A very beautiful day in Molochne

 

Privyet!

I wake up this blog after a long sleep to tell about a beautiful day I spent with my wife in the village Molochne in the Crimea.

This village is a well kept secret.

We came here Monday evening after dark, and had a little struggle finding a place to sleep. In October summer season is over, and the village’s only pensionate is closed for the winter.

Every day we have spent in the best way possible, at morning down to the sea – and stay there.

This Thursday we intedended to follow excactly the same plan. The only moderation was to change to the beach next to the old time Soviet space center with the magnefic parabola. Then we could combine the visit to the beach, with a visit to the center.

Our cunning plan had an extra detail to add tons of flavour: We bough not a bottle – but a – in Norwegian – melkekartong of wine, to keep our company even better. Clever.

The shortest way to the space center is to cross a field. On sunny days the view is excellent. And the very good news is that each and every day here is sunny. We are north of the Crimean mountains, most of the rain pour down on the soutside, on the tip of the coast, like much more popular Yalta.

With such a wife, every day is of course wonderful no matter how it is spent.

A visit to Babi Yar

Here I stand, looking at the ravine where the killings were done in Babi Yar 1941.

 To day I visited Babi Yar. I did so also last year, and wrote about it in my Norwegian blog. That year I was well prepared, and had read about it as much as I could. Which in fact, wasn’t much, because this human tragedy is still a rather well kept secret. Most of the guide books about Kiev or the Ukraine don’t mention it at all, and those which do, do not tell how to find the place.

It is a shameful history, that of Babi Yar, and the shame still go on, I think, in some way. Babi Yar is a small ravine in the north western part of Kiev, the capitol of Ukraine. Ukraine was as part of the Soviet empire invaded by the Germans in operation Barbarossa starting from june 22, 1941. By that time, most of continental Europe was already in German hands, and the Nazis were struggling about the problem what to do with all the Jews.

The problem got huge when the Nazis invaded Poland with it’s 3 million Jews, and incomprehensible when they invaded the Soviet Union with Jews everywhere. As we all know, the SS established einzatsgruppen to straight out shoot the Jews, but the operations turned out slow and the elite soldiers of Hitler should have better things to do, than to shoot Jewish olds, women and children. The final solution was as we all know the gas chambers of Chelmno, Sobibor, Belzec, Majdanek, Treblinka and Auschwitz,  but until then there was a lot of terrible executions by gun shots. And Babi Yar was the worst of them all.

 

Kiev – in which at the time lived a population of approximately 875 00 people, among which 20 % were Jews – was attacked and conquered between 23′rd of August and 26′th of September 1941. An inconceivable number of 665 000 inhabitants were captured as prisoners of war by the Germans, more than twice the numbers of equally staggering Soviet defeats in Minsk, Smolensk and other cities. The German victory was astonishing.

 

But there were problems with the Jewish population. It was too large, and there was no Ghetto around, neither did it seem to be any plan by the Germans of building one near Kiev. So what should they do? 20 % of 875 000 is 195 000, far too many to shot down straight or to control easily within ordinary city borders. And in 1941 there existed no concentration camps designed for Jews, no termination camps, nowhere to send them, no Auschwitz.

 

The solution were chosen in typical Nazi-manner. Parallels are to be found several places, but not in such a scale in Kiev. There were some gun shots and explosions in Kreshchatik, the main street of Kiev, some hundred germans were killed, and the Nazis took immidatly action. They caught a Jew trying to cut a water hose used to deal with the fires, and blamed the citys Jewish population for all the sabotage. An order were given for all the Jews to meet at the corner of Melnikova and Dokhturova streets, those found elsewhere would be immidiatly shot. As they often did, the Germans also ordered the Jews to bring their belongings, so as to make them believe they were to be taken somewhere to live there, and also to make it easier for themselves to gather their belongings.

 

Faced with the alternative of being shot, the Jewis population of Kiev followed the German instruction and met as they were told. They didn’t know they were to be shot anyway. Instead of being led to the station to be transported to labor camps elsewhere,  they were led to the ravine of Babi Yar, where everything was ready for the terrible mass murder to come. The Jews were split into groups, which where told to undress, and standing naked for their SS elite troup executioners they were shot down for two full days, 29′th and 30′th of September 1941. According to German numbers, which are probably to excact to be accurate, 33 771 people were killed theese two days. Not even Auschwitz could be as effective.

 

This is a shame to human History, and the aftermaths are also a shame. The ruthless killings done by the einsatz groups in the western part of the Soviet union in the fall of 1941 and further on, are now overshadowed by the even worse industrial killings in the concentration camps.

