairway up the nearby hill, which itself was ordained with a lot of onion domes. Atop the hill was another nice church-like building overseeing the picturesque Donetski River Ravine. The whole area was limestone, and it was exposed on the hill near this last building. There were several old caves and tunnels that had been carved into it, with several openings toward the river.

There was another hill nearby, with a statue of someone named "Artem" atop it. We still don't know who this fella is, but we think he's some sort of national hero, as the statue was built in the 1920's. It really doesn't fit in with the monastery, but is interesting in and of itself. Across the river was a large park. We first toured the monastery, visiting several buildings and admiring the ornately painted undersides of the main frontal arch. Kelly had to wear a head scarf, which is required out of respect. We also entered the main church, where a service was being conducted. I once again showed my foreign-ness when the attendant at the entrance said something to me a few times, then said, "you don't speak Russian, do you?" He then told me that I was on the female side of the church (see, not everyone thinks I resemble a girl!). I stayed near the entrance of the place, so he later started up a conversation with me, telling me that monks were chanting the most sacred part of the service at that moment, the Eucharist. I thought he was hinting that I should leave, but realized I misunderstood his intention when we were leaving and he said, "you come see us again, OK?"

After touring the grounds, we took a drive up the hill with the statue on it. There were other monuments near Artem, commemorating World War II. The statue was probably 20 feet high. There was a magnificent view of the monastery from up there as well.

After this, Zhinia drove us to the other hill, where we walked to the hill-top building. It was closed, but we still got to enjoy the view. Next we went back to the car, where the driver pulled out a flashlight and told us we were going to visit caves. "Oh splendid," we thought, "we're going to have another jolly trip under the church and see some more tombs, and we'll be done lickety-split. Smashing good fun!"

Not exactly. First we started walking away from the church down a narrow hiking trail. It soon started going down in a hurry, reaching some levels of steepness that required very careful foot placement. We actually went all the way down to the river, and reached a little building that we guess was someone's house. Zhinia yelled to it, but nobody came out. Nonetheless, we followed the trail around it, having to hold onto a chain link fence at certain points. The trail became insane after that...reaching points where we were transversing 45 degree slopes, with some very crude footholds in the clay surface. On the plus side, there weren't that many other tourists (OK, no-one)--apparently they were all doing something sane at the time. (Kelly didn't think that observation was too funny when I said it at the time).

We really had no idea how far away the caves were, but after we observed that we'd been on this crazy trail for AN HOUR, we wondered if Zhinia knew what the heck he was doing. At one point he said what could only have been an expletive, leaving us to wonder what he said: "[expletive], I thought that cave was around here!" or "[expletive], where the [expletive] are we?"

OK, folks, let's recap, shall we? We are in a foreign country, and do not speak the language. We are somewhere in rural Ukraine. We are with a guide, who does not speak any English. We hadn't seen another soul for an hour. We didn't know where we were going, be we knew that we started walking from a point where there was a perfectly good car with a perfectly good heater, parked in a perfectly good parking lot that was perfectly level. At any point, one of us could easily slip and slide into the river 20 or so feet below, whacking a tree or two on the way. I was half expecting to hear that banjo tune from that certain Burt Reynolds flick at any moment...

Enough with the drama, already. We got there finally. At that point we stopped and had a crude conversation using our translation book. I said the following two words in Russian, intoning them as a question: "return--different?" Zhinia said yes, and pointing to the way we had just came and said the Russian word for "beautiful"--apparently, we had just taken the scenic route.

The cave itself was half way up a hill, reachable by getting up a slick slope of clay. Fortunately, someone had constructed a crude ladder out of logs that reached ALMOST to the top. Near the top, I slipped and fell, muddying myself all over, but was no worse for wear otherwise. The caves proved to be interesting, if only to make one stop and think of all the hard work that had gone into carving them. There were hallways and rooms, all precisely carved, thankfully to a height of a little over six feet tall.

The return trip was uneventful, as we walked along farmers' fields. We next went to the park that was across the river from the monastery, where Zhinia treated us to a barbecue. He had a small square grill, into which he placed wood. He lit the fire, and took me down to the river for fishing. I'm not sure what we were fishing for, but it was called "Shooka." Zhinia would point to his teeth after each time he said the word, so apparently shooka have some good choppers. It will have to remain a mystery to me, because the only thing we caught was some seaweed and a ball bearing pack.

After the wood had burned down to coals, Zhinia got to work. Dinner was pork kabobs, which he'd been marinating in something that smelled great. He told me that it was lemon juice, mayonnaise and spices. Mayonnaise--of course, what else? It was very good tasting, however, and the three of us had no problem eating it all. We were entertained by one of the many stray dogs that came up to us. He was a small dog, but could pack away the pork!

After this, Zhinia asked me if we wanted to see a 600 year old oak tree that was nearby, and I couldn't say no. It was...a, um...big tree. Yessir.

After that, we hit the road, and we both fell asleep. We made it home in one piece and went straight to bed!

Peace & love,
Bill & Kelly