We're excited to be able to announce a decision that we and our teammates have made regarding a new target city for our upcoming long-term mission work. After much research prior to our trip, and then the two-week survey trip last month, and then some follow-up prayer and discussion after the trip, there is a firm consensus among our team that one of the cities visited on our trip is the best fit for our team and plans.
Our new mission city is Kharkov, Ukraine. This was the first city we visited on our trip last month, and definitely rose to the top in our research and on our trip. We and the others feel very good about this city, the potential that exists there, and the prospects of living and working there for the next six or more years.
To give a little more perspective for those who aren't familiar with that part of the world, here are a couple of maps. This first one shows the location of Ukraine (yellow) in relation Russia (red) and the rest of Europe.
This second one is zoomed in on Ukraine specifically, and shows the location of Kharkov within Ukraine. Also labeled is the capital of Ukraine, Kiev (also sometimes spelled Kyiv).
By the way, Kharkov is also sometimes spelled Kharkiv, depending on whether it's being transliterated into English from Russian or from Ukrainian.
Here are a few quick facts about Kharkov:
It is the second largest city in Ukraine, with a population of 1.5 million (officially) -- but the locals there tend to say 2 million.
It was once the capital of Ukraine, prior to World War II.
It has the largest student population in Ukraine -- at least 250,000 -- even more than in Kiev.
It is a predominantly Russian-speaking city.
As you can see in the map above, it is located very close to the Ukrainian-Russian border (20 miles from the city center). A good-sized Russian city is just 45 miles from Kharkov.
There is a lot more we could say about it but we'll keep it to that for now. If you want to catch up, however, here are links to info on Kharkov from my trip last month:
Incidentally, today was the day that we originally had air tickets purchased for our planned move to Moscow. So it's a fitting day to be announcing the plans the Lord has blessed us with in place of that. Praise the Lord!
The number of photos is uneven because in some cities I took many photos while in one in particular (Simferopol) I took mainly video and very few photos. So I'll refer you to our teammates' blogs for more photos as well. The McDougles have posted some of their own and the Nelsons plan to do the same, I believe:
As if the previous deluge of lengthy posts wasn't enough, I'll wrap up my chronicles from Ukraine with a very brief look at the last day and the trip home, since I didn't type these out the way I did all the other days in the trip.
Friday, June 27 - Sevastopol, Ukraine (transitioning back to Simferopol)
In the morning we checked out of the place we were staying and rode a marshrut down towards the center, but got off early so we could drop in on the only Russian language school we knew of in Sevastopol. Like most things we tried to do in Sevastopol, visiting the language school wasn't really helpful. Although they were able to confirm that they have a Russian language program, they said there wasn't anyone there who could talk to us about, and instead just gave us someone's phone number. So that was disappointing. We then walked to the center, ate lunch, did some more tasks (more internet use, and finishing up souvenir shopping), and then walked down to the waterfront to catch a taxi to the train station.
The train back to Simferopol was a different experience to the overnight sleeper-trains we'd used previously on the trip. This was just a relatively short 2-hour train ride and the seating was just benches in an open train car. But you can't beat the price - it was 4.90 hrn (just over a buck) per person.
Back in Simferopol we rode a bus down to the center to shop for a housewarming/thank-you gift for the Strahovs for their new home, and while on the way we happened to run into Elena Strahov (Zhenia's wife, who had been out of town earlier in the week when we were spending time in Simferopol). Yulia was with her as well. We talked with her out on the street for 30 minutes or more, and then agreed to meet at the house later. After doing our shopping, we tried to get to the house but our nearly non-existent knowledge of the public transportation system seems to have gotten the best of us. The others were sort of leaning on me to get us on the right bus, which I don't mind at all since maps and so on are one of my strong points. So I found us a bus to get on that said all the right things, but once we were on it it ended up taking us way out to another side of town. It may be that the bus took a very long and wide route, or that I don't know some nuances to reading the signs on the buses. In any case, we finally had to get off and find a taxi to get us back to the house, since we were now in a time crunch to get Phil, David, and Olivia to the train station for their outgoing train.
