Kyiv
The year was 1997. I had just come to Kyiv (Kyiv not Kiev) and immediately found myself in the whirlpool of Jungian synchronicities, aka coincidences to lay people like me who have never read Jung. But not having read Jung doesn’t save you from synchronicities in a place like Kyiv, where time-space so obviously warps around St. Sophia. Maybe that’s why the cathedral and Kyiv itself are still standing despite all the invasions, and not just because of the Oranta protecting its walls and the city with her raised hands on the golden mosaic above the altar. Maybe that’s why Putin wants Kyiv so badly.
I came to Kyiv, landed a job through a series of synchronicities [two pages omitted here], and started earning 500 dollars a month, which made me one of the richest girls in town, not counting the mafia’s girlfriends. Hryvnia, the national currency, was brand-new, crisp, freshly printed in Canada, and its first devaluation was only to happen the next year. In the evenings after a hard day’s work, I went to all possible concerts, catching up on cultural life, and on weekends I looked for a nice apartment to rent, asking everyone around, just in case.
The Encounter
The first snow came. I was hanging out after work on Kostiolna Street outside of the Polish church, aka Kosciol of St. Alexander, which was just being converted from a concert hall back into a Catholic parish. Another Kosciol, that of St. Nicolas, housed an Organ Hall that was entering a decades-long struggle with the Catholic church for its right to exist. Round about the same time an Organ Hall in Vinnytsia lost the fight, the building was restituted to the church, and the organ was kicked out into the street, with all its pipes.
The snow was falling. I was hanging around outside of the Kosciol on the upper terrace of the Volodymyrska Hirka, a hill above Khreshchatyk, Kyiv’s main thoroughfare, with the best possible view of the Philharmonic, the Dnipro, the pedestrian bridge, and the St. Volodymyr statue holding a cross. The cross was again shining with electric light, as before the Soviets. The concert wouldn’t start, because the Catholics kept praying. The musicians had gathered outside under the falling snow with the rest of the crowd. One of them came up to me.
He was an elderly gentleman with a big nose and a violin who happened to be the first violin of the National Opera. He asked what I was doing. I said I was waiting for the concert. Apart from that, I was working and looking for an apartment. He said he was waiting for the concert, too, because he was playing in it, and that he could get me into the opera, from the back door, when he’s playing there. Of course, I could not resist. The cheapest opera ticket, in the back row of the upper balcony, was 2 hryvnias, or about 1 dollar. I was a rich girl and could afford it. With that ticket, you could sneak to the stalls and find an empty seat in the first row. But no money in the world could get you in through the back door. I just had to accept. The old gentleman slipped a piece of paper with his phone number into my pocket.
We met at the back door of the National Opera on Bohdana Khmelnytskoho Street, former Fundukleyevska, a few days later. He ushered me inside, past the guards, directly to the stage. This is how you get to the Kyiv Opera from the back door – to the stage, and from there to the hall or to the dressing rooms and rehearsal rooms. The artists’ side of the Opera was post-Soviet, shabby, dark, damp, smelly, and falling apart. It was before the major restoration work. This back door became my normal entrance to the opera a few years later, when I was helping with some music projects, and when the premises on both sides of the stage were blindingly gorgeous.
The old gentleman told me to wait for him after the show. I was invited to his home for a cup of tea. Okay, I said. I was curious to see where first violinists normally live.
(…to be continued…)
Transadaptation Volume 6 – Meaning? – Uncertainty, Instability and Extremes Transadapted
January: A Regular Train Trip – Mateusz Tymoszewski (Poland)
February: Growing Up – Adriana Uribe (Columbia)
March: Mess – Veronika Groke (Austria)
April: The Roads We Take – Svetlana Molchanova (Russia)
May: Need – Nadia Silva Castro (Brazil)
June: “Next Sunshine” – Jonay Quintero Hernandez (Spain)
July: Intentions – Narantsogt Baatarkhuu (Mongolia)
August: Planet Kyiv – Anastasiia Leonova (Ukraine)
September: Feeling like a Fool – Ulrike Bergmeister (Germany)
October: Stories of Outcast Souls – Armine Asryan (Armenia)
November: Ronaldinha – Alejandra Baccino (Uruguay)
December: Aimlessly – Krisztina Janosi (Hungary)
Background – Context
Transadaptation Volume 5: Of Flowing Vicissitudes – Life Transadapted, (eds.) Angelika Friedrich, Yuri Smirnov and Henry Whittlesey (2024)
Transadaptation Volume 4: Material Dissent – Adulthood Transadapted, (eds.) Angelika Friedrich, Yuri Smirnov and Henry Whittlesey (2023)
Transadaptation Volume 3: Evanescent – Young Adulthood Transadapted, (eds.) Angelika Friedrich, Yuri Smirnov and Henry Whittlesey (2022)
Transadaptation Volume 2: Conceived – Childhood Transadapted, (eds.) Angelika Friedrich, Yuri Smirnov and Henry Whittlesey (2021)
Transadaptation Volume 1: In the Middle – Prelude to a Contemporary Transadaptation, (eds.) Angelika Friedrich, Yuri Smirnov and Henry Whittlesey (2020)
Peripatetic Alterity: A Philosophical Treatise on the Spectrum of Being – Romantics and Pragmatists by Angelika Friedrich, Yuri Smirnov and Henry Whittlesey (2019)
La Syncrétion of Polarization and Extremes Transposée, (eds.) Angelika Friedrich, Yuri Smirnov and Henry Whittlesey (2019)
The Codex of Uncertainty Transposed, (eds.) Angelika Friedrich, Yuri Smirnov and Henry Whittlesey (2018)
L’anthologie of Global Instability Transpuesta, (eds.) Angelika Friedrich, Yuri Smirnov and Henry Whittlesey (2017)
From Wahnsinnig to the Loony Bin: German and Russian Stories Transposed to Modern-day America, (eds.) Angelika Friedrich, Yuri Smirnov and Henry Whittlesey (2013)
Emblems and stories on the international community
Perception by country – Transposing emblems, articles, short stories and reports from around the world
Credits
Photo: Kyiv, Ukraine – Front doors – Natalia Maroz (Shutterstock)
Source: The Codex of Uncertainty Transposed