A few years back, I bought the book ‘Europe: A History‘ by Norman Davies. I didn’t actually buy it for myself, rather, I bought it for my little brother for his birthday, but I liked it so much that I took it back and just showered him with lots of love and affection instead.

Since I’ve actually been living in Europe, I’ve pulled out the book from time to time to have a read. The perspective I get about Europe, living in the Eastern part of the continent, has helped me appreciate and understand the book better too.

My most recent foolish quest is to read the book from cover to cover (1300+ BIG pages). Already, I’ve skipped the Introduction, but hey, that doesn’t really count. But imagine my surprise when I saw, on page 53 in the ‘Environment and Prehistory’ chapter, an entire page and a half break-out box about ‘Ukraina’.

I’ve decided to reproduce some parts of it, as it’s really interesting and shows that Ukraine has been a historically important country for centuries. So here you go…

“Ukraine is the land through which the greatest number of European people approached their eventual homeland. In ancient times it was variously known as Scythia or Sarmatia, after the peoples who dominated the Pontic steppes long beofre the arrival of the Slavs. It occupies the largest sector of the southern European plain, between the Volga crossing and the Carpathian narrows; and it carries the principal overland pathway between Asia and Europe. Its modern, Slavonic name means ‘On the Edge’, a close counterpart to the American concept of ‘the Frontier’. Its focal point at the rapids of the Dniepr, where the steppe pathway crosses the river trade-route, was fiercely contested by all comers, for it provided the point of transition between the settled lands of the West and the open steppes to the East. Ukraine is rich in mineral resources - such as coal of the the ‘Donbass’ and the iron of Krivoi Roh. The loess of its famous ‘black earth’ underlies Europe’s richest agricultural lands, which in the years prior to 1914 were to become the Continent’s leading exporter of grain.”

…..

Yesterday the city turned the heating off. From about midday onwards, I heard the telltale creaking of the radiator doing god knows what, shrinking back into place, I guess.

This year, I knew the heating was going off on 15 April, courtesy of my friend, Mind the Gap’s, cleaner Olga. Olga told us the heating would turn off on 15 April. Last year, I was visiting a friend when the heating turned off, and I had no idea it would. I was so cold I had to put my coat on like a big numbskull just to sit indoors.

So I was anticipating the 15 April greatly, as I wanted to see if it was REALLY going to turn off. Now I’m not generalising about Ukrainians as a whole, but occasionally, when you ask a Ukrainian a question they don’t know the answer to, they will pull an answer out of the air rather than check and give me the answer later. It’s strangely similar to some of the East and South East Asian cultures that can’t bear to lose face. I understand the dignity behind the concept, but it can be frustrating when you don’t know what’s going on.

So I was very excited when it DID turn off.

The good news is that it’s really warm in the apartment. It’s only 8 degrees outside, but so far the only extra protection I’ve required is a little bit of help from my 8-year-old leopard-spot fluffy slippers. It helps that I get the full brunt of the sun first thing in the morning.

Over the past couple of weeks, the inside of our place has reached 26 degrees, so I’m not sorry the heat is gone.

It’s early in the morning (okay, it’s 7:50am, but I don’t do anything, remember). Mr Moi has been up for a while, splatted on the couch watching television. This is like a continuation of sleep for him, he remains in a catatonic state and registers nothing.

However, I walk into the room, boot up the computer and idly listen to the news on bbc world. Let me first point out that it’s one of only three news channels, and a total of 10 channels altogether, that I can watch in English, on my cable TV with 126 channels.

And listening to the news, all I can think of is ‘My, aren’t those Brits a bunch of misery guts!’ The first ‘headline’ I heard was “If the honey bees are in trouble, then so are we”. WTF? Is this the British idea of a sensationalist headline? Why are they doing an expose on the humble honey bee? Ohigeddit, global warming is the honey bees’ fault? Little pricks.

Besides that, it’s the usual doom and gloom, but all from a pommy perspective. The pound is going down (about bloody time. Brits have been enjoying The Rest of the World on peanuts for long enough, thanks very much). House prices in Britain may have gone into decline, rather than just being static. All of this interspersed with pictures of people looking ethnic in different countries around the world.

There’s no point to this post, except really to point out that news is designed for people who can’t mentally digest more than a soundbyte at a time, and watch anything about a certain topic for longer than 40 seconds. Sometimes I think my brain, in Ukraine, has become moulded by the likes of BBC world.

But I do like to listen to those nice plummy BBC English accents.

…

Okay jokes aside. Perhaps now that there is a little bit of green on the trees outside, I’m not feeling so depressed. I’ve decided that winter in a truly cold place really sucks. This aussie girl isn’t cut out for no green, slush, ice, and freezing cold temperatures with nary a sunlight ray to boot.

That’s my obligatory once in a blue moon blog post. Feel free to tell me how lazy a blogger I am in the comments box. May provide some motivation.

When I was living in Sydney, I’d get up every Saturday morning, take a walk around the neighbourhood, and stop in the the local shops to buy the papers (The Sydney Morning Herald and, on rare occasions, The Daily Telegraph. The Tele - only because, on a Saturday morning when two people - i.e. myself and Mr Moi - are reading the papers, I don’t really want to share).

I used to pour over those papers at the same time I poured over breakfast, usually on the deck in the sun (lovely and warm in winter). It took me hours to read the Saturday papers, and by the end of the experience they where filled with crumbs and splashed with milk and juice. Anywhere I went on the weekend, I’d take the papers with me, to read in the car (when Mr Moi was driving), or to friends’ houses to share the reading love with them.

There are no Saturday papers in Kyiv. Well, there are, but they’re in Russian or Ukrainian. And even if I could read them, they aren’t those special breed of Saturday papers, with the book review sections, the real estate section, the travel section, the glossy weekend magazine, etc etc.

I know people here who occasionally purchase the English newspapers (which arrive over a day after publication anyway). But at the extortionate cost of about $15 per paper, I’m not about to partake. I’ll whinge about the lack of Saturday papers, but they don’t mean that much to me.

So, all of you bloggers out there, while you’re reading your Saturday papers and dripping eggs and coffee on them, think of the expats who can’t buy a paper in a language they understand, and are reduced to trying to avoid their cornflakes dripping on the keyboard as they pour through the news online.

It just doesn’t have the same feel to it.