We said goodbye to them and Dougle and I stayed the night at the Strahovs' house.
Saturday, June 28 - Coming home!
My flight was leaving pretty early in the day Saturday, and Zhenia volunteered to take Dougle and I to the airport. Dougle's flight didn't leave until the afternoon, but we went together and Dougle just planned on hanging out and passing the time at the Simferopol airport. Their airport seemed decently nice. My flight from Simferopol to Kiev was on a much more modern and capable-seeming aircraft than my Kiev-Kharkov flight had been, so that was good to experience.
Then Kiev to New York was fine as well. I sat next to a really nice young Ukrainian guy, and though we couldn't talk much I thought to myself, "Man, I hope I can find some people like this in Ukraine to share the word with." I later helped him through all the stuff in New York - immigration, baggage collection, customs, etc. In the process I learned that he had gone to school for 5 years in Kharkov.
Upon returning to Phoenix it was just golden to be back with Denyce and the boys. And still is.
Today we ventured onward to Sevastopol. We'll have a short time in this city - about the same day and a half that we had in Simferopol. So it was important to get an early start to the day, and we arranged for the taxi van to pick us up from the house in Simferopol at 8:00 to depart for Sevastopol. Zhenia met us at the house to get us on our way. He also firmed up arrangements for our housing here in Sevastopol, which he had found for us. We had agreed with the driver that he would drive us to Sevastopol, and then around the city for a couple of hours for an agreed-upon rate (which was actually the best rate we've paid in any of these cities ... and the largest van too).
The drive to Sevastopol was nice, although the roads down here are really rough. They've been rough in all the places we've been, but they've seemed rougher in Crimea. But nothing to complain about; at least there are roads. The countryside between Simferopol and Sevastopol is mainly sort of like rolling foothills, lots of grass, some foresty areas of short pine trees. We saw lots of livestock, sometimes right up next to the road grazing -- mainly cows and goats. The drive took about an hour and 20 minutes, although we soon realized the driver had taken us into the very northern part of Sevastopol, across the main bay from the center of the city on the southern side of the bay. So it felt like another 30 minutes or so to drive back all the way around the main bay, around the eastern outskirts of the city, and up the main road that goes into the main part of the city. Even then, it took the guy quite a long time to find the place we were staying. It's tucked away in a neighborhood of houses not too far off that main road, but he had the hardest time finding it. He obviously didn't know Sevastopol, but I think he also didn't really know how to find something using a map. He had Dougle's map of Sevastopol, and in retrospect I looked at the map and it didn't seem too hard to find, but this guy drove us all through a surrounding neighborhood or two trying to find this place. I guess the upside was that it started our city tour early, as we got to see some neighborhood areas very up close and personal as he trawled through them.
The place we're staying is a private home where the lady who owns the place lives in one house and then there are several apartments in an adjacent building on the same property. We're all staying in one of them, the largest one, which has two bedrooms. Dave and Liv are in one bedroom that has a queen-size bed, and the other three of us "malchiki" (boys) as the lady calls us -- she's neat -- are in the other room, where there is a double bed and two couches. In between there is a small kitchen with a dining table, and a bathroom. This is on the second story here, and the neighborhood we are in is kind of high up on one of the hills of the city, so the view is kind of nice of some of the surrounding city and countryside outside of the city, and we get a glimpse of part of the bay and the sea.
After getting our stuff inside here and all, we returned to the taxi van and continued driving around the city. There is a noticeable difference in the surroundings here compared to other places we've been -- fewer trees, less green, more dry. The trees that are here (besides the cultivated ones in the city) are more short and scrubby. Whereas the grass in other areas was green, here it is brown and dry in places that aren't irrigated. We saw a number of areas further from the center with normal housing, and stopped by a beach area to the south of the center. The beach was more like gravel, which was interesting. But it was totally packed with people. We didn't linger long near the beach itself since we didn't want to make people uneasy with our cameras and wanted to get on with seeing the city anyway. But we got some things to drink there and a couple of people got hot dogs to hold them over til lunch, and we continued on. By the way, the water looked beautiful. Everywhere we've seen it here it has been very nice -- a brighter blue (maybe a little blue-green) than you see in most large bodies of water. It's still got nothing on Samoa in the South Pacific, but it's very nice.
