It was the most unusual press conference I’ve ever attended; and I’ve sat thru Vladimir Putin’s hours-long telecast, been part of press scrums on front steps and in the tails of planes and everything in between. But today Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky decided to address several hundred journalists, not all at once but in what […]
In the Carpathian mountains and surrounding foothills of Western Ukraine, locals make a porridge to get them through the long, dark winters and sustain them from breakfast to dinner. I, of course, ate this gut-bomb porridge in 90 degree heat with a humidity level that makes even the mosquitos sluggish…. but it’s all in the name of […]
The front lines of the conflict in Eastern Ukraine are bleak, particularly in February. The areas around Debaltsevo, hotly contested between Ukrainian troops and separatists/Russian forces, are rolling hills of frosty farmland, now sallow and muddy. The Ukrainians are hunkered down in [redacted], taking shelter where they can and using makeshift stoves, the local coal […]
In the nearly unpronounceable town of Dnipropetrovsk sits Reporter, one of the best restaurants I’ve found in Ukraine — at the recommendation of a reporter, naturally. (Want to know where to eat in a weird place? Ask a journalist. Or just read this blog.) Reporter bills itself as an “unusual restaurant,” so-named because (and I […]
Van picnics: because sometimes there’s no time to eat, no place to eat, and no appetite to speak of. Among the good finds in Ukraine: sweet, soft sugar cookies; coffee-flavored, candy coated peanuts; Ukrainian sausage and hot coffee, poured from our driver’s thermos. He also brought a bunch of parsley and raw garlic clove. Because […]
