Stardate: Oct 15, 2007 Historical Jaunt

Saturday, October 06, 2007
Kharkiv’s Historical Museum
Today, we are meeting Peter to go to the Kharkiv Historical Museum. That should be interesting and will provide more insights into this area’s history.

We met Peter at 2pm right after running into this awesome old woman street musician who was playing accordion. She was really good, and I was pleased to hear something other than the techno music that plays at each any and every store, restaurant, café and internet location. We have video of her that I will place on youtube.

The Historical Museum of Kharkiv is 5 floors of an older building one block off of Sumskaya. You would never have been able find it since it has no sign or marked entry. You have to be an insider to know where to find it. Peter did.

We purchased entry tickets for each of the individual floors of the museum, which are sold separately. Hmm. We also needed to purchase permission to take photos of the displays. Very interesting… Of course, as is standard for all stores and museums, we had to check our bags.

The first floor portion of the museum started out in prehistory with archeological artifacts of tribes that inhabited the area. There were flint spear tips, pottery, a mammoth’s jaw bones, etc, which were depicted in front of really good drawings of the item’s context. Next, we got into remnants of tribes who inhabited the area during the Bronze and Iron Ages. They had some cool glass beads in this section along with iron armor, pottery, and tools.


Next came the period called, “Kievan Rus,” which is the root of all the territorial and cultural issues that stand between the Russian/Muscovy and the Ukrainians. The word “Rus” is thought to be of Scandinavian origin and represented most of Eastern Europe (Hodges & Chumak, 2004). During this period, a large area around present day Kiev (pronounced “keyv” in Ukrainian and “keey-ev” in Russian) and including the Kharkiv area was a city state along the lines of Athens. It was a major trading post for the Scandinavians on route to the Black Sea. It was considered the height of fashion and cultural sophistication during the 8-12th centuries and was called, “The City of Glory” or “The New Jerusalem” (Reid, 1997).

It was sacked by the Tartars (Mongols) in 1240, which fairly annilated it. According to the Muscovy (i.e., Moscovites), the population of Kievan Rus migrated to Moscow following the city’s sacking; Ukrainians argue that the population remained and maintained their culture. The major period following Kievan Rus, is the Lithuanian/Polish period. The Lithuanian’s took Kiev in 1362 and made it part of the Lithuanian Commonwealth, which eventually signed a treaty uniting it with Poland (Reid, 1997). The museum had a couple of cool artifacts from this period, the most interesting of which was a black, teardrop shield.

The next interesting period is that of the Cossacks who basically were outlaws rebelling against Polish rule in Ukrainia. The Cossacks are the mustachioed guys with the big baggy red trousers, black knee-high leather boots, and the folded-arm/ kicking-the-feet-forward dance that most people associate with Eastern Europe. These guys pretty successfully fought against the Polish, and thwarted them in their rule over what is today most of western Ukraine. They inhabited the area near Kharkiv and to the south, which was a no man’s land—kind of a DMZ—that served as a border between the Tartars, Turks (Ottoman Empire), the Poles, and the Muscovy. These guys were rough, but also known for their music with a guitar-like-instrument known as a bandura. The museum had many interesting pieces to represent this period: paintings, a banner, sculptures, a boat, swords, etc. One of the Cossack leaders, Khmelnytsky, drove the Polish to desperation in raids and attacks on Polish outposts. However pro-Ukrainian and strongly rebellious he was, unfortunately, he made a big mistake, he decided that the way to thwart the Poles forever was to form a stronger alliance with a neighboring country. He considered a variety of neighbors to serve as Ukraine’s protector, and eventually chose Russia. So, the history of Russia’s control over Ukraine commenced in 1654. To reinforce this point, Ukraine was signed over as a protectorate (a protectorate is not property of another country- it is like an alliance) of Russia by one of the tribal-like leaders of the Cossacks who only spoke for some of Ukraine’s people. This is the tenuous grip over Ukraine with which Russia started and continues to assert its ownership! Poor Khmelnytsky, one year later, when he realized his mistake, he had a fatal heart attack. There was no one to replace him and rebel against this new terrorizing neighbor.

Next, there was a section in the museum that showed the folk clothing, furniture, etc. There was also a portion that had Eastern Orthodox religious artifacts like a priest’s dress robe, a couple of gold and silver covered bibles and a gold/silver challis. I found this odd, but this museum was probably created by Soviets who thought that the faith was an out-dated cultural relic.

This idea was reinforced when we went to the second floor. Suddenly, between the 1st and 2nd floors, we jumped in history past the Czars’ to the CCCP (USSR) era. It was as though nothing existed in history between 1654 to 1917. Hmm. Scary. We walked quickly through this floor for 2 reasons: 1) I’m not really interested in this period and don’t like what the Soviets did to Ukraine, and 2) Maddy was having a cow. I really didn’t appreciate the propaganda posters of WWII, the old-fashioned machine guns, or military uniforms. So, I took Maddy and fled. Patrick was unfortunately in for the long haul, and had to see the other parts of the museum. Poor baby.

Saturday night, I went with Antonina and Vasilisa to the university’s swimming pool for an hours swim. I miss my deep water aerobic class, you know. Well, it was yet another interesting cultural experience. There are only certain times when you can use the pool, so you have to be there at the exact moment to enter. There are two ladies there that take your pool pass (with photo you had to provide) and your health certificate from the school nurse. Yep, I had to have the nurse’s permission to swim. Thankfully, I had a full physical in the US that the nurse accepted. Anyway, you wait with all the other swimmers on benches where you change your shoes until you may enter. On exactly the ½ hour, you enter, go to the locker room with cool, old lockers that allow you to set a code (1 Cyrillic alphabetic and 3 numeric characters), an open shower room and toilet area. The large Olympic pool was cold and looked like your standard old fashioned YMCA pool. It was a bit beat up, but had cheery porpoises painted on the windows. There were lots of swimmers, but enough room for comfortable, relaxing laps. I cannot remember how many I did, my mind just wandered. It was nice though. We walked back the 12 blocks or so in rain soaked streets, but it felt good. A. has put me on a regiment, I think. 