Goodbye Kyiv, Hello Odessa

Our berth on the Odessa Train

Odessa Opera

All night train to Odessa

We said farewell to our Kyiv host Grigori after an excellent 3 days in the capital and boarded the train south to Odessa. The train ride was an amazing experience.   Kevin and I shared a sleeping berth with a couple from Crimea and it was a tad crowded, we barely found space for our luggage. We boarded the train at 4:30 pm in the 25 degree heat which seemed to double in the berth so we spent the first couple of hours hanging out in the narrow hallway looking out the windows as the countryside slowly went by and trying to get some relief form the 2 inch opening at the top of the window.  Finely we gave up and went to bed, we had the narrow top bunks and I was fearful of falling out.  I think I fell asleep at about 10 but seemed to wake every hour or so as the train was noisy when moving and seemed to stop at lot at the little stations along the way. We finally made it into Odessa at 6:00am and were met on the platform by our new hosts Tanya and her husband who took us right home and fed us a big breakfast. First stop was the Odessa Rescue Services for a tour, video and numerous rescue demonstrations a private meeting  (including shots of Vodka) with the General and TV interview, quite a visit to say the least. Next on the agenda was a visit to city hall and lunch in their cafeteria, then a 3 hour city walking tour a short visit to a local brew pub and more walking (window shopping) and supper at one of the host Rotarians restaurant. After supper we attended the Opera (info tba) then an evening walk through the downtown streets and home to a nightcap of a couple of shots of vodka and off to bed.

Whew,

/g

Re-cap

Hour zero, Edmonton Airport prior to departure.

First stop Uzhgorod,

Host Rotarian Viktor: Uzhgorod Skala RC

Host Rotarian Oleh Luksho: Uzhgorod RC

Host Rotarian Ivan Stassiuk

Ternopil...RC Meeting

Vinnitsya

Vinnitsya RC meeting

Kyiv

Kyiv Foto's 1

Kevin, me and our Kyiv Rotarian host Gregori

Random shot out the car window downtown Kyiv

The Dnieper river and our dinner boat

The guy below is a Zanfer Indian ?????

St Michaels Church

Kyiv apartment

Saint Sophia's Cathedral

Kyiv

Yesterday was the first full day in Kyiv and we attended the District 2230 Conference, it was a busy day with meetings all morning, our presentation in the afternoon and a boat cruize and dinner etc in the evening. Our presentaion went very well, but unfortunatly they missed Kevins slide but he went through his verbal presentation flawlessly. Afterwards we recieved numerous comliments, the attendees were impressed that we presented in Ukrainian, apparently this is the first time a foriegn GSE has done that.
The boat and dinner cruize was incredible we cruized up the river Dnieper in a huge yacht drinking champane and eating fancy appies.
A great day.
Now we are off to the Hollocast museum,
Bud mo
/g

Lada's and Bananas

I was going to tell you all a story about Bananas and Lada's but we just arrived in Kiev a few hours ago, drove to our new host rotarians house 30 minutes out of the city played a quick game of basketball then another quicker game of ping pong and were whisked off to a Ukrainian restaurarnt for some Borcht etc, arrive back home and through the wonders of goggle translator found out that we have to be up at 6:00 am to drive back to Kiev to attend the District 2230 Ukraine/Poland District Conference all day and night, not just attend, but apparently we are the guests of honor and will be presenting our now famouse ppt show about Canada and District 5370 to the masses.
That said I am off to bed (after I iron my shirt and pants) and will try again tomorrow, but dont hold your breath, lol
To be continued.....................
Bud-mo,
/g

Apartments

Typical apartment buildings in Vennytsya, most people own the individual flats. there are about 50 to 75 flats per building and literaly 1000's of apartment buildings in the city.

Vinnytsya continued

South Bug River

Our visit to the beautiful city of Vinnytsya ends first thing in the morning as we will be shuffled off to Kiev for the District Conference and more vocational and cultural experiances.

Today was another action packed non-stop adventure which began with another big breakfast of mini pancakes covered in homemade jam and sweet cream as well as ham and tomatoe buns with black tea.

