Zap Day 1 from Curt

What a difference a long car ride, a couple of days and a different city makes.  First of all, I am never complaining about the potholes back home anymore, and I must say I LOVE road construction.  There I said it.  When we were planning our drive from Enakievo to Zap, Viktor asked us if we wanted to just take one taxi to save some money (about $150 for the extra car).  We tried jamming the five us plus the driver into the Chinese or Eastern European made car (think size of a Honda Accord) with Viktor in the front and the four of jammed in the back.  We considered it for about 10 seconds and opted for the second car (hand of God in our decision making).  We take one taxi for a short ride to the orphanage, but for 4 ½ hours I would get way too claustrophobic.  Now, when I say ‘pothole’ it is a relative term.  They must have gigantic pots here in the former Soviet Union.  If you drove into some of these holes at highway speeds, you would lose an axle.  There is some new highways being built, but there are no interchanges.  When you are on a highway,  and you want to get onto another, you come to a stop sign and then turn right onto the next highway.  If you actually need to go the other way, you will drive down about ¼ mile and then take a U-turn (imagine doing this from 1 Interstate to another with cars coming at highway speed).  Some of the main roads weren’t too bad, but he secondary roads are the ones where Sasha’s immense driving skill came in rather handy.  There were a couple of stop for us to ‘water the bushes’ on the side of the road, and then we finally made it to Zap.

To save some dough, Viktor had called ahead to set us up in an apartment for the three nights.  The first one had only one bed and some couches and was pretty dirty, so we declined.  The second one was a 3 bedroom with two queen beds and a big couch in the 3^rd.  It was semi-clean and was only $55 bucks per night (440 grivnas per night).  We decided to take this instead of getting 2 rooms at the hotel for about 4 times as much.  The beds are passable, the linens sparse, but it is a warm bed, and we have no complaints.  When you see the buildings the vast majority of Ukrainians are living in here, there is no way you can be so arrogant as to complain about this apartment.  Viktor is a certified teacher and loves history.  He pointed out to us the buildings here.  They were all built in waves depending on the leader of the USSR at the time they were built.  The Kruschev buildings are all 5 stories.  They were built very cheaply for the workers.  Small rooms in dull green buildings that were meant to last from about 40 years until the golden age of Communism would take over and they would have better facilities.  They are still being used by people today.  The Breshnev buildings are 6-10 stories high, and actually have elevators.  Viktor says he lives in one in Kiev.  We are staying in a Gorbachev building.  Think early 80s design, brown brick and steel buildings a little taller with balconies hanging off the sides.  The doors are all solid steel with security systems.  These are not very cheery accommodations by our standards, but at least it is shelter, and we are grateful to have it.

We had dinner at a restaurant called the Politburo last night.  It is decorated up with the full regalia of the Soviet Union.  The food was good.  They even had a guy who looked like Stalin all dressed up in his military gear who came by our table in character and talked about how our kids looked like they would be great in the Soviet Youth party.  Got our picture taken with him.  As we were leaving, he hit up Viktor to have me give him 20 grivnas for taking the picture…….figures.

Today we went to the Zap #3 orphanage.  As in Jocelyn’s post, it is in much better shape than Uglegorsk.  However, there is still a great need for the orphans there.  Jocelyn’s post covers the day well.  We will be back tomorrow with better weather so we can get outside and play with the kids.  Will post some more pics tomorrow.