We finished our van tour by having the driver drop us off near the center, at the waterfront, and we paid him and said goodbye. We then walked along the waterfront a little ways there, taking in the views and the surroundings. It's pretty touristy down there, complete with people walking around with megaphones hawking boat tours. One lady repeatedly admonished us that we shouldn't see the city on foot, but from the sea. We passed a lot of little eating areas outside under Coca-Cola tents and stuff like that. You can tell that a lot of it is temporary for the summer season, and isn't there year-round. I read online today that the population of the city doubles in the summer months with all the tourists/visitors. We also passed a place where you can watch a dolphin show (tickets are 50 hrn for adults and 25 for kids). We found a good-sized little souvenir market and some of the others checked out the selection for potential gifts. I know the last thing my wife wants is another trinket to have to decide whether to pack, and none of our family expects or is into anything like that either, so I just bought myself a map of the city (an essential) and checked out the water some more.
From there we ascended some steps back up to street level above to go look for lunch in the city. While on the way to find something, we walked through some beautiful park areas with some monuments and a fountain or two. That area down there, at the center of the center, is really well-groomed and well-maintained, and it would be a neat place to spend a little time. Walking onward, we found a Russian food place and an Italian food place and decided to go for the Italian. We all got pasta and although mine was really good (four-cheese penne) it made me miss Denyce even more to be eating pasta. She came up in conversation, of course, as we were talking about the pasta. I actually had first tried to order Gnocchi (they had a couple kinds) but they were out of it. But the others were wondering what that was and how I knew what it was, so that was easy to answer -- the pasta queen!
The Italian place had free wifi so while we were there Dougle and I spent some time online on his iPhone trying to find things in Sevastopol -- first American missionaries, but we can't find even a hint of any (one or two who used to be here, but none currently). That was frustrating as this has been one of our best sources of information on this trip. Next I looked for just anything American here -- any American living here (even if non-religious at all), an American organization or chamber of commerce, etc. Still nothing. The best lead we have is actually the only language school I found in my research here, which is owned or possibly even operated by Americans, or at least has strong connections to some Americans. We tried calling the school but no one answered; we'll try visiting their location here tomorrow and see if we can talk to anyone. We also found an American Baptist missionary couple in Simferopol online, and tried calling them to ask if they knew of any American missionaries in Sevastopol, but they never answered. And we called back over to the Crimean-American College in Simferopol since they had mentioned yesterday that one of their staff members who is a believer spends a lot of time in Sevastopol and might know about any missionaries working in this city. We got through to them but they said that she didn't know of any. Man, we were just coming up empty-handed.
We decided to go find some internet so we could all do some emailing and stuff, since we were all due for some of that. Our waiter at the Italian place, a sweet guy in probably his late teens or early twenties who spoke passable English and really wanted to help, told us to go look on a nearby major street, so we set out from there and walked up the street we were on a little ways until we could cross over to the other major street he had talked about. On the way we passed a statue/monument to Catherine the Great, the founder of Sevastopol, which was the subject of some controversy recently. The monument was funded and organized by some private citizens or organizations, and as they were getting ready to unveil it last week or the week before, the local city government told them they couldn't because it was too pro-Russia (Catherine the Great being an icon of Russia, and this being a Ukrainian city with strong Russian loyalties). The unveiling was delayed for a day before it was allowed to proceed, and so there she is now.
