Vodka, Bears and Elephants: Kittens and Tanks

This week at work has been quite slow, mostly office based and lots of long meetings. It’s been very tiring but successful. We have been working with the Primate department very closely. We will now formalize and document their enrichment programme and start some work on enclosure renovation. We had meetings to finalize some permanent enrichment for the elephant – the welders seem to think that we have the world’s strongest elephant and that he will break anything that they make. We’ve now told the welders to make the enrichments, but if they think they have welded it strong enough, they must make it even stronger. And, if the elephant breaks anything, they can make it again – animals always break things.
At the zoo is an industrial sized wood-chipper, mostly used to reduce the space taken up by fallen branches and left over browse from the animals. Until now it hasn’t been used very much but we have changed all that. It now runs almost all day and is slowly chewing up the huge piles of branches that clutter up the keeper areas behind our enclosures. We have decided that where possible and practical we will give piles of woodchips to the animals and cover enclosure floors in woodchip. So far, it’s going very well. The animals seem to be enjoying it – rolling around in the chips and searching for food in them. We had a lot of tree surgery in the zoo this week, so all the animals are benefitting from extra branches to eat and play with. I can't get the pictures to upload.
We have finally completed the immense and ever changing list of requirements needed to get temporary residency here in Ukraine. We already had work permits and a one year visa before we arrived, but since then we have had to register in probably every government department in Kyiv. This will allow us to stay for the duration of our visa (tourists are only allowed to stay three months in Ukraine) and to leave and enter the country as and when we please. It has been an absolute nightmare getting all the documentation ready and probably worse for Larissa who has done the bulk of the preparation work. The last requirement on our list was blood testing, which we left till last as we didn’t really want to do it as it would mean a return trip to the dreaded poly-clinic. In addition to my recently discovered fear of Ukrainian poly-clinics, I also have an incredibly strong aversion to needles. So, we finally gritted our teeth and made our way to the poly-clinic. Fortunately for us we were able to see a doctor who made the whole process entirely pain free. Two days later, armed with all the paperwork, Larissa made her way to the government offices and made the full registrations for us.
On Saturday we went to Kyiv’s pet animal market and Lice Market (Larissa meant Flea Market, but her translation just didn’t quite work out!). The market is pretty big and consists mainly of stalls selling cats, dogs, fish, birds, rabbits, guinea pigs, mice and a few other animals. There were peacocks, ornamental pheasants, tortoises and spiders. Most of the cats and dogs for sale are pedigree – tiny dogs are very popular here, as are cats with flat faces. Not to my taste really, I prefer “moggy” real cats. There were also quite a lot of hairless cats and dogs. Some stalls also had furs for sale – mink, fox, wild boar and even badger. I’m quite pleased with my willpower in not bringing all the kittens home with me.
On Sunday we met with some zoo volunteers who had offered to take us to a museum and do some sightseeing in Kyiv. Ruslan, who has trained as a diplomat (but now wants to be a psychologist), and his girlfriend Alexandra. They are both helping out in the bird department over the summer. We travelled by metro to the station nearest the museum and walked from there. We stopped at various points of interest to look at the view over Kyiv and see various monuments to people who died in the Great Patriotic War (WW2) and the famine in 1932-33. We also went past the Larva Monastery which is a UNESCO world heritage site, which we will visit on another weekend.
The museum we visited is the Museum of the Great Patriotic War – Steve is very interested in WW2 history, but from the Soviet perspective so he’s been desperate to visit since we’ve been here. The museum is about the German invasion, the Nazi occupation and the course of the war for the Ukrainians. Much of the museum is outdoors with tanks, aeroplanes and other military vehicles. There are also a lot of sculptures depicting key moments in the war. The museum is full of artefacts and personal items from key people who were involved. The gloves made from human skin and soap from human fat were particularly disturbing. Also in the grounds of the museum is the statue “Defender of the Motherland” a 62 metre high memorial to those who died and the heroes. She is very impressive, but has very scary eyes.
After the museum we all took a very very long walk across Kyiv, stopping at various other sites. The “People’s Friendship Arch” dedicated to cooperation between Russia and Ukraine. We also walked past the Dynamo Kyiv Football Stadium and across the “Lover’s Bridge”. It is traditional at this bridge for lovers to bring a padlock (engraved with their initials) to attach to the bridge as a sign of their love. It was such a popular thing to do that recently the weight of all the locks made the bridge unstable and they had to be removed. People have still continued bringing their locks to the bridge, so I guess it will become wobbly again soon.