Ukrainian Independence Day, 2005

From MemoryArchive

Who: Catherine Gstattenbauer
What: Ukrainian Independence Day 
When: August 24, 2005
Where: Nadvirne, Ukraine

A Bloody handprint on the wall of a Nazi/ Red Army prison was enough to remind me of the significance of where I was standing. The basement of the Nadvirne, Ukraine City Museum was full of these reminders, including engravings by prisoners on the wall and a noose made of human hair used only 60 years ago in a female prisoner’s suicide. Among the artifacts in the museum, these were the pieces that made my skin crawl the most. It was the 14th celebration of Ukrainian Independence Day and I was lucky enough to be in Nadvirne with my fellow members of the volunteer work camp to experience the pride and culture shock of this day.

The 2 week volunteer work camp I was participating in was meant to insulate windows in an orphanage in a small town in the south of Ukraine at the foothills of the Carpathian mountains. My team consisted of 13 people with at least 5 Ukrainians and the rest from Europe and one from Japan. Given the day off from work in order to participate in the festivities, most of the group ended up in the center of town trying to enjoy the planned activities like museum tours and ceremonies in the square and also a big event at the community center celebrating traditional Ukrainian foods, singing and dancing.

As I was leaving the city museum trying to shake off the effects of the bloody hand print, I saw a man in uniform standing proudly across the square from us. He looked to be about 70 and had eyebrows so big and bushy I thought he probably had a hard time seeing out from under them. I nudged the Ukrainian group leader and I asked with excitement, “is that the same type of uniform we saw in the museum?” He said, “Yes. That is a member of the Ukrainian Insurgent Army. Do you want to speak to him?” “Hell no,” I said. “He would never talk to me. But do you think he might let me take a picture with him?” I was like a 5 year old meeting Mickey Mouse for the first time. For someone interested in that time period of Soviet history, nationalist resistance, and Ukrainian history like I am, this was too cool.

So we casually and modestly wandered up to this man and the Ukrainian team leader asks him if he would be nice enough to allow me to get a picture with him. His question was likely more along the lines of: “This obnoxious American that I work with desperately wants to prove how much like a Japanese tourist she is by getting a picture with you. Would you mind so she will leave me alone?” Either way I got my shot and he and his wife were very nice about inviting us to the community center to watch the program with the Ukrainian dancing, singing, food and clothing. They also were nice enough to invite the entire group from the orphanage to eat at their house afterwards. We had to decline because we thought stuffing 13 people into the likely very tiny house of a couple of pensioners would be more rude than not going. I would have loved to have gotten a couple of hours, a good translator, and a big pot of coffee (brewed coffee, not that instant crap that Europe seems to like) with the two of them because I imagine their memoirs are worth much more than mine.

So the community center was amazing and the food there finally made me believe that there actually was something worth eating and not getting sick from in Ukraine. We became quite the stars when people started to find out that we were foreigners and even more food was shoved down our throats. In the theater we watched groups of different compositions perform songs in their traditional dress. Some consisted of older women whose voices had deteriorated somewhat and who sang wonderfully sad songs that matched well with their voices. Other groups were all men, many of whom seemed very wobbly and drunk to me. When the men and women combined, they were much more of an enthusiastically and slightly drunk bunch that got the whole crowd clapping and stomping along to tunes that were obviously popular in Ukraine for probably over a hundred years. When we left, we did so only because the big Independence Day meal was about to be cooked back at the orphanage we were living in and we needed to buy the assortment of Ukrainian liquors and wines to get the evening started off properly. Ukrainians seem to take great pride in their liquor. Many a Ukrainian told me how they invented vodka. I haven’t checked up on this fact yet, but they at least seemed to have perfected it. I strongly believe that a country’s supermarkets tell a lot about the values of its citizens. Food and culture are as inseparable as religion and culture, it seems. When going into the stores in Ukraine, I always found that the shelves for vodka, chocolate and mayonnaise/ketchup were much larger than other shelves. After eating and shopping with many Ukrainians, I found my theorem was clearly proved in that they were always eager to show me how fabulous these products were. Many may find my interest in Ukrainian vodka to be rooted in some juvenile obsession with partying. This is a total fallacy, even though I can assure you that I may have perhaps slipped in a few drunken nights during my trip. Independence day was one of them.

