Tuesday - Ivan cooked Ukrainian Borshch

Tuesday I helped mow the grass in the fallow sections of the garden. Because the grape vines growing on the trellis block the sunlight from the ground below, those sections are not used for growing vegetables, and just grow grass. Last year Ivan had a bad fall, and broke his leg in several places. It still hasn't healed right, and he has trouble walking without crutches, and can no longer use a scythe. Misha got his parents an electric lawn mower, and I used that to trim the grass.

While I was doing that, Ivan cooked his borshch. I'll try to reproduce the recipe as well as I can, but they don't even use a recipe, just go by sight.

The primary ingrediant in Ivan's borshch is pork. He used about 1 pound of fresh pork. While that was slow cooking in water, he fried onions, garlic, green pepper, and carrots and beets, both cut into strips. These were then added to the soup pot. Next, two types of parsley, some fresh dill, chopped cabbage, paprika, and black pepper. The word for parsley is "Petrushka". I asked Klara if "Petrushka" wasn't a girl's name. she answered yes, and said another girl's name from vegetables is "Morkva", meaning "Carrot".

After eating, I took the mini-bus to Uzhgorod to walk around. Below are some photos:

I went to one of the riverside cafe's for a beer. While I was there, an old woman came in, trying to sell a basket of mushrooms and a couple bouquets of flowers. She said she needed money for medicine. She wanted 25 hrivna (about $2) for a bucket of mushrooms.  I told her that I din't want anything, but I slipped her a 100 hrivna note, and invited her to sit with me and bought her a glass of kvas (she didn't drink alcohol). I was surprised that I was able to carry on a simple conversation in Ukrainian with a total stranger. I learned that her name was Ilona (similar to my mother's - "Helen"), she was in her 80's, and lived far from Uzhgorod an just cme here to try and get money for her knee.

There are some beggars who are just out to scam you, but I believe people like Ilona have genuinely hard lives, and it didn't deprive me of anything to help her.

I'm realizing now that I need to faithfully write my blog every night, because everything quickly becomes a blur! There is so much to see and do, and it is so easy to forget something. 

Also, I'd like to ask my readers help: I recently had my Yahoo email account hacked, and as a result I lost all my contact information. So please, if you enjoy my blog, please forward a link to any friends of yours whom you think would also enjoy. One of my goals with this blog is to promote travel and tourism to Zakarpattia (to help the economy and improve the lives of the people here); I'd like to reach as many people as possible.