Tomorrow will be another day...

...because today is not long enough.

I recently started using the Substack app and came to the realization that there is never enough time in the day to keep up with all the news and newsletters and writings about Ukraine. There are so many prolific journalists, diplomats, geopolitical analysts, academics and resident Ukrainians whose newsletters I did not come across earlier when reading online periodically.

Here is a short list of examples:

There is Darya Zorka who writes about giving up speaking Russian but wonders what happens to the memories and past life that are so bound to this language. Her thoughtful newsletter has many beautiful photographs (that make my heart ache for the country I haven’t seen in so long) and also family recipes.

I read about how the Red Cross failed Ukraine on Tim Mak’s newsletter. And did you know that Ukrainians love K-Pop (a lot more than the rest of us)? Two grumpy old men on Ukraine tell us what Americans think of Ukraine in 5 key states this September. And maksym eristavi has been putting together these excellent podcasts, ‘Matryoshka of Lies’ that I listen to while walking back home from work.

Kyiv-based journalist Anastasiia Lapatina’s narrative of becoming a mother during the war was gripping enough but here was something more astonishing to me — her statement that the 1990 Student Revolution on Granite in Kyiv remains undiscovered by many even inside Ukraine. I am astonished not because I doubt her, but because it has to be true that it remains unknown to even many Ukrainians. I should know — I was living in Kyiv then, studying in a different university on the other side of town, and I seem to have buried all specific memories about the Student Revolution. Something in my memory was stirred after I read Anastasiia’s write-up. Or am I confusing the Student Revolution on Granite with things I heard about the widespread protests in 1990, the Chain of Unity and the Referendum? Those days news traveled slow — or never — sometimes; at other times, what was news and what were rumors were confusing to me.¹

And while I discover new works to read, listen and engage with, I was sad to learn that my good friend Kostiantyn Kondratiuk has recently disbanded his music group KiM (short for Кирило i Мефодій ). As a group, they decided to terminate due to lack of rehearsals and no chances to perform live music! Yet another casualty of the war. It breaks my heart as I loved their music and his lyrics and was looking forward to hearing new releases.

Here is a video from one of Kostya’s more recent performances at fundraising events. I do so hope he finds his way back to music — he is such an excellent guitarist — and that we will get to enjoy more of his lyrical and musical talents in the future.

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1. But, quite likely, I was just buried in my classes with other international students and somewhat segregated from Soviet students, including Ukrainian students who would have been privy to the goings-on. Only in my major — veterinary medicine — we, as international students, were separated into our own ‘potok’ and the reason for this separation escapes me now. I recognized even then that I lived in a kind of bubble, removed from the rest of the city to some degree. Only now, the extent of my bubble hits me. I must have been half an ostrich then, with my head in the sand mainly because I was so distressed by everything around me in the USSR.