 

This is a monument for the Children killed in Babi Yar, Kiev, Ukraine.

 

Babi Yar is part of a shameful history, both because of the action itself, but also because of how it was handled afterwards.

The killings in Babi Yar is some of the worst which have been seen on the face of the earth. It is also among the biggest killings of jews ahead of the gas chambers.

 

This road in the park leads to the Menorah-shaped monument in Babi Yar.

I had been in Kiev twice until I finally got to know how to get there. It is actually rather easy, take the green line north to the second to last stop, Dorohozhychi, it is called. There you will find a huge park to the right, there is also the TV-tower in sight, but there is not a single sign to show that on this spot some of the worst killings in human history happened.

The memorial plate in Babi Yar is written in Ukrainian, Hebrew and English. Not Russian...

Last year I had to ask my way to find it, and none was really interested in showing me the way, or try to understand my question, all though my Russian is not that bad. For a long time there was no memorial here at all. Now there are only a few. There are no tourists, no nothing. If you didn’t know it beforehand, you would have no idea about standing in a historical place.

Memorials are political. That is for sure.

Cross country skiing in the Norwegian mountains at Kvamskogen

To day I made another trip to Furedalen at Kvamskogen, to go skiing with my friend. I have already written a blog post about it, that was when I received the pictures he had taken from earlier such trips. Now we made another one, and I will also write another post.

The bus from Bergen bus station is inconvenient, but okay. It leaves at 1130, and get us there at 1230, which is a little late. But the only bus which departs earlier, departs in the very early morning, to early to us. Ten o’clock would be nice, even nine, but 1130 is to late, and the early bus to early. 

This is at Såta

It was a wonderful day at Kvamskogen to day. It was about 10 below zeron, celcius, and sunshine and no wind. But we are in February, the sun stays low, and from time to time the sunshine is covered by the mountain tops. Then it gets cold.

 We made it up to Såta, but decided not to go all the way to Tveitakvitingen to day. It would be foolish. The sun would go down before we reach the top (which is at 1299 m), and it would be freezing. Instead, we found ourselves our place in the sun, had ourselves our little dinner, hot-dogs fried on a – what to call it in English? Kokeapparat, it is in Norwegian, mobile kitchen, maybe makes it in English. It runs on gas, and is portable, that is the basics.

Here is the place where we had our dinner. The Hardanger fiord in the back ground.

While we were eating the sun dipped down below the high mountains, and we knew we should be moving or freezing. So we packed our stuff together, put on our skies, and ran down the sloppy hills with great pleasure. The snow was just abut perfect, no ice, and with powder on the top.

We made it down to the bus stop about 1830, the bus went 1900  (it was a little late), and we were happy and cold on our way back to Bergen city center.

To Kiev I will come

Yesterday I bought the tickets, in March I will return to Kiev for the forth time in four years. In Norway “to fell in love” is a very strong expression, but I can certainly say I have developed a very true and heartfelt friendship with the city I first visited in the summer of 2007. I stayed there for a week to study Russian at ELC, after a month in Minsk with the same purpose. After the somewhat non-real, weird, strange and strict time at Minsk, it was a relief to come to the chaos and mess and beauty and staggering pulse of the Ukrainian capitol. I lived on the westbank of The Dniepr, and went to the city center from the station Livoberezyna on the red line on the metro. My landlandy gave me more food than even I could eat, something I have never experienced, never before, never after, and my teacher at ELC, made herself my favourite Kievian of all time. She was an excellent teacher, and very friendly and helpful with all kinds of questions and problems. The world needs more of such people!

The last weekend of my stay that time, some of my fellow students and teachers from Minsk - that is, a fellow student, and the one responsible for the cultural program – came to Kiev to visit the city with us. I was there with another Norwegian, no secret his name, Svein, it was, and Odny came, both from Norway, and the girl from Minsk was Natasha. After a nice weekend in the wonderful capitol, we headed to the west in Odny’s car. And I could see that all of the Ukraine was just as beautiful and facinating as her capitol. I certainly should return.

And I did the very same autumn, and made the trip from Odessa to Yalta to Sevastopol to Kiev. Except for Sevastpol, all cities was excellent, and I have some prolems to pull out which city is the best (well – it is Kiev). Sevastopol was also good, with Xerxones right outside the city center, but the beauty of Yalta, and the always fast forward tempo of Kiev, with it’s history and it’s present, it’s chaos and it’s street life, it’s park life, restaurant life, pure life.

So I returned another time the winter to follow, and for the first time I saw a city from the former Russian empire in Winter. The winter was far from severe, the first night it was below 6, I think, but the rest of my stay it was not freezing at all. There was some snow, but not much, it was just beautiful.

