Alphabets

Most Americans believe that learning a new alphabet is hard/impossible/unnecessary!  It is amazing to us that Ukrainians grow up learning at least 3 alphabets!  This is the Ukrainian Alphabet.  It is based on Cyrillic letters:

They also learn the Russian alphabet which is also Cyrillic and shares many letters:

I know these look almost exactly alike because most of the letters are the same, but the differences are important to Ukrainians.  I immediately recognize the difference when I see an I / i with or without the double dots.  For instance, the church hymn book covers read ГИМНЫ or ГІМНИ.  (In the temple or the chapels we have both Russian and Ukrainian hymn books available.  I prefer Russian since I can read and understand it)

Can you decide which Gospel Principles text is Russian and which is Ukrainian?  Be careful because there is a letter in the Russian alphabet that is Ы (which we often call 61 because it's name/sound is difficult for us to pronounce--it isn't exactly a y sound).  It may look like two characters, but it is one letter.  So it doesn't count as an I / Ї. 

I suppose most people around the world now learn the Latin/Roman/English alphabet.  Modern communication with Internet, television, marketing, make it interesting if not mandatory.   So as we are out and about, we constantly see signs that are written in Ukrainian, Russian, English, or other European languages.  It is a constant mental game of decoding!  For instance, the "Kry" store is the closest place to get groceries in our neighborhood and you see it properly spelled here.  Can you read "supermarket", "disco bar pulse", "bank", "cosmo", and "sport" among the words on the sign?

These are the other stores that are located right across the highway from us, but only accessed by walking down to the underground walkway near  Kraui and than back up the street.  Their signs are easily read.  Novus is a Ukrainian-based company but their sign/logo is written in English ! ?  Praktiker is a building supply store headquartered in Germany so they use Roman letters.

We initially wanted to sound out this store name as "Villa" but then realized that the B was not a Cyrillic letter.  Why?  Because the L's are not Cyrillic.  The Billa company is in Austria.

Annmarie told us that she often shopped at Auchan hypermarket stores in Italy.  Auchan is headquartered in France and is like a super Walmart. The store space also includes many other shops and kiosks.  Notice the Ashan store name is in Cyrillic but the mini-mall sign is easy to read English!  

We walk by this Subaru dealer on our way to the bus stop/underground walkway.  This is so typical of mixing English with Cyrillic.  I'll leave it for you to decode--have fun!

I wanted you to see the Liahona magazines that we have here.  Perhaps you already know that the church now produces the Liahona in many languages and the layout is exactly the same in any month's issue, with the pictures on each page sized to take up the space left after the language, longer or shorter in translation, is put in.  In each Liahona there are sections for children, youth and young adults, incorporating information taken from the Friend and New Era.  Then a center section is added with news and articles from that country/mission.

The bottom right Liahona is in Armenian.  We had some experience with this language as a group of 8 Armenian saints were at the temple the first week in March.  We had the ordinance cards for them in their language and they could hear the Armenian audio in the sessions.  It has a very interesting sound.  But I did not want to try to learn the alphabet.  Bro. Sherwood (a temple missionary who used to live in our Rexburg ward and has a remarkable language ability, having served in Samoa, Hawaii, Spain, Novosibirsk, and here) remarked that the letters looked like a package of broken ramen noodles!  He also bewails that the tower of Babel was ever built with its consequences!  Here are our temple and missionary name tags:

We have at least two other languages in our temple district.  We did have a Romanian couple attend the temple in February.  Thankfully he knew English and several other languages.  She was not as fluent in English.  They listened to the sessions on headphones in their language.  I helped prompt her at the end with a card and had to just follow along pointing where I knew she would be and presuming she was saying things correctly.  The alphabet is Latin/Roman based but with interesting little additions to some of the letters.  Wikipedia said it was closest to Italian!  We haven't had any Bulgarians come to the Kyiv temple yet.  Their alphabet is almost the same as Russian.  We now have white  Books of Mormon in each of the temple languages for patrons to use while in the temple.  

