Chornobyl, a wasteland of hope

This BBC feature article tells a very sobering reality of life in Ukraine. For the people of Chornobyl (Chernobyl to the uninformed*) who stayed after the nuclear disaster, and for those now finding the answer to war in its outskirts, it's clear that hope has a different composition. To find cheap land, a home free of bombardment and war, a place to start again, where peace is found in perfect stillness, that is the where hope is found. In this place, radiation is not the issue. Survival until tomorrow is. So people from the war ravaged towns of Eastern Ukraine flee to a place where the air is now free of radioactivity but the soil still carries its contamination threat. It's a matter of least of two evils.

"Radiation may kill us slowly, but it doesn't shoot or bomb us," says Maryna. "It's better to live with radiation than with war".

*Чорнобиль – Ukr. – ancient Ukrainian town, first mentioned in chronicles in 1193. In compliance with international rules (UNCSGN & UNGEGN), the transliteration of names of settlements is made only from the country state language, where the object is located. Accordingly, the only correct transliteration from Ukrainian state language - Chornobyl.

Pierogi Day

National Pierogi Day is tomorrow in the US. Pierogi is, of course, a Polish word. The Ukrainian equivalent is pirohy. Whatever you call them, these delightful dumplings filled with potatoes and cheese (what the Polish call ruski pierogi but they are really Ukrainian not Russian) are to die for. I'd better start making them now. Tomorrow is just a few hours away.

This is pretty much the same recipe as my mom's that I make.

#KyivNotKiev

Campaign asks foreign media to change their spelling of Ukraine’s capital

Ukrainian: Київ 

Kyi, Schek, Choryv and sister Lebed who founded Kyiv*

With the Center for Strategic Communications, StratCom Ukraine, the Ukraine Foreign Ministry plans to post on Facebook and Twitter a request to international media, such as Reuters, the New York Times, the BBC and others, to use versions of Ukrainian place names transliterated from Ukrainian, not Russian, into English. The name of the capitol, Kyiv, come from it's founders name Kyi. Hence Kyiv not Kiev.

It follows an effort to alert media and the world that calling Ukraine the Ukraine is more than a grammatical error. It's an insult that stems from the era when Ukraine was part of the Soviet Union rather than a sovereign state. Read an article about there here.
For that matter, why is Ukraine spelled that way rather than Ukraina, which is its name in Ukrainian?

*Unknown - Файл:Кий, Щек, Хорив и Лыбедь (миниатюра Радзивилловской летописи).jpg