Therefore, I decided to go there again. And yesterday I bought the ticket. From 27′th of Februay to 9′th of March, it will be. I hope I get to talk to a lot of people, this time, and that I will improve my Russian, and just have a great stay as I always have there.

Some diffiult Russian proverbs

To day we end our little explortation of Russian proverbs, from easy to difficult, collected from the book “Russian context”, Slavica publishers, USA, edited by Eloise M. Boyle and Genevra Gerhart. If you like the proverbs – as I think you should – go on and buy the book! The proverbs are only a small portion of this great collection of Russian language and culture.

Не всякое лыко в строку

Не имей сто рублей, а имей сто друзей

Не плон в колодец: пригодится воды напиться

Чужую беду руками разведу, а к своей ума не приложу. Чужой хлеб мёд горек

Some Russian proverbs of medium difficulty

I continue to day my serie of Russian proverbs collected from the “Russian context”, edited by Eliose M. Boyle and Genevra Gerhart, and available on www.amazon.com.

Близок локоть, да не укусишь. Close is your elbow, but you can’t bite it

Долг платежом красен. A dept is beautiful because of the repayment. Берёшь чужие, а отдаёшь свой. You take somebody else’s (money), but you return your own (money).

Обещанного три года ждут. They waited thre years for what was promised them.

По одёжке встречают, по уму провожают. On the clothing, they meet you, on your brain, they take farewell.

Что дорого, то мило, что дёвшево, то гнило. What is expensive is good, what is cheap, is bad.

Explanation to follow…

And some memories of trekking

Sunday I posted some pictures of the journeys me and my friend, Martin, has made to the Norwegian mountains in the winter. But we do these explorations in all seasons, the main one in autumn, where we go for a full weekend of trekking with big bags carried on or back, tent, sleeping bag and a momentous amount of food supply. These are the memories of to day.

 

The trekking this year was exceptionally rainy, and windy, and cold, but it couldn't affect or mood.

The best place to go to from Bergen, and the place we prefer, is Finse. It is easily reached by train from Bergen, it is on the “Bergensbanen” to Oslo, and on this line, there are quite a few nice stops. Finse is the highest, so if the weather is very bad, or we do our trekking to late in year and to close to the winter, we go to lower destinations. Usually, that means Ustaoset, from where the picture above is taken, but we have also been to Mjølfjell and Urdenoset one single time, each. We try to wary, but prefer Finse the most.

We usually don’t get on a train until noon, at earliest, so the first day is only a short walk before camping. The first day the packing is also at it’s heaviest, with tremendous amounts of food, wine, and even wood to keep a fire alive during the cold night. The bags are ridiculously heavy, even before we put on the woods on every spot available outside the bag, it is bursting full of food and all kind of equipments. So we are rather keen of finding a place to camp.

Nothing short of supplies. Count Beefsteak, potatoes, onion, mushrooms, sausages, wine and bacon. And this is only what is seen on the picture.

First morning is the main breakfast. The bread is still fresh, and so are we and everything we have. Since about 2005, or maybe earlier, we have developed an excellent tradition of serving boiled eggs at breakfast. We were a bit scared if we could keep the eggs safe in our heavy and voluminous packing, but so we can, and now we bring eggs for every day and more (a Russian saying – if you go away for a day, bring a full week of supply! True!), and of course – bacon. And coffee, fresh and boiled, and slices of bread in unlimited supplies. I long for these breakfasts even now, they are supreme. As is the landscape up there. What a combination.

This is from our "Fjelltur" as we call it, "Mountain tour", in 2006, when we walked from Haugastul to Ustaoset. This is the first night.

Then we do the walking. After the heavy and prolonged breakfast, often starting a bit late, after severe celebrations the night before, we have a short time to do all the walk on the Saturday. We shoul also save time for a proper lunch, with another warm meal (porridge of sour cream, that is, usually). We do not walk for long, but we walk very fast, to compensate. And we leave the hurdy burdy walk for Sunday, if we are far from the station and have to reach the train. When this is a problem – the trekking is at it’s best.

Dinner on the Saturday should also be excellent, but the shortage of time do make it’s influence here. We do not have anymore wood, not anymore wine (of course, no matter how much we brought), and the Norwegian mountain is cold and dark at night, and gets dark soon in the autumn, or late summer, when we walk. But we have always a set of meals to chose from, and more meals, than we will actually have, so we sometimes solve this problem by having another lunch, Saturday night. Usually pancakes, that is, or sausages, or some kind of pasta.