Getting over to the other street where there was supposed to be an internet cafe looked a lot easier on the map than it actually was. This is a very hilly city, and crossing over to that street from where we were involved walking up a long series of stairs up a hill, and the street was over on the bottom of the hill on the other side. At the top of the hill, though, we found ourselves on a quiet street with a large Russian military building, flying the Russian flag with Russian guards standing around (I decided not to try filming the building :-) . As it was we had already passed the headquarters of the Russian Black Sea Fleet down on the street below near the Catherine the Great monument. So I don't know what this building was. Across from it was a park with yet more stairs leading uphill toward a Lenin statue -- a much cooler one than what they had in Simferopol, although here by the sea Lenin was anointed with bird droppings and we watched as two seagulls had a sort of shouting match up there, one on his outstretched arm pointing toward the sea, and one perched right on the crown of his head. We continued walking up past that point and there was a good-sized Orthodox church. It looked plenty old and not as restored as most that I've seen. In fact, on one side of it we noticed what definitely appeared to be pock marks from bullets and other projectiles, which I'm guessing indicates that this church is one of the only ten buildings in Sevastopol that predates World War II.
We continued walking, downhill now, down to the major road we were trying to get to. I must say, getting around this city -- even relatively short distances on foot -- is sort of exhausting with all the hills, some of which are a bit steep. But even the ones that are not too steep just keep going on and on and on, it seems like. I was imagining doing it with a stroller and it didn't sound great. Even walking downhill with a stroller is tiring since you're having to hold/pull it to keep it from rolling off. We walked both up and down that street for a decent ways and couldn't find an internet cafe. We ended up down at the bottom of it, near the center again, at a roundabout where there is a McDonald's. We walked down a smaller street below the roundabout to see if there was anything there but couldn't find anything. We did find a bookstore, so we went in and Dougle asked about locating a Christian bookstore here. The lady seemed pretty knowledgeable, but said that the only thing she knows of are some small Orthodox bookstores next to Orthodox churches. Since finding a Christian bookstore is a way for us to kind of learn about the evangelical religious environment in a city, that's not going to cut it for us. So that was another dead end we seem to have run into here. But the bookstore owner did seem to know confidently where an internet place is. And it was back way up the street just a bit past where we had turned around and walked all the way back down to where we were now. It didn't sound appealing to walk all the way back up there, but the lady even gave us the exact building number on the street, so we decided to go. She turned out to be exactly right, and so we spent an hour or so there reading and sending email, and Phil and I also both separately looked for missionaries in Sevastopol, specifically checking the official Baptist/IMB sites, but came up with nothing. It looks like they just don't have American missionaries here, period.
Several of our group, including me, were feeling really wiped out by this point. Another thing I haven't mentioned is that it's hot here -- hotter than anywhere else we've been. The sun just seems to be zapping me harder here. We decided to return to the place we're staying for a little while and rest up so we can go back out in the evening into the city. So we did that, and I think everyone but Dougle napped. Dougle actually seemed to feel pretty normal and energetic. But Liv and I in particular were feeling pretty drained, and Phil and David laid down right away upon getting home too. I had a good little nap, and was really out of it for a little while. But it was really much-needed. After our rest time we were ready to get back out into the city, and David in particular was feeling great. He said that the nap had really helped and that he felt better than ever on this trip.
We walked through the neighborhood toward more of a major road to try to find a bus to the center (we had walked from the internet cafe to our apartment here previously). The place we're staying is several minutes' walk through small streets with private homes on them before you get to a busy street. But it's not an appealing neighborhood -- it's not its location... it's not far from the center and seems like it would be one of the better locations to live here. But it's a mess. There is trash everywhere, some in huge piles/spreads next to the road. There is a lot of broken glass on the streets and sidewalks. And one of the worst things I've seen the whole trip -- as we were walking today, about a block from the house, there in the road next to the sidewalk was a used syringe, with the needle even kind of sticking up from the ground a little bit. I just happened to be looking down and saw how close David came to stepping on it, and he was wearing flip-flops too. That really didn't set very well with me. Crazy.
