Get a phone

I survived less than a week in the new Ukraine and I got a cellphone (мобілька). Thankfully, Valera set me up with a flip-phone and a pay-as-you-go program on Life. He programmed in key numbers (e.g. his number, my mom's number, my dads' number). He set it to the loudest right and vibrate combo I'd ever heard.

I learned that cell-to-cell calls are free. Texting is unlimited. I picked my language to be English for commands and Ukrainian for texting. (Arabic and Japanese were also options.) To add money, all he had to do was go to an ATM-like machine and feed it bills. I'd get a text notifying me that my account was 'topped up' (as the Brits used to say in London).

Having a cell phone in Ukraine immediately made the entire visit totally new. Everyone else having a cell phone fundamentally changed the dynamic of interaction. Twenty years ago, I'd walk down Khreshatyk Street and wait in cafe to meet up with a friend. Frequently, you'd quote the Russian film and say 'Место встечи изменить нельзя.' (sic -- I don't have a Russian keyboard). I'd wait for an hour or so. Meanwhile, someone unexpected would walk in, carrying a shoulderbag with rolled up newspapers. Maybe I'd head off with him. Maybe we'd both wait around.

Now, when you get stuck in the (brand-new and inevitable) traffic jam, you send a text or make a call.

When you need to get from point A to point B, you call a cab service. They text you back with the make, model and lisence plate number of the car that will pick you up.

Revolutionary.
Loss of serendipity, but gain in productivity.

Kyiv Connected

Saturday Morning
My daughters picked out dolls yesterday. They are playing with them now as I drink coffee and eat yogurt with fresh strawberries. We had gone to Tsum on Tuesday to check out the goods. On Thursday, we returned. Lianne remembered that the dolls were on the second floor. As soon as we got off the Soviet-era escalator, both Lianne and Katia were off in a flash, running directly to the shelves that display the dolls. All the dolls are made in China. There are even first-run Barbie dolls. The 50th Anniversary series, for 700 hryvnia each (about $100 USD).
Lianne and Katia pulled down several of the clear plastic boxes. One by one. Finally, they each settled on a doll that had her own wardrobe. A change of 4 outfits (with luggage). The box (which doubles as a clothes closet) has a big photo of the Eiffel Tower going up one side. Next to it are solid block letters that spell out WORLD. The color block pattern has fragments of maps. One is of Burkina Faso.

It strikes me that kids in Kyiv now are infinitely more connected to the rest of the planet than the kids who were born just 15 years earlier. During the Soviet era, people could not travel unless it was related to work (e.g. army post, official work-related travel, or a work-mandated trip to a resort with the family.). Now kids go with their parents on charter flights to Dubai (direct, non-stop). They travel overseas to study or to work. They surf the web. (What are the generational gaps that shift is going to cause? It makes the chatter about 'how to manage and motivate millennial employees in the US seem downright frivolous.)

Earlier this week, I went to the Kyiv Mohyla Academy (KMA), a private, selective university. Each student needs to apply and to pass a series of exams to get in. Down the hall from the library was a computer lab, chock full of computers and students. In the hall way were 4 kiosks hooked up to the web. (I posted a tweet from one.) On benches in the hallway were kids tapping out on their own laptops. It looked like a basic college campus. Quite a change from 15 years ago, where we had 1 computer, 3 telephones and 1 fax in the entire offices of the Ukrainian-American Renaissance Foundation, founded by George Soros. (Later, the Foundation was renamed the International Renaissance Foundation.) The only person still on staff was the computer guy who came before I left. I arrived unannounced on a Friday at mid-day. He graciously gave me a tour of the offices and introduced me to each person as:

“This is Dora Chomiak. One of the first employees of the Ukrainian-American (emphasis) Renaissance Foundation. (She is) The founder of UNIAN.” Many looks of 'oohs and ahhs' invariably ensued. UNIAN, the news agency that we founded in 1992, still exists and still occupies the offices at Khreshchatyk 4 that we took over. When we moved in there was no parking lot in front, and all the calendars in the offices inside were still open to August 1991, the day of the putsch that kicked out Gorbachev and led to the dissolution of the USSR.

The news agency was a radical notion. A group of us got together, got funding and convinced many journalists to leave their state jobs and come to work to create a non-governmental news agency. The whole story took months, or really years. It spawned many different organizations, several newspapers, and countless tv shows. I'll write about them another time. For now, I continue to be amazed at how so many things that were so difficult to do here once (e.g. send a fax, get a piece of news) are totally commonplace.

It's still a young country. In many ways, it is still a mess, but the number of people who now have access to a tremendous quantity of information is staggering. It has got to help to country's chances to make it through to the next phase.

Vitaly Portnikov

I always liked conversations with Vitaly. I'd met him both in Moscow and in Kyiv. He is a journalist who wrote many pieces for many different outlets in the early 90's and he has continued to do so now. He's a good observer, knows that he's good and he does what he knows. It's always refreshing to speak with someone who is so in his groove.

This trip, I didn't meet up with Vitaly, however I did see him smiling at me from more than one billboard. The one here was at the entrance to the Arsenal metro stop in the center of town. It is promoting a newspaper called 'The Left Bank,' (Refers to the left bank of the Dnipro River. Formerly less desirable place to the right bank that has the seat of gov't etc. I wonder if the left bank is repositioning itself to be a hip alternative -- think Brooklyn vis a vis Manhattan.
OR is it a play on the eastern regions of the country, where the majority of the industrialists and oligarchs made their mark,and where Russian is more commonly heard??

