Victory Days

Our first Victory Day this week was at the Passport agency----well, almost!  One small glitch on Malvina's criminal background check.  They ran the check on Malvina Burova instead of Allison Rachel Kimball---who has only existed in their computer system for a few days.  It's not likely she's done too much wrong yet, so we should be on schedule to get her passport in the normal 10 days.

Malvina was delightful----in spite of 4 long hours of driving and several hours of waiting in lines.  She said "thank you" several times and insisted on carrying my heavy backpack whenever we got out of the car.  I had mentioned to Alex how nice it is to hear him always say thank you, and I wanted him to set a good example for Malvina, so she'll learn to do the same.  The next day Alex told me he had asked Malvina if she knew how to say thank you.  She said yes.  He said "Say it.  She said, "Sank you." He said, "Good job.  Say it again."  I think he's rubbing off on her.

Wednesday was the official Victory Day celebration here in Ukraine.  Vera and her husband drove Malvina, Kristina, Nastia and me to Sebastopol to watch the big military parade and then on to Balaklava.   It's illegal to put 4 passengers in the back seat, so each time we came to a city with Militia directing traffic, we had to hide one of the girls on the floor under our legs and cover her with a sweatshirt.  Not the most comfortable way to travel, but in between cities the girls had a great time singing along to songs on cell phones and my laptop.  It's surprising how quickly the long drive went.

Malvina's father and girlfriend live in Sebastopol, and she wanted to visit him one last time before leaving Ukraine, so she made arrangements for us to watch the parade together.  We found a high wall and perched ourselves there for a nice view of the marching troops and military vehicles with the beautiful sea in the background.  Sebastopol is a major tourist town and even had a large cruise ship docked in the bay.  Malvina was so happy to see her dad again.  They enjoyed looking at photos on each other's cell phones for a while, and then we had lunch together at an open air cafe with a spectacular view.

Malvina hadn't seen her father for at least 4 years and was so anxious to spend some time with him.  He's a pretty weathered looking 36-year-old guy with a great tan and some big tattoos.  He and his girlfriend disappeared during lunch for quite a while.  They finally re-appeared when we received our check---- which looked like we'd been charged for  more than we ordered, so the waitress explained those were the sandwiches and 8 beers her father and girlfriend had been drinking in the bar.  They just added it to our tab.  Malvina was devastated.  She wanted so much for her father to love spending this last time with her---instead he was drinking in the bar.  She decided not to give him her contact info and that she never wanted to see him again---or her grandmother (his mom), who we were planning to visit this next weekend near Dzhankoi.

Malvina was pretty quiet as we drove on to Balaklava which is breathtakingly beautiful.  It's a small bay where military submarines were hidden in a tunnel that enters and exits the bay.  We went for a 30 minute boat ride in the bay and saw lots of dolphins and jellyfish.   Artists were painting scenes along the shore and booths were filled with spectacular photographs for sale.  President Yanokovich's son has a huge vacation house next to the water.  We hiked a little and took lots of photos.   I turned the girls loose with my cameras at the beginning of the day, so we have at least a million photos of our fun day.

Then we began the drive back to Feodosiya so we could watch the fireworks at 10.  Unfortunately our car broke down in Simferopol, so we had to take a bus for the final 2 hour stretch.  It was definitely more roomy but not quite as convenient.  We missed the fireworks by 15 minutes, but I felt blessed the car hadn't broken down and left us stranded in between cities.

President Yanokovish's son's house is the one with the green roof.