Ostriches in Ukraine

This past weekend was a 4-day-long one for us. Monday was Ukrainian Constitution Day and the Ambassador went ahead and gave everyone Friday off since they will all be working an extra long day on the 4th of July. So as soon as we found out about this unanticipated long weekend, we started trying to plan something to do rather that sit at home and watch tv, which is what we normally do all weekend. However, planning is difficult for us since Laika can’t really be left by herself for more than 7 or 8 hours. Initially we wanted to take a day trip to a city in central Ukraine that has a nice park, but when we went to get bus tickets (a week in advance), they were all sold out. So we spent several disappointing days with absolutely no plans. On Thursday, Shawn’s boss sent out an e-mail begging people to join a tour to “the largest ostrich farm in Ukraine” on Saturday. Apparently they were short a few people and if more didn’t sign up, they were going to cancel it. And Shawn’s boss really wanted to see the ostriches. So we joined the tour.

This was only the second excursion we’ve taken outside of Kyiv since we moved here. I know, it’s sad. We hopped on our minibus promptly at 9:30am on Saturday morning and headed west. The tour guide sat at the front of the bus and gave a tour of everything we passed on the way out of town. It’s at times like these that I realize I know pretty much nothing about Kyiv. But it’s interesting to learn - particularly about the history and architecture of the part of the city that sprawls from the center. And I feel like you can get a sense of what things are culturally important based on what the tour guide chooses to emphasize.

After about 40 minutes, we pulled off the main highway and started travelling through small villages on bumpy roads. It’s interesting to see how people really live here - I know enough about Kyiv to know that life in the city is definitely not the norm for the Ukrainian people as a whole. Our tour guide explained how in many of these villages, even though the farmers have been given their own individual plots of land, collective farming is still practiced because of high costs. Of course, every small house had a garden (instead of a yard, in most cases) and I was surprised to see that most of them had the really old-style wells, with a bucket and a crank to lower and raise it.

So after a total driving time of an hour, we finally reached the ostrich farm. And there were indeed a lot of ostriches. I find ostriches to be pretty creepy in general (although not as creepy as emus), so I was a little hesitant to get close at first. But they were not shy. And they knew there was a tour going on, so they turned on the performance. First we went past three different enclosures with adult ostriches living harem-style (yes, this is actually what our tour guide said) - two females with each male.

Then we got to the enclosures with the adolescent ostriches and that’s where things got a little crazy. These birds were clearly not as calm as the adults. In fact, they seemed pretty fired up and charged to the fence as we approached. People from our group started posing for photos in front of the ostriches. The ostriches seized this opportunity to start pecking the people. But no one really seemed to mind, so I assumed they weren’t pecking all that hard. At this point, one of the tour guides (we had two and an interpreter) grabbed my camera from me and motioned for Shawn and I to stand in front of the ostriches for a photo op. We slowly backed as close as we thought was safe to the fence and smiled at the camera. Apparently we got a little too close because an ostrich suddenly nipped at my shoulder, managed to get my bra strap, and snapped it hard. Hard enough that I screamed. Not cool.

It was time to move on. The babies (4 days old and 1 month old) were much easier to handle. They were actually really cute and it’s hard to believe that they grow up to be the huge birds that we saw at the beginning of the tour.

Then things got a little weird (Ukrainian-weird as Shawn and I have started calling it) when our tour guide announced that the next part of the tour would be through their “zoo.” Why would an ostrich farm have a zoo? Because it’s Ukraine. So we saw the pigs, goats, sheep, donkeys, camel, and assorted fowl next. My favorite statement of the entire tour came during this part. I kid you not, as we were looking at the goats, our interpreter said, “They used to have a goat that could smoke, but they gave it to the film studio in Kyiv.” Awesome. And so Ukrainian.

We finished up our tour by eating various dishes made of ostrich meat and eggs. We were told at the beginning of the tour that the ostriches on this farm were not used for meat, so in theory we weren’t eating any of the birds we had just seen. (Although if it was that one that snapped me, I might not have cared.) Then we were back on the bus and back to Kyiv. Just another Ukrainian adventure.