We actually caught a marshrut really quickly, which was nice, and it delivered us right down to the center, in great time. It was dark by this time and we walked around the street level area for a bit observing the city at night, and then went down to the waterfront area. It was basically one big party down there. Lots of loud music, people wandering around, karaoke, restaurants and bars all over the place, neon lights. But the main event was that tonight Russia was playing in the Euro cup (soccer) tournament. Russia lost its first game but had won the last couple, from what I understand, and tonight was a match-up against Spain, which just beat Italy while we were in Odessa. So our timing for being in Sevastopol really allowed us to see the Russianness of this Russian Ukrainian city. Earlier in the evening we had seen a car driving around honking its horn with a huge Russia flag waving over its roof. Tonight we saw people walking around wearing Russia flags, and/or with Russia flags painted on their cheeks, etc. There were a lot of people standing in crowds around and outside of large outdoor tents adjoining bars, with TVs on showing the game. We'd periodically hear one crowd or another nearby break out in chanting, "Ro - Si - Ya! Ro - Si - Ya!" We ducked into a pizza place just around the corner from one of the most crowded areas and had dinner. It was a pretty safe place because there were no TVs in there, so hence no crowd of patriotic game-watchers. I had a 30cm pizza with chicken and pineapple, and it was very good. I've been favorably impressed with the pizza in Ukraine.
After eating we walked back outside and observed the atmosphere out there a little more. The energy level was high and the crowds seemed to be getting bigger, louder, and a little more restless. The TVs were too small, or too distant, for us to see the score from the back fringes of the crowd, and I sure wasn't about to suggest that Dougle ask someone the score and make his American accent heard in the process. So we just kept to ourselves and hung around for a minute before deciding we'd best be moving on, away from the crowds of drinking Russian soccer fans. We walked back along the water front for a ways and found the spot where we had gotten off of our marshrut earlier, and decided to ride it back to the house and watch the rest of the game from the place we are staying. The marshrut we had caught to get down there was #120, so we caught the same one from that spot expecting it to loop back to where we had caught it earlier near the house. That's the way they work, right? Not in this case. The marshrut drove in the right general direction but never turned into our neighborhood toward the spot where we caught it earlier. Instead it just kept going and going and going down the main street toward the edge of the city to the east, and finally we were the last people on the thing. The driver pulled into a parking lot area where a number of other marshrut were parked, and we concluded this must be the end of his work day and he's done for the day, and we'd just happened to get on that last route for the day where he doesn't complete the route, but just heads back to where he parks or something. In any case, we were way far away from where we are staying. So we got out and Dougle asked the driver about how to get back to where we were needing to go, and he directed us to another marshrut that was there that was apparently still working, and he even went and mentioned where we were needing to go to the driver of that marshrut. It's nice to encounter helpful people at times like that. So we got on that one and before long he had us dropped off at the spot we were hoping to be and we walked back through the dark neighborhood streets to the place we are staying.
Tonight, since it's our last night together, we took some time to talk a little bit and mostly for Phil to share his thoughts about the trip -- mainly encouragement about how impressed he's been with the people, how God has shown us some things that need to be on our hearts with these cities, how they are more than just maps but wonderful people in these places, and how impressed he's been with how we've handled the trip and our teamwork. Then we prayed together before people went to bed, and I've just been up typing to all of this. I'm also rendering video in the background too in preparation to put it on DVD for Dougle to take back to Lucy.
It's late and I'll get one more video-related thing started on the computer before getting to bed. My biggest issue at the moment is that I'm quite thirsty, but in all the coming and going of the day none of us thought to buy water to keep at the place here. So there is nothing to drink, unless I decide to brave the tap water. I haven't decided to do that, but I hope I can get to sleep like this. The thing is that we're back in this neighborhood, where there are no shops, and if I walk out to the main road -- about 10 minutes walk probably -- I didn't see hardly any shops to actually buy food out there. In fact, I've seen very few grocery stores here, and fewer little Produkti stores than other places. Plus, even if I got lucky and found one, there is then a slim chance that it would be open at this time of night (1:46 AM). But praise the Lord, I have a place to sleep and I have a beautiful wife and kids to return to in just a couple of days... wow. That's worth going a little thirsty for now (don't worry, I'll hydrate well tomorrow).
