Stuck

Spring is finally crawling into Kyiv, but where am I today? Stuck at home. Why, you ask? Because of large anti-American demonstrations planned throughout the city today. Ah, the joys of being a foreigner.

Normally I’m a supporter of the right to protest (peacefully, of course). However, there’s a big difference between demonstrations in the US and demonstrations in Ukraine - namely that the police here are just for show. I don’t honestly believe that they would do much if people started getting out of hand. The “traffic police” basically just stand at the side of the road and pull people over at random to demand a bribe. So my confidence in the “riot police” is not strong. Add to that the fact that people tend to start drinking beer around 8am and a mid-day demonstration seems like a major problem waiting to happen.

So today I will remain indoors with my very unhappy puppy. (She’s having a hard time understanding why we are not going on our mid-afternoon walk.)

Just so that this isn’t a total downer of a blog entry, here’s the latest graffiti to show up in our neighborhood:

Pretty cool, huh? I’m a big fan of stenciled graffiti. And the best part is that it’s on the wall of an 11th century church that’s listed as an UNESCO Heritage Site. Classic.