More from Ukraine
Jul. 18th, 2006 12:30 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
pecuniumLife, for me, in the army is full of bittersweet. I have been to a lot of places I never expect to see again. So every time I go someplace it’s as though it were my last, the people I meet I have to keep in mind I may never see again.
Which is why yesterday annoyed me, I wanted to be home. I didn’t really want to be here. I think I’m just sort of worn out. It’s not that I’ve been away from home too long, but rather that I’ve been completely out of touch with home, and people, for three weeks. It might be easier if I’d not had the huge set of dislocations.
I’ll get over it.
We had our day off (between the train up for the exercise, and the actual exercise) and I went to the monastery of Lavra Pche’rsk and the Ukrainian Museum of the Great Patriotic War. Lavra Pche’rsk was ok. The monks were, generally, quite rude, and not being orthodox, of any stripe, the air of pregnant sanctity which the catacombs possess was inherent, but not internal. It didn’t move me in the way that a Roman Catholic cathedral would.
But the architecture is lovely, and the sense of place intense.
Just down the road was the museum. There was nothing in it which was truly new to me (though the guillotine they said was from one of the camps was something I’d not seen reference to, and it was affective. It, more than the gloves of human skin, or the piece of soap they claimed had been made from human fat, disturbed me.
I don’t know why. I know the gloves, and the soap were aberrations. That despite all which did go on that sort of thing wasn’t widespread (the soap was too hard to make, and the quality too poor, even to give to prisoners [and the purpose of that experiment was to keep the slaves alive for a small period longer, and reduce the risk of disease arising, and afflicting the staff], and human skin makes poor leather, so apart from gruesome trophies, and sick bastards, there was no real production).
Gas chambers… removed, distant, in a way inhuman, by the very nature of the impersonality of it.
The guillotine; mechanistic, but personal. One person had to strap another to it and do the grisly deed. Being soldier I have contemplated my death in a lot of ways. As a student of history I have read a lots of stories of execution (the accounts of the first set of executions from the Babbington Plot are particularly gruesome). I looked at that machine and tried to imagine what it would be like to be killed with it. It was horrifying.
The entire museum was very well done; somber and quiet with lots of objects from the war. The remains of plains, and the effects of the crew, extracted from the wreckage. Weapons, uniforms, medals, photos and descriptions, from the invasion, to the final push. Most of the detail as about Kiev, but that makes a certain amount of sense.
The last rooms were more specific about losses. Photos of young men in uniform, some with a cartridge on a piece of red felt posted next to them; those were men who died. One woman had fifteen sons, ten went to the war, and all came back. Another had ten, nine went, and none returned.
In the last room, five thousand pictures of the dead. On one side of a table was a long line of glasses, and under the glass were letters home. On the other side the same pattern, but with bits of mess kits, in front of them. The glasses stood in front of letters whose writers survived. The mess kits were in front of those who took their last meat and drink from such.
On the more personal level, tonight’s dinner was nice. It started with potato and mushroom vareniki, topped with a sort of cracklin’. Main dish was snop (rabbit) chopped and baked in a cream sauce with onion, carrots, some potato and not quite enough salt. For drink I had a local weissbier, it was "enh," but I followed it with a german unfiltered which was quite tasty. For afters I had a cappuccino, and a bilberry shake (they called it a cocktail, and I expected something like a shake, or parfait, but it was bilberries, blended with a bit of sugar. Almost too rich in fruit to be drinkable.
After we strolled back to the umbrellas (a small café, where people stop to have a drink and a smoke, usually cigars, but occasionally a hookah) I headed back, alone, to the hotel.
Walking alone is verboten but the Colonel lets me do it from there, as it’s only a couple of blocks, I can fend for myself, and I speak something approaching the local language. I didn’t realise how much time I’ve not had to myself until tonight. The idea of the buddy system means that I’ve not been alone in more than a week, save for a couple of these short strolls. London, and an afternoon in Scotland have been pretty much the only time (save a couple of hundred yards of walking from the Bn. Mess in Cameron Barracks, and a few hours on stag in the woods of Scotland (which isn’t really quality time for oneself. Guard duty is dedicated time) I’ve not been in company since the 23rd of June.
I got back, signed in, called the Col. on the CQ’s phone and posted this.
Which is why yesterday annoyed me, I wanted to be home. I didn’t really want to be here. I think I’m just sort of worn out. It’s not that I’ve been away from home too long, but rather that I’ve been completely out of touch with home, and people, for three weeks. It might be easier if I’d not had the huge set of dislocations.
I’ll get over it.
We had our day off (between the train up for the exercise, and the actual exercise) and I went to the monastery of Lavra Pche’rsk and the Ukrainian Museum of the Great Patriotic War. Lavra Pche’rsk was ok. The monks were, generally, quite rude, and not being orthodox, of any stripe, the air of pregnant sanctity which the catacombs possess was inherent, but not internal. It didn’t move me in the way that a Roman Catholic cathedral would.
But the architecture is lovely, and the sense of place intense.