On the Sunday we start out earlier. The train leaves at 1900 from Finse station, which is usually our target (in 2007, when the target was actually Ustaoset, we lost the train for that reason), and we always been very optimistisc and just walked furhter away and away, both the Friday and the Saturday. So on Sunday we have to make it all the way back. With a good, long breakfast, and a lunch, and a dinner. Of course.

And here I am, on a Sunday in the mountain, very ready to walk

Last year we didn’t make the trip, for the first time since we started in the year 2000, I think it was. My friend was in France all September, I was in Russia thereafter, and then my father suddenly died, and I had to go home for October, and it got to late, snow had come, and it was to cold and nothing for the walk we like to do. So, hopefully we will do two this year. One in spring, and one in the autumn.  These Weekends are to great to miss.

And here I am, heading deeper in the Norwegian mountains, close to Ustaoset, Buskerud, Norway.

 Enjoy!

Memories of skiing

To day my friend, Martin, dropped by and gave me a memory stick with old pictures from our various explorations of the Norwegian mountains. When the ski season is about to begin, it is pleasant to look at this old pictures, of tours that has been. And will come again.

This picture is from the fabolous trip, February 2004

The place we go to are Kvamskogen, near Bergen, in Norway. It is about an our in bus from the city center, the bus leaves 1130 on Sundays, and returns 1900, 2100 and 2300 (I think). The departure is a it inconvenient, but the first bus in the morning goes way to early, so we have to go at midday. Still, we get a long, great day in beautiful surroundings.

This picture is from 2004, beautiful Norwegian winter for cross country skiing

The Norwegian tradition is to always bring some food to the mounains. We have the tradition of boiling sausages (it is to cold to fry them), put them in bread, and bring on Ketchup. Wonderful. We also bring choclate, bisquits and Cocoa.  In the first few trips, I also brought lunch (but then it left little time for skiing!)

 

This is from out trip, February 2006

Kvamskogen is a little bit short of Nordheimsund. The stop we chose is “Furedalen”, just were the ski center for alpine skiing is. We prefer cross country skiing, though, and head for what we call the “Twin tops” (actually, it is me, calling them that), but I think the correct name is: From there, we have an extraordinary view down to “Hardangerfjorden”, or “The Hardangerfjord”, as it is called in English.

Here I am, on ski, with a beauiful view of Hardanger behind.

We do from two to three trips each year. These pictures are only a small portions of what we have, and the pictures are nothing to all we have done and experienced, there. So many moments, so many memories. And more are yet to come.

And here we have our nice little relaxtion in the Norwegian winter sun. How could the life be better.

Enjoy the winter!

 

Some easy Russian proverbs

The Fridays ahead I will present for you some Russian proverbs. In my Norwegian blog, I present twelve of them, but there are still to many good ones left out, so I’ll present some of them here in my English version as well. I have to thank the excellent work of editors Eliose M. Boyle and Genevra Gerhart, and their book “Russian Context”. It can be easily bought at www.amazon.com.

Береги платье снову, а честь смолоду. Take care of your clothes, while new, take care of your honor, while young.

Скоро сказка сказивается, да не скоро дело делается. Soon is the tale told, but not soon is the deed done.

Слезами горю не поможешь. Tears can’t cure the misfortune.

У семи нянек дитя без глазу. With seven nannies, the child is without watch.

 

Что написано пером, того не вырубишь топором. Бумага всё терпит.

One frosty morning in Norway

 

A small birch in the Norwegian winter

 

Frozen grass

Our area in the west coast of Norway is not among the coldest. It benefits from the sea and the warm currents from the gulf of Mexico, so the temperature rarely drops beneath zero, rarely above 25, and usually lies between 0 and 10 in the winter, 10 and 20 in summer. And it rains a lot.

So when we have a clear winter morning with sun and light snow and frost, we take our pictures even if it is only in our own garden.

A tree one winter morning in Norway

Many of the plants I had also taken pictures of in other seasons, or just a few days ahead, but without the frost. 

 

Without frost

The same plant in frost

 One of my favourite plants is the Norwegian “Kristorn”, that is the Norwegian name, a name easily recognized as “Christ” and “thorns”, so it makes it “the thorns of Christ”. The leaves are stiff and hard, and they have kind of teeth on the edges, somewhat sharp, so it could remind of thorns. These leaves stay on for the winter. I would like to know the reason for the English name, holly, or European holly. I do not think it has anything to do with “holy”.

European holly (Ilex aquifolium) in Norway, winter

 

 

The same holly, in autumn, October

 But the winter morning is holy, indeed….

 

Here is the shadow of me, taken the pictures

There are a few more pictures in my Norwegian blog.