Our Own Apartment

Our apartment is on the second floor, the third and fourth windows to the left from the front end corner (not the rear corner) pictured.

  This was taken near the entrance to the apartment.  The telephone and TV jacks on the wall to the left dictate where some things may be placed.  

We turn the upholstered chairs around to face the couch when we are visiting with friends as seen in the following picture.

This picture is taken from the window looking back towards the front door and kitchen.  In the sink is an additional faucet that provides our special filtered water we can drink.  We are very blessed to have this "built in" to our apartment.  The end wall where we have family photos posted is the side of the refrigerator.  It is visible at the right in the following photo with matching cabinet doors so you don't realize that it is the fridge and can't stick things on the door with a magnet!

To the left is a hallway that contains the bathroom sink area with the door to the bedroom at the far left.  The door on the right is to the other bathroom facilities.  Having a new apartment, everything was sparkling clean when we moved in.  We try to keep the glass shower stall unspotted by using a squeegee.  With the radiator next to the shower this room is kept very warm, our towels are dried and warm and there is no problem with mold growing.  The toilets in Europe have different bowl styles.

 Across from the bedroom door just beyond the bathroom facilities to the right we have a large walk-in closet with plenty of space for our things.  You can just barely see the high shelves where our suitcases are stored.  

Finally, there is our bedroom with a king-size bed that we enjoy.  I sleep on the side nearest the door.  It is my personal blessing that when I have my head on my pillow I have the following view of the temple:  first in daylight with the sheer curtains drawn so you can clearly see the temple tower; then at night as the lit tower perfectly fits in the triangle framed by the drapes.  

The temple is lit from dusk until 11p so if I am still awake I see the lights go off by stages--first the bottom main building and the a minute later the tower, leaving only a halo of red lights at the base of Moroni's feet to warn airplanes.  The lights are turned on at 5a but I don't get up that early!  

The Patron House--Missionary Accommodations

This is the patron house from the west end where the temple missionaries are housed.  The balcony patio and apartment on the ground floor belongs to the temple president.  They have hosted young single adults they know from a previous CES mission in this area to a hamburger barbecue!  We access the upstairs balcony walking through the missionary lounge that we use weekly for meetings and social gatherings.

Here we are having our Thanksgiving dinner in this same area and all of us temple missionaries and the temple presidency afterwards on the balcony

In the basement is a large area used for many purposes.  In one corner are our exercise bicycle and treadmill.  We are very grateful for this equipment, especially during the cold winter.  There is also enough room for persons to just walk around and do other exercises.

This is the laundry room provided for missionaries only.  Having 5 washers and 5 dryers is wonderful.  We have learned to use them at different times of the week, not just on Monday mornings!  Then we can do all of our many loads of laundry at one time.  The vacuum in the corner serves well to clean our area rugs and can be taken to our apartments to vacuum the vinyl or tile floors.  

  

The Patron House--upstairs

Upstairs are the dormitory rooms for the patrons. This is how the hallway looks from near our apartment looking to the far end where there is a lounge with a TV.  The day after I took this picture an area rug was placed on the floor and that makes the lounge more cozy.  The doors along the hallway are entrances to the dorm rooms.

Each room has 3 bunks, so there is space for 6 patrons.  There is a bathroom with separate toilet and shower rooms that you can see in the mirror.  There are also lockable lockers for each person's things.

It may be spartan living, but it is new and clean.  Bedding and towels are provided.  There are laundry facilities  and patrons are expected to clean up after themselves and before checking out.

There is one room with no bunks for a couple or handicapped persons.  Cribs and roll-away beds are available.  Occasionally the dorm bunk rooms are assigned to a family with children.  More often patrons are assigned to a room with 6 females or 6 males.  There are 10 bunk rooms.  So the total capacity of the rooms is 62.  Some weeks all rooms are filled and more could be!  Then patrons have to find housing with friends in Kyiv or in motels.  