Another good day ... it's late (12:39 AM) and tomorrow will start pretty early, so I'm going to try to type fast. Today was our second day in Simferopol. We started the day pretty slowly because Zhenia and his daughter Yulia had told us that they would come get us from the house around 10 or 11. We weren't completely clear about their plans, but we knew they planned to make us a meal today, we just weren't sure whether it would be a late breakfast, or a full lunch, or a dinner later on. So we just played it by ear, knowing that whatever the case we would be blessed by their hospitality. So we had some time to sleep a little extra and then visit with each other while snacking on a light breakfast (I had my usual - bread, cheese, and tomato with kefir). Zhenia showed up and said he would drive us to their apartment, where there was a meal ready for us (prepared by Yulia). So we loaded up and drove over there.
Yulia's meal was wonderful. First was borsh, and it was the best we've had so far on this trip (and we've had it a number of times at restaurants). Next was a sort of egg, corn, and crab meat salad, with mayonnaise of course -- along with potato and mushroom vareniki. This part of the meal was harder for me -- I'm not a big fan of Russian/Ukrainian salads with their heavy use of mayonnaise, and I don't like seafood much either. So I ate what I could but knew that this was not a situation where I HAD to finish everything. I was already getting full anyway. Next were blinchiki with cottage cheese filling, which was good. Last were little chocolate/marshmallow/wafer/strawberry jam dessert things (storebought). They were good too. It was a very impressive meal and we were very honored.
Before the meal had even been served, Zhenia had gotten a call that he needed to go settle some documentation matters related to their upcoming adoptions, so he had to hurry off and wasn't around for the meal, but afterwards he showed up again having finished with that. We spent some time looking at some of their pictures on the TV (they are on DVD and they were browsing through them using the DVD player and remote), and then we and they talked about what we could do the rest of the day in Simferopol, as well as planning some arrangements for the next couple of days in Sevastopol. We had already decided that we'd go to Sevastopol tomorrow (Thursday) morning first thing, spend the whole day and night there, and the majority of the day Friday before returning to Simferopol Friday afternoon/evening. Dave, Liv, and Phil leave on the train from Simf on Friday at 9:22 PM, while Dougle and I both fly out of Simf on Saturday. Zhenia made some calls and found out that, first of all, both of the men who are leaders in the small church in Sevastopol are out of town right now. One is actually in the Kharkov region (not the city itself, but the region) and one is in St. Petersburg. This is really sad because spending time with the local chruch leaders has been some of our most valuable time on this trip. And getting to do that would have been especially enlightening in Sevastopol in regard to how a potential relationship between us and the existing local church might be.
Zhenia also called contacts he has about some other things. He found a house we can rent in Sevastopol for the night for a good rate, and he found a taxi van we could use for a great rate for not only driving around and seeing more of Simferopol, but also driving us to Sevastopol (70 km - we've heard anywhere from 1:20 to 1:50 to get there) and then driving us around Sevastopol, all for a reasonable price. So that was great. So we made plans for the taxi van to meet us a little later in the afternoon to drive us around Simferopol more, and then to meet us in the morning at 8:00 to head to Sevastopol. The plan is that the taxi van will take us there and then first thing he'll drive us around Sevastopol to help us see the parts of the city and get a good feel for it. So it will get our time in Sevastopol off to a great start to get to do that right off the bat.
We also took some time at their apartment to check on contacts regarding language schools in Simferopol, and to look into visiting the Crimean-American College that is located here. We didn't know much about this but Zhenia had connections there and John Murphy (missionary in Odessa, but previously in Simferopol) had mentioned it as well. In searching around online we read mentions of it having a Bible department or something like that that seemed to be run by people supported by Southeast Christian Church in Louisville, KY, including at least one American. Another priority for the rest of our day was to try to get in contact with another American mission worker who is living in Simferopol, so this would accomplish that too. Zhenia made a phone call to someone he knows (again, he seems to have a solid relationship with the leaders in the Christian Church here... at least, they cooperate in the orphanage work) and it was arranged for us to meet with an American named Georges Carillet (sp?) who is there at Crimean-American College, and is the same American worker I had seen mentioned on the Southeast Christian Church website.