Television & Radio in Ukraine 2009

I visited the opening day of the 15th International TV and Radio Fair (also known as /Teleradioyarmarok/). It's run by Vasyl Yatsura and his team. I saw lots of old friends who were at their (sometimes quite large) tradeshow booths, where they were representing their various media businesses. It was all quite a change from 1991. As one person said today, it was quite a nest we made back then, and now the work of those few has spread.

As is often the case in Ukraine, I'm torn: while I'm thrilled to see how much the businesses developed (and how many survived), despite all sorts of toubles, I also wonder how much more their could be if the economic and political environment were different. Regardless, things are much more open now than 20 years ago. I'm here for example, with both my parents and my two kids. I wasn't able to get here when I was their age.

Details about the event are here.

Kyiv International Teleradioyarmarok 2009 (a full tradeshow) Run by Vasyl Yatsura and his team for the 15th time

Delta Flight 88

JFK Terminal 3 Gate 15

We have arrived. It took less than one hour to ride from my apartment (tucked into the far reaches of the West Village) to get to Ukraine (the post-Soviet, still-new nation, that is thousands of miles away).

My two kids (age 4 and 4), my two parents (age 73 and 70), and I (age 39) checked our bags, got through security, and chilled out in the Delta Crown room (courtesy of my bi-monthly commuting flight throughout 2008). We listed to Obama's commencement address at Notre Dame. We munched on snacks. We powered up our laptops and iPhones.

Then we went to the gate. Straight into the mob scene. Delta has a policy of giving their business class and medallion level passengers their own boarding lane to get on the Jetway. Some marketing team probably spent hours designing the nifty little carpet, rope and sign that show the 'Delta Breezeway.' None of that was of particular interest to the majority of the passengers of Delta Flight 88 that day.

The gate attendant did an admirable job of keeping order. I got to the breezeway and waved my Medallion card and boarding passes. I told her that the Breezeway was not particularly breezy that day. She agreed.

The minute my mom stepped on the plane, she had her own welcome. The wheels on her carry on got stuck and the bag fell down. Right in front of a stewardess. The stewardess did not lift a finger to help her with the bag, but instead, said to her in Ukrainian 'Добре що не впало мені на ногу!'

Uh oh.

Sure enough, it became clear that the stewardess who was standing at the door was the local country trainee on the crew. Her job was to make the announcements in Ukrainian (ostensibly translating the same announcement that her Delta crew mate had made in English, but I understand both languages and I was always struck by the editorializing in each announcement. Usually the editorializing was done by omitting information.)

Before take-off she ran down the aisle carrying a tray with a business class meal on it. Sure enough, she tripped and fell somewhere behind me in the galley. You don't *run* down the aisle.

Her partner on my aisle was Cheryl. It was clear that this was not Cheryl's first flight. Nowhere near it. She was professional, upbeat, efficient and effective. What impressed me the most, however, was how she coached the 'local' crew member throughout the 10-hour flight.

Once it was time to serve the first hot meal, the options were pasta or chicken. By the time they got near to our row, they had run out of chicken. Passengers grumbled. Cheryl said "I am responsible for the food on this flight. I am sorry that we ran out of the chicken. We only have pasta left."

Wow. Personal responsibility. Accountability's. Clarity in communication. Solution-oriented response. Strong and positive tone of voice.

Did anyone else pick up on this? Back in college, I had spent a seminar session discussing the use of the word 'I" in Gorby's book, Perestroika. It was the first time a leader of the Soviet Union took personal responsibility. That was just over 20 years ago. Some people on the flight hadn't even been born then. Many had. Did anyone hear Cheryl say 'I am responsible' did anyone hear her say ' I am sorry."?

(Later on, I found out that several people were added to the flight at the last minute so Cheryl's food order was outdated.)

My other part of this fan mail to Cheryl hinges on what org psych professionals refer to as 'stress.' From various leadership development programs in Corporate America, I have learned that we all have patterns of behavior during our regular state and we have patterns of behavior when we are under stress. Frequently how we act varies considerably between those two states. the facilitators of the training sessions frequently talk about the importance of being aware of your reactions in both states, to ensure that you'll be an effective leader.

Cheryl lost and earring on the flight. It was pretty pricey: a diamond stud, and had some sentimental value. Once the lost earring was brought to her attention, she kept working, and looking for the earring. She stayed upbeat and kept doing her job.

I'd hire her because that sort of attitude is incredibly valuable.

I wonder if she is still training the local. I wonder if she is training someone new.

So, it struck me on my flight over that somethings have probably changed and others have not.

Departure

Really, what better place is there to start a trip to Ukraine, but East 7th Street in New York City??

On May 16, 2009, I went across town with my kids and my parents to check out this year's instalment of the annual Ukrainian Festival. A full block is closed to car traffic, a stage is built, speakers are turned up, tents and tables are hauled out and laden with вареники, голубці, ковбаса, плятцки (and my favorite) Олеся Лев's Ukrainian Iced Tea from BUG (Brooklyn Ukrainian Group).

The place is now full of people of Ukrainian descent (or people to connected to them). Several 'waves' now blend at the festival
Fourth Wave: Recent immigrants including those who felt forced out in the early-90's as well as those who won Green Card Lotteries in early 2000's and split their time between NYC and Kyiv.
Third Wave: Post-World War II arrivals and their kids
Second Wave and earlier (туткирожiдені): Kids of people who came to the coal mines of Pennsylvania in the 1920's (CHECK THAT)

I walked around the festival and wondered what I'd see the next day in Kyiv. The East Village is a neighbourhood with Ukrainian roots that go back longer than the country I was going to visit. The festival has been held for over 30 years. (CHECK THAT) The country existed as an independent state for 18 years.

I was willing to bet that the country itself has changed MUCH more than the festival has in the same amount of time.