Just down the road was the museum. There was nothing in it which was truly new to me (though the guillotine they said was from one of the camps was something I’d not seen reference to, and it was affective. It, more than the gloves of human skin, or the piece of soap they claimed had been made from human fat, disturbed me.
I don’t know why. I know the gloves, and the soap were aberrations. That despite all which did go on that sort of thing wasn’t widespread (the soap was too hard to make, and the quality too poor, even to give to prisoners [and the purpose of that experiment was to keep the slaves alive for a small period longer, and reduce the risk of disease arising, and afflicting the staff], and human skin makes poor leather, so apart from gruesome trophies, and sick bastards, there was no real production).
Gas chambers… removed, distant, in a way inhuman, by the very nature of the impersonality of it.
The guillotine; mechanistic, but personal. One person had to strap another to it and do the grisly deed. Being soldier I have contemplated my death in a lot of ways. As a student of history I have read a lots of stories of execution (the accounts of the first set of executions from the Babbington Plot are particularly gruesome). I looked at that machine and tried to imagine what it would be like to be killed with it. It was horrifying.
The entire museum was very well done; somber and quiet with lots of objects from the war. The remains of plains, and the effects of the crew, extracted from the wreckage. Weapons, uniforms, medals, photos and descriptions, from the invasion, to the final push. Most of the detail as about Kiev, but that makes a certain amount of sense.
The last rooms were more specific about losses. Photos of young men in uniform, some with a cartridge on a piece of red felt posted next to them; those were men who died. One woman had fifteen sons, ten went to the war, and all came back. Another had ten, nine went, and none returned.
In the last room, five thousand pictures of the dead. On one side of a table was a long line of glasses, and under the glass were letters home. On the other side the same pattern, but with bits of mess kits, in front of them. The glasses stood in front of letters whose writers survived. The mess kits were in front of those who took their last meat and drink from such.
On the more personal level, tonight’s dinner was nice. It started with potato and mushroom vareniki, topped with a sort of cracklin’. Main dish was snop (rabbit) chopped and baked in a cream sauce with onion, carrots, some potato and not quite enough salt. For drink I had a local weissbier, it was "enh," but I followed it with a german unfiltered which was quite tasty. For afters I had a cappuccino, and a bilberry shake (they called it a cocktail, and I expected something like a shake, or parfait, but it was bilberries, blended with a bit of sugar. Almost too rich in fruit to be drinkable.
After we strolled back to the umbrellas (a small café, where people stop to have a drink and a smoke, usually cigars, but occasionally a hookah) I headed back, alone, to the hotel.
Walking alone is verboten but the Colonel lets me do it from there, as it’s only a couple of blocks, I can fend for myself, and I speak something approaching the local language. I didn’t realise how much time I’ve not had to myself until tonight. The idea of the buddy system means that I’ve not been alone in more than a week, save for a couple of these short strolls. London, and an afternoon in Scotland have been pretty much the only time (save a couple of hundred yards of walking from the Bn. Mess in Cameron Barracks, and a few hours on stag in the woods of Scotland (which isn’t really quality time for oneself. Guard duty is dedicated time) I’ve not been in company since the 23rd of June.
I got back, signed in, called the Col. on the CQ’s phone and posted this.
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no subject
Date: 2006-07-18 08:37 pm (UTC)I'm glad you've at least been able to find other interesting things besides relics of horror during this trip.
no subject
Date: 2006-07-18 08:48 pm (UTC)What point to fighting when there was no escape, and no audience to come to the rescue? I looked at that thing (and of all the ways I can think of to be killed the guillotine was just that, a thing, an object, a dehuminizing device, in a way that rope, rifle or axe just aren't. I can't explain it and shan't really try) and it made my mind numb.
I kept trying to decide how I would react if I were the one being strapped onto it.
Oddly enough there was little of horror in the museum. Maybe that's just my calloused soul, but it was terrible, not horrible (save for that one room).
Even if it were worse than it was, the design of the place (rising from the darkened arenas of the war, to great spills of light (though in the rotunda there were still quiet reminders of the cost of Germany's defeat and the price of the war. A collection of "memory" books, listing all the dead of each oblast and the "heroes of the cities.") was uplifting, and there are, as always, the attractive women, in revealing dress.
TK
no subject
Date: 2006-07-19 12:16 am (UTC)I went to the monastery of Lavra Pche’rsk and the Ukrainian Museum of the Great Patriotic War. Lavra Pche’rsk was ok.
At least YOU didn't have to a)rent an apron and b) wear a headscarf. I didn't mind being respectful, but I was pissed to see that women in short skirts were okay to go in and my jeans were not. Um, who is more modest?
Just down the road was the museum.
I liked the statue/murals outside and the huge statue of Mother Victory.
In the last room, five thousand pictures of the dead. On one side of a table was a long line of glasses, and under the glass were letters home.
That was pretty incredible, I must admit. There's a musuem of Ukraine's foreign wars as well (mostly Afghanistan) that's pretty good too, with the same sort of display.
DV