I was volunteering with Mormons. I’m not Mormon but I wanted to go and was really interested in learning more about Russia at the time. It was difficult to get a Russian visa and I was offered to volunteer in Ukraine and get everything i needed covered since nobody was willing to go because of the situation. I was young and kind of stupid but I don’t regret going. I honestly can’t say that I understand the situation any better in terms of what happened and what is going on right now. In January 2014 a lot was happening at the city center. It seemed like, at the time, when Crimea was declared a Russian territory (I think it was in May?) a lot of people were ambivalent and it seemed like most of Eastern Ukraine was pretty much part of Russia anyway. In Kiev it seemed like people were split down the line on most issues. Every one of my younger friends supported Euro Maidan and seemed to hate communism. I tried to ask them what it was like living in the USSR but a lot of them didn’t remember what it was like, but their parents seemed to have ambivalent opinions. I talked to some older people who missed living in the USSR. Also, near the city center (there’s a metro stop near Maidan that’s called Kontracktova Plosha) I remember there being some people selling Nazi memorbelia which I thought was weird. Like, selling old photographs of Hitler and stuff. It’s hard to imagine what is going on in Kiev right now because in 2014 literally everything was concentrated at the city center. Outside of that life was on as usual. I went to this town in East Ukraine that was near Lvov, I think it was called Kemenetz Podolski (I’m probably butchering the name) but I thought it was cool because they had a lot of communist monuments still standing. In Kiev most things were torn down. Also Western Ukrainians just seemed to have integrated that history more which was interesting. I wish I could have talked to more people and was better at Russian. I’m sorry I’m not the most articulate on my phone and the Lemmy app keeps fucking up.
How’d that happen?
I was volunteering with Mormons. I’m not Mormon but I wanted to go and was really interested in learning more about Russia at the time. It was difficult to get a Russian visa and I was offered to volunteer in Ukraine and get everything i needed covered since nobody was willing to go because of the situation. I was young and kind of stupid but I don’t regret going. I honestly can’t say that I understand the situation any better in terms of what happened and what is going on right now. In January 2014 a lot was happening at the city center. It seemed like, at the time, when Crimea was declared a Russian territory (I think it was in May?) a lot of people were ambivalent and it seemed like most of Eastern Ukraine was pretty much part of Russia anyway. In Kiev it seemed like people were split down the line on most issues. Every one of my younger friends supported Euro Maidan and seemed to hate communism. I tried to ask them what it was like living in the USSR but a lot of them didn’t remember what it was like, but their parents seemed to have ambivalent opinions. I talked to some older people who missed living in the USSR. Also, near the city center (there’s a metro stop near Maidan that’s called Kontracktova Plosha) I remember there being some people selling Nazi memorbelia which I thought was weird. Like, selling old photographs of Hitler and stuff. It’s hard to imagine what is going on in Kiev right now because in 2014 literally everything was concentrated at the city center. Outside of that life was on as usual. I went to this town in East Ukraine that was near Lvov, I think it was called Kemenetz Podolski (I’m probably butchering the name) but I thought it was cool because they had a lot of communist monuments still standing. In Kiev most things were torn down. Also Western Ukrainians just seemed to have integrated that history more which was interesting. I wish I could have talked to more people and was better at Russian. I’m sorry I’m not the most articulate on my phone and the Lemmy app keeps fucking up.
Thank you for your insight!
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