We had some time before the taxi van would be ready to pick us up, so we walked from their apartment down to a supermarket down the street, so got to see yet another supermarket here. I'd say the selection is very comparable to most supermarkets in the bigger cities we've seen, except for some aspects of the Target in Kharkov. But I've definitely had more trouble finding dog food here. In one supermarket we were in yesterday, their pet section was probably like 90% cat stuff, and just a couple of small bags of dog food (and very pricy per kg). Today's supermarket was better, but still not as good as Kharkov. They too had mostly cat stuff, but they had a couple of 15kg (33 lb) bags of Pedigree for $182-190 ($38.72-40.42). Zhenia had mentioned yesterday that people here really like cats and that there are a lot of cats. I've definitely seen a number of cats just out and about as we've been in the city. I didn't see many cats in other cities, or maybe any at all, I can't remember. At least some people here still have dogs ... I've seen a few people walking their dogs ... but judging by the supermarkets it's not nearly as common as cat ownership and maybe dog ownership overall is significantly less. But then talking to people (for example, I was asking Yulia about it) they say that plenty of people have dogs, especially people who live in houses maybe.
Anyway, next we met up with our taxi van, and it was very nice, in fact it's more of a minibus/marshrut type of thing, with at least 10 or so seats, not counting the front seats. So we loaded up and the first place they drove us was to the Crimean-American College for our appointment there. We didn't really look around their building(s) so much, since that wasn't the point of our visit, but we did see their office/reception area and we met in their library, which was nice. They had a number of books in English on Christianity, apologetics, etc., and in one video case I spotted a Veggie Tales. We sat down with Georges, who despite his very French sounding name is apparently fully American. He was a missionary in Papua New Guinea with Pioneer Bible Translators for a number of years and he and his wife have now been here in Simferopol for 14 years. That was great to hear, because it meant we were talking with someone who really knew this place and has a solid grasp for life here. As we've done with previous people, we recorded the whole conversation, which is good since there is no way I have time to type all about it here (it was funny, though, when David asked if it was ok to film the conversation, he kind of looked at him for a second with a half-smile and said, "How long have you been here again? They never allow videos or tape recorders in this culture because you never know how it's going to be used." But we quickly explained it was just for our own use as a team to help us remember what all was said, and he said because we were fellow compatriates, he would allow it).
He shared some about their school -- it's a joint venture between a Crimean college and Kentucky Christian University, which is a Christian Church school. Their primary programs are teaching people to be English and German teachers, and to be translators/interpreters. But they also have a religion/theology program and offer students classes in those areas. They have around 170 students. Some of what the school does is accredited (which, he explained, for a school with an even halfway religious purpose, makes it one of only two such accredited schools in Russian and Ukraine), and some of what they do (including all but two of the religious courses) is not. He told us what he knows of the Christian Church congregations here (2 of them) and other religious groups. He told us about life in the city, how it used to be a somewhat dangerous place back in the early and mid 90s but now is more safe, safer in his opinion than many cities in the US. He said you still need to use "city sense", for example, not walking through the park alone at night. He shared some of his insights into the cultural differences, how that affects ministry, and some of the successes and challenges he's faced. It was very interesting listening to him -- a very neat guy, and I'm glad we were able to record it because I hope to go back and watch it again and learn more from what all he said, because it was really good stuff.
From there we continued our journey by van and drove around much of the city. It was a good overview and tour. We made a stop at an undeveloped, hilly high place sort of overlooking much of the city, which was really neat. That's one thing the other cities have lacked is a good spot to be able to see most of the city at once. That was neat and we took some group pictures there too. Oh, also, when we left the Crimean-American College we picked up one additional person, a young lady named Anastasia (Nastya for short, I think) who works there at the college but also works with the Strahovs in their orphanage work, so they know each other well. She has good English and Zhenia asked her to come along to translate I think and sort of give Yulia a break. At only 15 she did well, but I think also struggled at times in conveying things back and forth.