The Patron House--ground floor

Most of the building we live in is for the patrons who come from the far-flung temple district so they can stay during the week in dormitory-style living.  Besides being comparatively cheap, it is new, nice, and next to the temple.  They love it!  This is the entrance for the patrons.  Under the right curved arch is the entrance to the church distribution center where patrons go to buy their temple clothes.  (Our apartments are at the far left end, closer to the chapel.)

This photo was taken when the distribution center was being stocked.   It is a challenge to keep the shelves filled since goods are often held up in customs.  When patrons come to the temple from the far reaches of the temple district they often stock up with dozens of various items to take home.  What a blessing it is for them to purchase the temple clothing they need at prices that fit their incomes.  

This is inside the entrance with the registration desk.  Through the door to the right with the white sign is the family history computer room.  There patrons can prepare and print their bar code request for temple ordinance cards which they take to the temple office to be processed.  They may do family history research or indexing of records.

To the left is the dining room.  The kitchens can be seen as two openings in the back--side by side two identical areas for preparing food and cleaning up.  Also shown are the special refrigerators with individual locking cabinets for one's own food.

Adjacent to the dining area is a room where children can play under supervision.  The day after I took this picture a nicer area rug was put down!

Cultural Outings during our Holiday

We had two weeks "off" while the temple was being repaired and cleaned.  Thus we had time to spend some evenings sampling the events offered at the National Opera and Ballet of Ukraine which dates from 1867.  They are housed in this splendid building constructed after the first building burned because of an unextinguished candle and was a total loss including props, costumes and music library.  This building opened in 1901 and was refurbished in the 1980's.  It has a very large stage and we enjoyed wonderful seats in the balcony and on the floor.

We saw the Verdi opera La Traviata.  It was sung in the original Italian and they had Ukrainian translation on an electronic signboard above the stage, neither of which was helpful to us!  We had studied the plot beforehand and just enjoyed the staging and singing.  The soprano lead was very good and the tenor and bass leads seemed to get better.  We really enjoyed seeing Tchaikovsky's Nutcracker ballet from balcony seats where we could see the orchestra pit as well as the stage.  If you would like to see a YouTube clip of the production go to:  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ptI9XPk0qAE.  The lead dancers are different but others are the same.  We were sitting on the third level up right in the middle and at the edge of the balcony where we had an unobstructed view.  It was great.  Others of our group sat on the first and second levels; their seats were more expensive and also good.  

This is the back of the hall

Our favorite performance was the Romeo and Juliet ballet.  We found the Prokofiev music added such drama to the dance interpretation of the story.  We liked it better than the play.  The next day I spent time on our computer on YouTube watching several clips uploaded by wotanwag of "Romeo and Juliet ballet Kiev".  The lead dancers are different but the staging and choreography are the same.  We loved watching the many strong male dancers.

The monthly schedule for this house usually alternates between a night of opera and a night of ballet with different performances all month.  They have 24 ballets in their reperatoire; I don't know how many operas.  Obviously they have a large corps of performers.  They stage performances every night except Mondays and do matinees on some weekends.

We were also very pleased to attend a performance of Handel's Messiah.  The Kyiv Symphony Orchestra and Chorus was established by a Texas Presbyterian in 1993 to perform Christian oratorios, requiems, masses, cantatas, etc. that were forbidden in Soviet times and not a part of the Orthodox church because, by tradition, they only sing a capella as a congregation in their services.  The KSOC also performs other classical works and in other venues.  This concert was free and held in the Kyiv Central Baptist Church.  The church chapel hall was large (holding at least a thousand) with pillars supporting a high ceiling and a balcony at the rear, so the sound was excellent.  It was sung in Ukrainian but we had programs that had the English text as well.  It seemed like a complete holiday season because Messiah is so much a part of our Christmas.