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Most are soon exhausted by the constant companion ship of cousins and aunts and uncles who are strange strangers who live in cramped quarters with bad plumb ing. But the negative feelings are distinctly counterbal anced b/ a feeling of being somehow home. “I’m among my own kind, I’m in the land of my forefathers.” The/ talk about their encounters with relatives and others late into the night, expressing awe and dismay at what they have seen and heard their first full day in Ukraine. ”My family started telling me about the famine. They just heard about it last year. They couldn’t believe that IVe known about it for years... everybody wants to know why I speak in Ukrainian... They don’t have any socks. They don’t have any vegetables. They don’t have any water. They have to stand in line for everything... this place is like the twilight zone.” There has been little preparation for the trip. Not many have bothered to read up on current events in Ukraine. Lviv is just a place their parents talked about and RUKH is something vaguely political. The tour leader, Vera Andrushkiw of Scope Travel, and I are the veterans here. Intermittent and tentative questions begin. “So tell me about this RUKH stuff. Who’s this deputy so and so? What are the red and black flags all about?” We answer what we can and Vera distributes some printed materials that brief them on some of the issues that have become suddenly interesting. Since the departure from Newark airport, the young people have been conversing almost exclusively in Eng lish, but now there is a perceptible and inexorable shift from English to Ukrainian. It begins slowly with three or four of them and grows with a momentum that is par tially induced by constant contact with families and par tially by the environment. Lviv is draped from one end to the other in blue and yellow flags that demand this lin guistic salute. They comply. The journey to Kiev begins with tearful goodbyes in Lviv. The travelers are subdued, reflective. Their encoun ters in Lviv were happy, generous on both sides, but simultaneously depressing. “How can people live like that?” This time a singalong begins in earnest and lasts late into the night. Copies of the sovereignty declaration (in Ukrainian) are passed from hand to hand and read. Kiev brings new responses, new insights. This is a big city and not as friendly as Lviv. So much is unfamil iar. The service in the hotel is lousy, the people in the streets are almost unanimously surly. People and places are harder to find. The euphoria of Lviv is replaced by a sort of resignation; for most the best this city has to offer is tourism in its most elementary sense. They visit churches, museums, monuments and dutifully photo graph what needs to be photographed. With the help of Volodymyr Yavorivsky the group manages to get into the Verkhovna Rada and they are allowed to sit in on a session of the Ukrainian Parlia ment. They meet several of the deputies and Kiev becomes somewhat more exciting. The session itself evokes some ambivalent responses. For some, the lan guage is barely comprehensible. For others, the issues are too obscure and thus boring. A few fall asleep; a few watch and listen attentively, not always understanding, but somehow profoundly aware of the importance of what they are witnessing. The weekend arrives and Kiev is almost deserted. Everyone who has the means has gone to Zaporizzhia for the Sich anniversary. The city becomes even more depressing and the opening ceremonies of the Con gress of Ukrainian physicians, held in Kiev’s magni ficent opera house, is not enough to dispel the mood. The train ride from Kiev to Chernivtsi is notably differ ent from the earlier train ride from Lviv. A new tone enters here — critical and somehow unforgiving. ’’Kiev is the capital of Ukraine; I can’t believe how russified everything is...” Chernivtsi brings new lows. This seems to most of the group the least Ukrainian city they have visited. The only permanent Ukrainian flag, hung over the balcony of the newspaper offices of Molodiy Bukovinets, is eas ily missed. They don’t know anyone here and they don’t know what they should be seeing. A hike through the Karpaty, led by an over-zealous guide, turns into some what of a forced march for which they are unprepared and about which they vehemently complain. Thoughts about Ukraine are temporarily derailed as the focus shifts to personal discomfort and bruises. From Chernivtsi a day trip to Kolomiya and Yarem- che is arranged. Some of young people are excited about being among the first tourists from America legally allowed to travel to the area. Kolomiya, Ukrainain beyond their expectations, stuns them, but here again they know no one and can’t seem to find themselves. Yarem- che is even more of a disappointment. “It’s a tourist trap,” is the general view and the day ends with a prear ranged meeting with some Russian youths no one wants to be with. At this stage of the journey they have recognized and done battle with the system that has run Ukraine for so many years. In Lviv they saw their families victimized; now they themselves have become victims of the pow ers that be. The minor nuisance of suddenly rearranged schedules and of dealing with bureaucratic decisions over which they have not been consulted and over which they have no control, and the frequent “hurry up and wait” sessions with buses and trains, have become transfigured into an awareness of what it must mean to live this way day after day, year after year, with little else to look forward to. Leaving Chernivstsi means standing at the train sta tion for two hours, watching other trains pull in and out of the station and tripping over luggage while killing time. Another singalong session begins, but this one has a tone of defiance. The singing is loud, even raunchy, meant to attract attention and force a reaction from someone. Shirt fronts and jacket labels are clut tered with Ukrainian symbols and match the aggressive tone of the music. Once on board the train, they sleep or play cards or plan reunions for their last quick swing through Lviv. In Lviv a drenching rain doesn’t stop anyone from eagerly anticipated meetings with families and new found Видання C оюзу Українок A мерики - перевидано в електронному форматі в 2012 році . A рхів C У A - Ню Йорк , Н . Й . C Ш A.
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