We also made a stop at a botanical garden (basically a large park with grass, trees, and MANY roses and other flowers) that was very pleasant and beautiful. And we made a stop at a reservoir at the edge of the city, walking out onto the dam a little ways and looking at the water and the view. It was pretty there too. The lake looked nice and you could also see the mountains outside of Simferopol toward the south, between Simferopol and the coast.
The rest of the drive was a good tour that allowed us to see the lay of the land and the neighborhoods around the east, north, and west of the city. We had already learned that the part of the city that is growing the most is probably the north, as well as that some of the nicer places to live with a family are that direction as well, so it was good to see more of that part of the city. We also got to see at least one of the areas where many Crimean Tatars have settled now that they are moving back into Crimea (these are a native Muslim population who were expelled by the Soviets after WW2 but just in recent years are being allowed to come back in and sort of resettle here ... they constitute an interesting ministry opportunity too).
Overall the city is nice. It's green and has many trees, and I like the way it has some hilliness to it. It's not the cleanest city; there was plenty of litter, and in some places it's really accumulated and gross. We were walking down near the city center later in the day and passed a large pile of trash with a cow's head laying on the ground next to it. From the looks of things it had been there for a while too. There are also parts, more near the edges than the center, that remind me in some way of Mexico, particularly of some of the more rural parts of Mexico that I've spent time in like Baja California and like what you see on the way to Mexico City when you're driving. But that wasn't even so much of a negative to me, it was just different than the other cities we had seen. We haven't seen a whole lot of young families, or mothers with strollers, etc. here, at least not compared to Kharkov. We did finally see some way out on the west side of the city, near an industrial area unfortunately. But I enjoyed driving around the city and overall I like the feel of this city, although I still think I felt less safe when the four of us were out at 10:00 last night than I'd like.
The van dropped us back off at the house and we talked with Zhenia a little bit and firmed up arrangements for tomorrow (going to Sevastopol ... he will not be going, but is arranging the transport for us) as well as for returning Friday night. He offered for Dougle and I to stay in this house again that night, which is great. And I think he will be taking us to the airport as well, though we'll confirm that Friday night. I'll need to be there kind of early, so we'll just see.
Zhenia left for the evening and the five of us headed out to the city center. This time Zhenia had given us keys, so we were able to lock up the house and leave. We grabbed a marshrut that I could tell would at least take us most of the way to the city center. By the way, public transport prices here are 50 kopecks (11 cents) for trolleybuses and 1.50 hrn (32 cents) for marshruts -- 2 hrn after 10:00 at night. I haven't noticed any trams here. Our experience here has been that most of the time we end up using marshruts. Trolleybuses run more limited routes, or maybe less frequently, but they've just not been what we needed were we needed it as much. So the marshrut took us near the center, and from where we got off of it we walked through a large park there called Detsky Sad (Children's Park/Garden). In addition to being a pretty park it also has various children's rides, a ferris wheel, and a zoo (probably pretty small/basic). We walked toward the very center, and along the way passed a couple of Orthodox churches with the onion domes, and saw from a couple of blocks away a mosque -- we even heard the singing/chanting call to prayer. We also passed by the Russian consulate here.
We found a place to eat -- pizza, the same place we had lunch yesterday (we knew it was good and didn't want to keep looking around since we were very hungry). Then we walked just a couple of blocks to the main square with the Lenin statue (on the way I ducked into an internet cafe and read your emails and emailed you!). The main square is not very big, but it was still neat to visit. By this time it was dark and there was a large governmently-looking building on one side all lit up nice. Strangely, the Lenin statue in the middle was not lit at all, and in the dark we had to sort of strain to make out the details.
We then caught a taxi to get home so we'd still have some time to process and share/record our thoughts about Simferopol the same way we have previous cities. I've mentioned a lot of my thoughts already in writing about it, and it's SO late (1:51 now) so I really need to just get to sleep. Overall we were impressed with Simferopol, and had plenty of both likes and dislikes.
