Ukraine Journal 2022 08 21 Football
I will be on a train to Kyiv a week from Tuesday, and across the border into Poland the next day — August 31st. With my mission coming to an end, I’m just focusing on tying up loose ends and leaving everything organized for my successor in this role. And my successor will be Jan, the Czech guy I worked with in Kyiv. He’s spent the last couple of weeks on vacation back at home and gets back into Ukraine this coming week. It’s not clear how much overlap we will have because his travel will be constrained this week.
Wednesday is Ukrainian Independence Day, it marks the day Ukraine left the Soviet Union 31 years ago. There is a lot of chatter about both sides using the anniversary to make statement attacks. Kharkiv has announced a 24hr curfew on Wednesday and 7pm-7am curfews on Tuesday and Thursday. We plan to shut our warehouse at noon Tuesday and open back up Thursday morning if things have been quiet. None of the chatter is about Poltava, but Kyiv and Zaporizhzhia are both areas of concern.
It’s been busy here, with the Kharkiv team in town for R&R last weekend. Two of that team wanted to stay with me and Gorong at the house, and other two preferred the peace and quiet of a hotel. But we all got together for a BBQ at the house Sunday.
Carol is the new MedCo (Medical lead for the Coordination team Kyiv). She should be positioned in Kyiv, but after Danielle needed to leave the project, she went to Kharkiv to help out. Initially, she thought she might just be there for a couple of days, but she’s been there about 10 days and there is no sign of her leaving. Carol is about 70 years old and studied Tibetan Buddhism in Varanasi. She is an entertaining house guest. I asked her and Richard if they could lead the BBQ planning (since they are both native Australians) and they were right at home.
Usually, the first indication I have that things are happening with the staffing here is when I see them on our cloud-based movement sheet. It’s a shared excel document that shows the physical movement plans for everybody in the project. I must check it regularly because I need to know about anyone coming or leaving Poltava. Not just do I need to make sure there is a bed for them, but if they are on the road I need to be in contact with them hourly to check on their safety.
So, this week I saw that the Base Responsible from the MSF house in Poland was coming to Poltava. Is she taking over my position here? If she doing something else? No one tells me a thing. I call in to Kyiv to find out that she is taking over the HR role in Kharkiv because Richard (the Logistics Manager) is tired of it and there are all kind of squabbles on the Nationals team — one of who is Russian. Gweneth arrives and says, no, she will do HR for Kharkiv/Zapo/Poltava because we are all staffing up for the new projects. But she will be living here in Poltava — and if she goes into Kharkiv it will be a day trip. Smart girl.
Loose ends with you guys… All my team in Kyiv found jobs. A couple of our drivers (Sergii & Anatolii Z.) stayed with our Coordination team. One driver (Anatolii G.) and our warehouse manager got jobs with Oxfam in roles where they drive but also do a lot of translation and outreach in the community. Nicholi was hired by MSF OC-Paris to be their driver in Kyiv City. Bogdan, was one guy I was a bit worried about. But Bogdan, who was a commercial pilot before the war got hired by Nova Poshta — they are a private postal service in Ukraine, kind of like UPS, and they are starting a domestic air transport service. They don’t have a clearance to fly yet but are hoping to start flights in the west part of Ukraine.
Vorskla, the Poltava football team announced their schedule — and they have a home game on Sunday the 28th.
…
My laptop took a bit of a hiatus to serve as the EPL conduit. Gorong is a Chelsea fan. Last week we watched the Chelsea-Tottenham match together and he was crestfallen after Kane’s extra time equalizer. Tonight he just thinks the world is conspiring against him, I’ve been lowering Leeds expectations all week, and then he has to watch this 3–0 result with me. : )
Vorskla has a home game next week… but there are no tickets. They may be playing in the empty stadium, or they may be playing somewhere farther west. Either way I won’t be able to see them. : (
I also did a little field trip to the plain below Poltava that is the site of the 1907 battle where the Peter the Great and the Russians defeated the Swedes. There are some monuments there. One photo is the statue of Peter the Great. But it is wrapped in plastic. I took the photo because it is, for me, one of the iconic images I saw over and over in Kyiv — public artwork sandbagged or boxed in place and protected against anticipated damage from the war.
But as I’m writing this, I took another look at the photo and realized it is not sandbagged to protect it — but wrapped to obscure it. It is an example of the push to cut all ties to Russia as the war goes on. Carol was out for a walk over the weekend and came across an old man handing out fliers on our road. She brought it home and it was a copy of a newspaper opinion piece discussing (Google translate app is magic) whether Poltava should rename their streets now to remove Russian references or wait until the war is over.
Evidently, our street is named after someone or something related to a fight that took place on this spot during the Bolshevik revolution. Richard and I were not able to sort out every detail online, but there were Tartars and Cossacks involved.
The rush to rename and remove is fascinating. It does seem particularly Stalinist and Orwellian. I mean, like that is what has happened here over and over. A new empire pushes in and works to remove the traces of the previous empire. Mongols, Swedes, Nazis, Bolsheviks, NATO… it never ends! : )
— — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — -
Previous Journal Entries:
— — — — — — — — — — — — — — — -— — — —
Next Journal Entry:
