Caroline Mackenzie,RPCV, Ukraine 2014 Now Living a Great Life in Hawaii: WALKING AROUND LUHANSK

Hello all,

HAPPY ORTHODOX EASTER SUNDAY!

Caroline’s “Paska” or “кулич”. It was blessed this morning, April 15, at 5:30 a.m. I returned home and had some! It is really good!

Lucky me to have two Easters – Catholic Easter, last Sunday, April 8, and Orthodox Easter. Today!

These are photos from my April 8 Easter celebration: Easter brunch, complete with Quiche, bacon and bloody Marys!

Easter Brunch with my good friends: Kyle Borley, Rachel Simonelli, Amy Woodstock and Hailey Spencer

SO now that the weather if a bit warmer, it is more fun to walk to work, walk to church, walk anywhere, really! So, I will share a few of my normal walks around Luhansk.

First: Everyone needs a landmark to figure out where “home” is.

The radio/tv/satellite towers are the landmark. The towers sit in a park directly across the street from my building. (2nd photo)

When I leave my building, I walk down the small alley, turn past the flower vendors and then come to my main street , КОЦЮБИНСКОГО , Kotzubinskogo – the name of my street in English.

WALKING TO WORK (The photos show all the seasons here in Luhansk… fall colors, winter ice, spring mud thaw and summer)

While our offices are being remodeled, I have a 30 minute walk to work; our office is currently located in the department of rehabilitation therapy at Shevchenko National University in Luhansk.

The alley in front, the small bazaar where I turn the corner, go to my street – Kotzubinskogo, then left to the Theatre square, up to the main street, pass shopping areas, cut through the University grounds, pass through the park, pass the Blue church, cross the street to the office building.

My alley in Fall, the Theater square, the City Hall and city center square

Luhansk’s main street, Sovetskaya

1) One of the main intersections, right turn to 2) the entrance gate to Shevchenko National University 3) in the campus a the park with famous, old stones on the campus grounds

Details of some of the old stone statues. The orthodox church on campus- a landmark as the church is very blue!

My office is across the street from the blue church.

WHEN I walk to purchase my train tickets, I walk to the train station.

From my street, Koutzbinskogo, I turn right and walk down the hill to the train station. In the spring, summer and fall, this is a 20 minute walk. In the winter with the ice, it is a 10 minute SLIDE down the hill and a 40 minute careful walk up the hill.

1)My street, my building in the middle, 2) the walk down the hill, the train station has the arch entrance, l3)ooking back up the hill to my apartment complex.

The central bazaar is an “more or less” open shopping area in the center of Luhansk. The bazaar is open from 9 until 3, daily except Mondays.

I always see people feeding stale bread to city pigeons. Two babushkas coming home from market.

While the main street, Sovetskaya, and my street, Koutzbinskogo, are paved streets with a lot of traffic, just two blocks either direction of the main streets, the roads in Luhansk are pretty awful. The potholes in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, do not even come close to the horrible pot holes in Luhansk (that get worse after every winter).