Had prayers said on behalf of Martha Palumbo for her grandaughter, Filomena, and also for memory of my grandparents, George and Maia Vas'ko.
Below: The Church of the Nativity of the Most Holy Mother of God
Met Bela Vas'ko and his wife Anna after church, and went to their house for dinner. They live in the same home which was built by my grandfather's brother, Andrew, after he returned to Dravtsi from America.
If you look carefully in the lower right corner, you can see a "shaddouf" style water well. Today, in the same location, is this water pump.
Bela showed me around his property; he had a mother goat and baby, several dozen chickens, several dozen rabbits.
I asked Bela about these pretty blue flowers growing in his garden; he said these are bean plants.
Below, Bela's wine press, wine barrels, Sauerkraut barrels, and grain barrels.
The wine press has spaces between the wooden slats, to allow the grape juice to flow through.
Bela had all the usual fruits and vegetables in his garden. He also had this bush which had some orange berries; he said that they were used for making tea.
There was a small shelter which was normally used for picnics; for now there was some hay drying there.
Potatoes, varenya, preserves, pickles, etc in Bela's basement:
Bela told me that in addition to this land, his father Andrew also bought 20 acres of vineyards when he returned from America. However, when the Soviets took over Zakarpattia in 1945, they considered him a rich "kulak", and seized his vineyards.
Bela at his piano:
Bela's daughter Tatiana and her husband Oleksander, their daughters Yana and Marina joined us for lunch. Oleksander retired from the Ukrainian National Police force after 20 years, then served two years in the Sudan with UN peacekeepers.He is now working as a Customs Agent. Yana just completed her first year of college, studying IT at University in Warsaw, Poland. Oleksander said that the colleges and universities are better in Poland than Ukraine.
I didn't have a chance to photo any of the food, but Sasha (Oleksander) explained the Rusyn / Ukrainian idea of a meal: you start out with cold dishes - we had sausages, cold chicken cutlets, a cold meat loaf, Oliviet salad, bread, and vodka. After that, we had chicken soup. Once your stomach has been warmed up by the soup, you start with the hot dishes. We had home made bread smothered in a mushroom gravy, halubki, stuffed peppers, and rabbit. And rabbit really DOES taste like chicken!! If you didn't know it was rabbit, I don't think you could tell them apart. Then the meal is finished with something sweet. We had apple kolachi.
The war is always the main topic of conversation today. Sasha told me that he had heard from Ukrainian Secret Service that the Malaysian airliner was shot down by the Russians, by accident. Apparently, there are two villages in Eastern Ukraine with the same name. A Russian missile battery was supposed to be sent to one of the villages, to shoot down a RUSSIAN PLANE, blame it on the Ukrainians, and use this as a pretext for invasion. However, the Russians went to the wrong village, and so shot down the wrong plane.
Sasha said that one year ago, war would have been unthinkable. When Ukraine broke from the Soviet Union, they gave up all their nuclear weapons, and most of their military hardware. They had friendly relations with all their neighbors - Poland, Belarus, Slovakia, Hungary, Romania, and Russia. They didn't have any desire to act aggressively towards any of their neighbors, and never expected anyone to act aggressively towards them. Russians and Ukrainians were considered brothers.War with Russia was as unthinkable, he said, as war between the US and Canada.
Sasha talked about how ridiculous Putin's propaganda is: everyone in every country knows that Russian soldiers are fighting in Ukraine and has seen proof, except for the Russian people. Putin can now longer hide the fact that Russian soldiers are dying in Ukraine, so he has spun the story that these are Russian soldiers, on VACATION, who decided to grab their AK's, Grad missile systems, and tanks, and volunteer to help the Separatists!!!!!!!!.......and people in Russia believe him. Tatyana works with a woman whose mother was originally from Russia, and had lived in Uzhgorod for 40 years. The mother recently moved back to Russia. When war broke out, she called her daughter in Uzhgorod, terrified, she had heard that Ukrainians were raping all the Russian women in Uzhgorod and killing all the Russian children. The daughter said "Mama, that's not true! That's crazy!You lived here for 40 years! You know what the people are like! It's very peaceful here!" But the mother insists that her daughter is lying.
We finished lunch about 4 o'clock, and I went back to Klara's. I helped Ivan get some pig food ready, cutting up potatoes for them, boiling corn mash, and then watering the garden. It's almost 8 o'clock here now. Having soup with Klara. I'll write more tomorrow.
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