So we return to the bat cave with all the spoils of war and start the grill up to get the food going. When I say grill, it is important to flush from your mind the American concept of what that may look like. I, personally, grill on a $400 gas grill that is more high tech than my car. It is smooth and streamlined and hums like a Porsche. The grill we cooked on was a rusted metal box about the size of a medium-sized toolbox that was probably made in the mid-eighties for something other than grilling in. They set this box on the ground in the pouring rain and filled it full of cherry wood. I was extremely skeptical that this meal would ever happen and thus stepped aside and spouted my nay-saying to some “civilized” Europeans who understood my pains in watching this barbaric fire-making ritual that was so clearly doomed. We ended up drinking for a solid 2 hours before the fire was ready and food was able to be cooked. The meal was to be mutton marinated in some special mayonnaise (who the hell marinates in mayonnaise?) and onions and lemons and oodles of herbs. I was told it was a Georgian recipe, and if so I look forward to thanking the next Georgian I meet because it was fantastic. I had never had mutton before and was skeptical that it would be tough and fatty, but it was perfectly tender and juicy and amazing. Along with the mutton, we had roasted peppers, onions, tomatoes, garlic, and potatoes and I was overwhelmed by the joy of a great meal and a great buzz and great company. Every few minutes we had yet another toast with yet another alcohol in yet another language. It kicked ass.

At some point, some idiot decided that we should all sing our national anthems, given that we probably had a total of 7 or 8 nationalities amongst us. The drinking was both the necessary encouragement for the shy ones to get up and sing and a hindrance to the quality of singing that was heard. Nonetheless, I managed to eek out a drunken chunk of my national anthem until that soprano part got too nasty and was forced to drop out. There was then a cry from the crowd for me to say a few words, given that I was the loud American of the group and had a tendency to rattle on about something anyway. Never one to back down from a good excuse to spout some nonsense, I chose instead to be the goodwill ambassador to my country as I felt I should be. I then said something to the effect of: “As the only American here, I am granted the ability to speak for my country in the way I wish that my country could be heard. On that point, I would like to say that all too often my country has far too much to say and I think it best that, just this once, I will sit down and shut up. Thank you.” The truth is probably a variant of that, but the meaning is the same. My previous weeks in Ukraine had taught me that quite a few people in quite a few countries think we need to lay off everyone, and I decided to pretend to agree without going off on some international political crap that everyone was tired of hearing. After that I had a contest to see who could eat the most whole cloves of garlic and no one asked me to speak again.

The whole event was starting to get to me in the sense that everyone was so happy and so friendly and all I could think of is how 60 years ago, this could never have happened. One of my closer friends of the group was from Dresden and I am sure he would have wanted to see me dead after what we did to his city so long ago. But now we are over it and conflicts subside and wounds heal over generations until we find another reason to hate each other. I was overwhelmed also by the eager attitude of the people my age with the orange shirts and orange scarves that they wore on Independence Day to celebrate a new era in Ukrainian politics since the Orange Revolution. They seemed so excited with this new beginning, even if I am habitually skeptical about rapid and positive change in the former republics. I made a point get into some weird argument/discussion with an 18 year old who is an engineering student in Kiev about the problems with corruption or something too absurd for that hour of the evening and level of intoxication. The evening ended with my fabulous meal and fabulous liquor coming back to take a bow as I was carefully put to bed to fight another day. I awoke hangover-less and enlightened on the beauty of Ukrainian independence and the hope of the rising generation, although some of the facts on the evening activities had to be relayed to me that glorious morning.