Know Ukraine...

I have been always fascinated by countries that became independent of the old Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR) in 1991. It amazes me especially Ukraine because it’s a country with a fertile agricultural earth and a considerable mineral wealth that has fought against the contamination inherited after its independence. The contamination of the air is severe and it comes from the conventional energy plants and of the urban centres. The mining has destroyed great part of the rural atmosphere and the aquifer systems are much polluted. The drinkable water is scarce. In 1986, Ukraine was news in the entire world as a consequence of the nuclear catastrophe of Chernóbil, but Ukraine is as strong and combatant country as a hard-working ant, because without caring the disastrous sequels that left in the Ukrainian town the nuclear disaster, they continued ahead and that is the important thing when the evolution is looked for: the capacity to progress and optimism.

Ukraine looks like a place where you can could be perfectly comfortable and not only learn much more about culture and history but also socialize with its citizens. There is a strong manifested popular culture, mainly, in the music. In the principality of Kíev texts were written in the old ecclesiastical Slav, the oldest sample of Ukrainian literature that constituted the foundation of the Russian literature. Ukraine is huge, due to the traditional Ukrainian hospitality, the companies, be already expected or not, they are always welcome. Friends, neighbors and relatives frequently visit one another. Nevertheless, it is preferred to concert the visits. Invited people to have dinner usually take a gift of some class: flowers, a cake, a bottle of liquor, or sweet and toys for the children. The companies usually take off the shoes when they enter in the house, and they don't feel in the floor neither they put their feet in the furniture.

Some people that live in urban areas have dachas, or field houses, and they pass good part of the time of vacations there, taking care of the garden, preparing preserves and resting. Those that don't have dachas usually have a small earth parcel near the city in which you/they cultivate vegetables. Vegetables, breads, milky products and rich foods in starches are the basic foods. The most popular Ukrainian plates are made with cereals and pastas of flour. The buckwheat, the oat and the millet are frequently used. The rice is cared. The varenyky are among the typical plates (empanadillas), the holubtsi (padded cabbage leaves with chopped meat and rice) and the kasha (a prepared pap in different ways) that is served with meat or chicken. The pig and the cow are the most common meats. The soup is considered an essential part of the food. The most popular, the borsch, is elaborated in different agreement ways with the town and the station of the year, and it usually contains cabbage, beet, potatoes and carrots; sometimes, meat is also added. It can be served it heats or I fry, usually with cream it sours.

In the informal encounters, the men and the women usually make an expression with the hand and to dedicate a verbal greeting, as Pryvit (Hello) or Dobryj gives' (good morning).In the cities, the population has the possibility to go to the theater and concerts; in rural areas, the inhabitants meet to interpret music pieces, to sing and to dance. In Ukraine traditional instruments are still played, as the sopilka (flute), the volynka (bagpipe) and the national instrument, the bandura (of rope).Ukraine is the country in which the young couples usually marry after the twenty years and in rural areas the celebration usually lasts three days!! and they accompany with the traditional violin trio, tambourine and psalter.

The Ukrainian ones are hospital, they have a vast historical experience and they know what mean the transition moments very well. I hope sincerely to have the opportunity to travel some day to Ukraine to be able to live all these incredible experiences and to check that, after everything, Colombia and Ukraine are not so different: they taste like love, to magic, to progress, to pain and violence but to music and culture, they are bohemian, flourishing, inspiring... In short, each country is a numberless of new sensations to know.