and Monday, last full day in Donetsk

With the weather being as it is in Rochester, I've been somewhat reluctant to say how absolutely beautiful the weather has been here every day.  Today was a picture perfect day of mid-to-high 70's and low humidity.

Roman came around 10 and we went to the public market to find breakfast.  We found a stall that Roman often shops at, run by a delightful little old lady who sells fresh brown eggs and incredibly delicious cultured milk products.  We had some fermented milk product made with whole-cream milk with a mild creamy taste, and sweet bread filled with apricot preserves.  We ate it right there while she told us about herself.  She is ethnic Greek.  Apparently after WWII a lot of Greeks settled in this part of Ukraine.  The milk came from her two cows, Katya and Nochka.  She was so delightful that I asked if I could take her picture, which I did.  It's also in the link at the end of this blog entry.  We then went to Makiiva where Roman owns an apartment.  As we approached the apartment, there was an intense burnt smell.  Roman owns a room and there is another room and shared kitchen and bath and toilet space.  On Feb. 22, he awoke in the morning to a burning smell and traced it to the other room.  He knocked on the door and when there was no answer, he forced the door open.  Fierce black smoke erupted and the act of opening the door caused the smoldering to flash flame.  The two occupants of that room had died, probably from smoke inhalation.  Their cat died too.  He called the equivalent of 911 and the heat and flame was getting so intense, he got out.  It took the fire department 30 minutes to arrive, by which time everything was destroyed in the apartment.  Roman's room was not burned but the door was almost burned through and everything has smoke damage.  He has been staying with a friend since then.  There isn't insurance and the government who owns the building isn't interested in cleaning up anything.  So it's unliveable now and Roman doesn't have any money to fix things himself.  What a mess.  We didn't stay there long because the smell of burnt and piles of destroyed furniture was getting to me.  We went on to his friend's place where he's staying after first stopping at another public market to get meat and cheese (with walnuts), bread (grape bread, not sweet) and fresh vegetables, and water, and nescafe.  We went to five different shops to get those things.  His friend, working currently as a bread-baker at a supermarket, was home and joined us for lunch.  A really nice guy with great restaurant cooking experience.  We visited for a while and then Roman and I set off for a meeting of the Donbass region coordinating committee of LGBT organizations.  It was a great meeting that lasted a few hours.  Afterwards we headed to downtown Donetsk and ended up at a park by the river to have a coffee and some blinis (crepes served with a small scoop of vanilla ice cream and mulberry preserves).  I didn't have my camera with me at that park but, on the spur of the moment, Roman took me to another park which is full of iron and steel sculptures, some fanciful, others representing soccer, oops, futbol, teams who will come for the 2012 European Cup Soccer Event. Here's a link to the pics I took: https://picasaweb.google.com/nundabud/20110523?authkey=Gv1sRgCM_IzbW9iJ2QNw#  I'm delighted with many of them.  We then came back to my apartment and I insisted that Roman lie down for an hour before he went out to drive taxi for several hours.  I chatted on Facebook with Rostek and Natalie (in Moldova) and when the hour was up, made tea and woke him.  He left for work.

Tomorrow morning, we will buy crosses for the two guys who got baptized Sunday and then will take a noonish bus to Mariupol, about 120 kilometers.  It's an old Greek city (City of Mary) on the Sea of Azov which is thigh-deep for a long ways and 15 meters at it's deepest point; it connects through a canal with the Black Sea.  Part of the Crimean Coast is on the Azov Sea.  We will meet with the LGBT groups from Mariupol at 6 tomorrow night.  One of the guys was at the coordinating meeting earlier today and said to me "We are waiting for you in Mariupol."  So that's it, up to the minute.  I'll go to bed soon.  Talk to you soon.