We thought we were visiting the fire station first thing but found out that fell through so we moved up the fire alarm device factory tour which proved to be very interesting and Kevin even got to bring home a free pull station. Next stop was the main hospital which I would compare to the U of A because it is tied in with the main Medical/ Pharmaceutical University, a great vocational experience for Inessa.

After lunch we were surprized to be able to visit the Fire Academy, a last minute addition that Kevin and I will not soon forget. The Chief and Deputy gave us full orientation and tour of this amazing facility. It is not on par with the technology of Fire ETC in Vermillion; but the interesting thing was that it is a true academic academy, students start at a very young age and go through all Jr and Sr High school training as well as a full slate of Emergency Services course and Fire arms training etc.

The academy was run in true military fashion with young camouflaged students saluting us as we toured the hallways and classrooms. The academy also had a fully operational fire station and a fire museum. (Photos attached)

Next stop was a bigger surprize we thought we had on hour before presenting at the Rotary meeting and the agenda said we were visiting a Dental office, two hours later we were a bit late for the Rotary meeting and had an amazing interactive visit to Vinnytsya Rotarians private surgery clinic where we learned all about his ground breaking Hysterectomy replacement surgery techniques (Uterine Fibroid Embolization) after which he presented us with gifts and refreshments. Then the rush was on as we were late for the Rotary meeting and our presentation, but not worry our hosts Roma and Thu Ha got us back to the apartments and we quickly changed and made the meeting only an hour late. Again the presentation was very well received and because we had wi-fi I spent an hour showing the Vinnytsya Rotarians pictures and videos of Jasper, Edmonton, and the Ukrainian Culture Centre and even our Jasper Rotary Facebook page.

As usual we are up early in the AM we have one quick activity then we are off to Kiev.

Dobra night!

Bud-mo,

/g

Fire Training Centre Museum

Class in progress!

Vinnytsya

Day three in Vinnytsya, yesterday was a busy one, started out with a giant breakfast of pork cutlets, salad, fried patatoes, and  cottage cheese, washed down with green tea.
Breakfast in this part of Ukraine is the largest meal of the day, they rarely have mid day lunch like us so they require lots of energy to get through the day. The people hosting us are very proud of their heritage and their food, they like to see visitors eat and enjoy what they have prepared. Needless to say we are all eating very good, so far my favorite local dish is Borsht.
We visited Hitlers "werewolfe bunker" which was one of his strongholds in Europe in 1941 and 1942, he forced over 5000, Ukraines, Poles and Jews to build the many buildings and dig out the underground tunnnels and bunkers, then executed them and buried them in a mass grave,,,which we also visited. It was interested but extremely disturbing. We also went to the Pyrohov museum and estate where we learned all about the famous Russian/Ukraine surgeons life works and saw first hands his many illustrated volumes of ground breaking abdominal surgical techniiques etc. Just to top it off we also visited his tomb where we got to see him in person, embalmed since hs death in the late 1890,s, I must say he looks pretty good for being on display for over a hundred years. As a bonus our host Rotarian tooks us out into the rainy country side and showed us the remains of a city dating back before the birth of Christ. The day was capped off with a vist to the Musical fountain and laser show in the centre of the city finishing up with home made Borsht and mushroom pie at 10:30.
Today we have a few hopital vists and a tour of the local fire hall then will will give the local Rotary Club our GSE presentation.
Stay tuned,
Bud-mo
/g

