This will be a very quick diary. I’m heading in to a knee replacement surgery today. Looking forward to it. For those familiar with this surgery the outcomes are generally a plus in someone’s life, so well wishes there are appreciated but that’s not the topic at hand.
The past two days have been a nonstop stream of listening to hectic and stressed conversations in Russian in my living room between my partner who is here in the safety of Spain and her sister, her mother and her brother in law. Her brother in law fled Kiev a few weeks ago because he is still of draftable age and is now in Western Europe. No one really thought it would get this far but they did it for safety (wisely IMO). It’s unfortunate now that the rest of the family including their 8 year old daughter didn’t flee with him. Sadly they stuck around mainly because their dog didn’t have it’s passport yet.
In the past two days they have scrambled, first buying tickets from Kiev to Turkey where the dog has an easier time with less strict animal passports. Next, transferring the tickets to Lviv — a city several hours drive away which still appeared to have open air space when it became clear that Kiev airspace was shutting down apparently due to insurance reasons on jet liners.
Today? They are stuck. There is nowhere to go. Nothing to do but sit and wait in fear. The eight year old girl who calls me uncle is waiting for possible tanks and bombs entering her life.
I want to tell you a tiny bit about them. They live in a townhome that looks like an American suburb about 30 minutes outside of Kiev. They bought it new and then did the inside like — well — like an American home TV show. Everything is bright, new and looks like the better stuff in Home Depot. They have two cars, a poodle and the daughter looks like an adorable 8 year old who is a bit of a fashionista, loves the color pink, and right now really loves playing at an American style ropes course exactly like the action parks kids in the states play in.
The mom is a culinary lover. She’s got every gadget in her kitchen that you can imagine. She loves her air fryer right now and the supermarket where they shop looks like a Whole Foods but maybe twice the size. Massive, modern and mind blowing.
The father is an IT specialist like many smart Ukrainian men in his age range and they live what looks a lot like an American middle class life from a time when debt wasn’t crushing (his salary allows him to afford to actually pay for all of this).
They are a little bit more “consumer” than my tastes but it really was like a version of the American dream. Except now they are separated and their city may be overrun by military. Seriously, what you need to picture is tanks threatening Chicago from a Canadian dictator gone mad. That’s the best comparison I can come up with.
I’m really short on time so here’s what I want to say for now. Ukraine is a democracy. They freely elected their president. The people there are different than you and I but in many ways they aren’t. They aren’t a puppet state of Russia. You would be hard pressed to find 1 in 20 Ukrainians in the center of their country and Kiev in particular that wanted to be ruled by Putin or would be even remotely agreeable to an installed government. People seem to forget that these democracy loving people risked their lives in 2014 to get rid of a puppet of Putin and that was someone they actually elected.
Not only is this not going to go well, it’s going to be a travesty.
In the coming days there will be a lot of conversation — originating on the right but then scooped up like the good dogs the center media is about “Why is America even talking about being involved” and the answer is this: We are supposed to support actual democracies and Ukraine — even though it has been messy, even though corruption is a real thing, even though all of that. It’s a democracy. it’s a country.
And although this comparison of Kiev Ukrainians to Americans or Europeans in lifestyle is sort of like “Oh, well, would it be OK to not support people who looked and acted differently” I will say this. Supporting Ukraine isn’t about forcing a democracy on a country that didn’t actually ask for one (… Um… Iraq, Afghanistan) — it’s about supporting actual democracy worldwide.
Anyhow, I will wrap with these photos and then I will be out for about a day for the surgery so I can’t comment at all should it be read. I will post more about this while recovering but I really felt like this was a time to share this.
Thanks for reading and here are a few of my favorite snaps from when I lived there as promised. If people are interested I can do a further diary with some more..