Ukraine Village

This is the Ukraine Village that we visited on the 17 May. It is a place where they have brought in homes from different areas in Ukraine to save their heritage. It was very interesting. These are windmills that they had in their villages, used to grind the grain by wind.


They had thatched roof homes. Dad was trying to figure out how they latched it all together. It is made from bundles of wheat. The roofs were able to keep the rain out.

This is a typical home, one room with all activities in that room. The homes may have a small storage room or even a room for their animals to live in. Here the sleeping area is to the left, where everyone slept. In the middle is the looms. The linen hanging is a very typical Ukrainian design.


This is the school house. The school master's living quarters are in half of the school.

They try to make their homes colorful. I found these roosters around the windows on this one. Heck, maybe they are chickens and I just like roosters.


This is a type of folk art painting and it is a rooster for sure. They use their fingers to make the large strokes and a very fine brush for the details. It is very colorful so I bought me a piece or two for the kitchen and to take home.



As we wondered through the village there was some performers singing and dancing. Thought you may enjoy the colorful costumes.

Church Steeples in Ukraine

Most of these steeples are from the village, except for the last three. These are from the Kiev area.








Last Saturday we went to a village where they have moved original buildings from the 1750-1900 to this area to show how the Ukrainian Villages looked from their different areas. There are some from the Central, North and Western Ukraine. Will show you the different homes from these areas. Most of these Church steeples are from this village. Each church is still functional and in fact there was a mass going on in one when we were there. But these churches are very small, no pews, and you just stand up. Don't think they really give sermons, just recite their masses, do baptisms of the infants, and light candles.

This is the inside of the green steepled church. If you notice the man on the ladder he is refurbushing the pictures. If you zoom in you can see the different brightness of the pictures, so you can tell which ones he has already done.
This is an infant baptismal font fron the late 1700'S.

This is the inside of another church, you can see how small they are. That's all there is to them. Then if you look up through the tower it is all open through that area.

Victory Day

Dear Family and Friends,

Believe it or not we are still in Ukraine serving our mission. I am just a little slow in posting. We have been out of Kiev for four days again last week. Went to the Dnipropetrovsk Ukraine mission to visit hospital and clinic sites. Surprisingly some of the clinic on the outside were really old, dirty lookin but inside were newer and clean. We decided to travel by train this time. So we took the express train to DNP which took us about 6 hours. We were in a booth that held 6 people. It only cost $50 for a round trip. One can not really complain except the seats did not recline so maybe next time we will just go economy class and not have an individual TV which we can not understand anyway, so we don't care if there is one. Just want to tell about a few of the events we have experienced in Ukraine recently.

May 9th is considered Victory Day here in Ukraine. That is the day that there was victory over Germany during WWII. We went to the celebration to see what it is like. We started out on a small bus where I saw a 20-30's girl get on with bunches of lilacs in her arms. As I watched her I saw her break off some lilacs and give them to a gentleman sitting on the bus and then she leaned down giving him a hug and kiss. I then noticed that he was in a green army type coat. At the next stop he got off and he was older (75-90) man with his military uniform on and lots of medals down the chest. As we went on and then got off at the metro stop I again watched as this lady repeated the giving of flowers and hugs to all the military people that she met. I just thought that was such a small but gracious act of remembering those who had fought for their freedoms. Makes me reflect on how we honor those who have and are fighting for our freedoms. One thing that I did one year for Memorial Day was buy little flags and place them down the street in our neighborhood. I got up and did it early were no one would see but as I went up and down our block it helped me thinks of those who fought. As we have no graves to visit in our state I am afraid I did not teach this old way of remembering our ancestors to my family at all.


As you can see they love to wear their medals. I sometimes wonder how they got all these but some countries must give out medals more freely than the US. does. Some of the elderly still fit in their old uniforms but if they didn't they just put the medals on their suit coats. You also must remember that most who fought in WWII have already passed away and the ones left should be in their 80's. This celebration took place at the monument of the unknown soldier so the next few pictures are just some taken around the monument.




I loved watching the people. The picture of the priest are of the ruling religion in the Ukraine. Elections are also going on for Mayor of Kiev. The Regions party had a big group of people that came to the monument. They are a communistic party and we are both a little surprised at how many followers they have. Will post next some pictures of their parade along the street by the monument.







May we not only remember our ancestors but honor all those who have fought for our freedoms. Do that within your families so the children will realize the impotance of our freedoms. Will post soon about our trip to the Botany Gardens, DNP and The Village Luv M&D, GM&GP, J&J