Hitlers Swimming Pool at the Werewolf bunker    

Ternopil FD

Team photo in front of St Florean Statue, Ternopil Fire Dept

Meeting with Chief offices

Pump

Carpathian Mountains

Ivano-Frankivsk- Ternopil etc

I am  bit behind on the blogs, I did not have internet access these last few days, here is a quick update with more dtails to come hopefully tomorrow depending on our schedule.
We spent two days in Ivan-Frankivsk, visited the fire hall and were given the royal tour, the Chief gave us each a goodie bag full of mementos including a bottle of vodka looking like a fire extingusher.
After the Fire Hall we toured a Fur coat factory, which was actually very interesting, we saw the construction of a fure coat from start to finish.
The next day Ivano-Frankivsk Rotary put us in the hands a Ukraines top mountain guide and we whisked off into the Carpathian Mountains for two days of mtn hiking and sight seeing etc. next stop was Ternopil for two nights, three days, we had a great visit and made some new friends, the fire hall, fire museum tour was outstanding the Chief and 15 officers served us an amazing lunch.
Today we left Ternopil, another long drive and we have just arrived in Vinnyysta.
Now it is bed time I have been up for14 hours with very little sleep in the past few nights.
More tomorrow,
Bud-mo,
/g 

Leaving Uzhgorod

Uzhgorod to Ivano-Frankivsk

We really havent had much time for computers lately, the schedule has been extremely busy.
Tuesday (I think) we left Uzhgorod 7 hours later we were in Ivano-Frankivsk.
The folks from the Uzhgorod 'Skala' and Uzhgorod Rotary clubs proved to be excellent hosts, they treated us to cultural tours of the area as well as many vocational vists. Our host families were awesome, everyone was treated to some real genuine Transcarpathian Ukrainian home life, an experience we will never forget. (Thank you to both Uzhgorod Rotary Clubs)
We arrived in Ivano-Frankivsk with half an hour to spare before we were expected to make our team presentation at the Rotary meeeting, needless to say we were a bit rushed. First we had to meet our new host families load our luggage into their cars, drive to their houses, unpack, change into our uniforms jump back into their cars and rush off to the Rotary meeting. We arrived at the meeting almost on time, to find out that they did not have a ppt projector (which is the media we use for the presentation).  We didnt let that bother us, Jay held up my laptop at the head of the table, we moved some chairs around a proceeded with the presentation, an unexpected thing happpened when I finshed bumbling through my introduction in Ukrainian, everyone clapped and cheered, then when Inessa finished her bit, same thing and the same enthusiastic applause for Kevin, Noreen and Jay as well. We later found out that they were very surprised to hear the presentation in Ukrainian, they loved it; apparently they have hosted  two previouse GSE's from North America and both required the aid of an interpreter.(Thanks to Svitlana Melnyk our Edmonton language trainer, lol)
I should add that really' Inessa' is our ace in the hole on this trip as she speaks fluent Ukrainian and has been our interpreter on a daily basis.

Photo:Ivano-Frankivsk Deputy Fire Chief and Fire Chief

Today Greg, Jay and Kevin visited the Fire Administration and Training Centre and Inessa and Noreen visited the Girl Guides and the Cancer hospital, but more on that tomorrow, its bed time up early. Apparently we are climbing a mountain.
Cheers,
/g

Sleeping fire man

Uzhgorod Fire Rescue Department

Big Hats: All officers in Ukraine including Police, Fire and Customs have crazy big hats, lol

Uzhgorod Fire Rescue Department

Most fire hydrants in Ukraine are actually carried on a truck, and screwed into a water cistern. The top photo shows the the truck attached to the portable hydrant, middle photo shows the fire fighter removing the hydrant from the truck cabinet, and the lower photo shows a fire fighter screwing the hydrant ino the cistern.
Interesting system, however one fire fighter indicated that in winter it is sometimes difficult to find the exact location of the cistern opening as they may be covered in snow!

Uzhgorod Fire Rescue Department

The fire service in Ukraine seeems to be in the midst of  change, recently taking on more responsibilities normaly associated with the Fire Services of North America; such as highway rescue and haz-mat. Their biggest challenge - funding. Their biggest assset - their workforce.
The photo above shows fire fighters in three different types of gear (I counted 4 on our visit) the blue gear is Ukraine, black donated by Germany and brown gear from USA or Canada.

Village Market

Everything from fresh ground spices to bottled jams and pickles to goat cheese and home made sour cream,,,,,,,,

Best purchase of the day

Best purchase of the day: toy police car!

This is for my EPS family!

random pics