Location: Eastern Europe, bordering the Black Sea, between Poland, Romania, and Moldova in the west and Russia in the east.  Ukraine is a broad, flat land resembling Kansas in the USA. It nestles between the Carpathian Alps to the west, the Black Sea to the south and the Sea of Azov to the east. To the north is Belarus (part of the ancient Kingdom of Lithuania) and Russia proper. A peninsula, the Crimea, juts out into the Black Sea.

People: Modern Ukrainian Rus have acquired a strong admixture of Asiatic and Arabic blood: giving them an average height, slender build and fair complexion.

Brief History: Ukraine gained its independence in 1991, with the breakup of the former Soviet Union.
Rich in natural resources, Ukraine was once called the "Breadbasket of Europe," because of its fertile soil and beneficial climate conditions. 
Unfortunately, the tragic 1986 Chernobyl nuclear accident (just north of Kiev) still lingers, and dangerous land contamination and radioactivity concerns are viable problems. 

The Capital:  Kiev (or Kyiv), a scenic city of close to 3 million people situated on the Dnipro River, is the bustling capital of Ukraine. It is magnificent and well worth exploring.  It's architecture is frequently imposing, giving the city grandeur. and attesting to its heritage. 

Lvov, in the west of the country, is renowned as being a beautiful city, if not the loveliest in Ukraine.

BRANCH OFFICE:  Watchtower, P.O. Box 246, 79000, Lvov.

Cities: A typical city in Ukraine is a study of contrasts. You will find elements of the pre-Soviet era, with the ornate domed architecture of churches and public buildings

Culture: Ukrainians are famous for their humor, melodiousness and their artistic handicraft talents such as weaving, painting, wood-carving and ceramics. Numerous Ukrainian dance troupes cultivate the traditional folk dances

Languages Ukrainian, Russian.  For over a century, the official language was Russian. Since independence, Ukrainian is being promoted as the state language although Russian is still the most widespread, especially in the major cities. In villages people speak both Russian and Ukrainian.

Population 49,506,000 

Religion:  2002 Yearbook of Jehovah's Witnesses, Page: 119

"The people of Ukraine have been exposed to a variety of religious beliefs. In the tenth century, the Eastern Orthodox religion was introduced. Later the Ottoman Empire brought Islam to southern Ukraine. Also, Polish noblemen were spreading Catholicism during the Middle Ages. In the 20th century, many became atheists under the rule of Communism."

The Yearbook gives a very exciting history of how the good news was brought to Ukraine and how despite 50 years of bans and harsh persecution Jehovah's witnesses have survived and flourished!  Regarding this, it says, "Efforts by religious and secular opposers to uproot Jehovah’s Witnesses from Ukraine by means of exile and severe persecution were not successful. Hearts of people in this land proved to be fertile for seeds of Bible truth. Today Jehovah’s Witnesses are reaping a bountiful harvest!"  Be sure to read the full account on Pages 119-252 illustrated by many interesting photos!

2006 YEARBOOK:  Population: 47,000,000; Publishers:  137,210;  Ratio: 1 pub. to every 343 persons.  Congregations: 1,434

SERVING WHERE THE NEED IS GREAT IN THE UKRAINE
"Like living in the Yearbook!!"

A brother has shared a wonderful letter from sister serving where the need is great in Ukraine.  During her recent illness, she observed the kindnesses  of the people who have little for themselves.

"This is me and I am sick -- again. This time with the lovely throw-up flu. That is not the interesting part, however. The interesting part goes like this:

Wylie and Jim went to the meeting and I remained sound asleep -- the sleep of the ill. All of a sudden I was awakened by loud knocking and much door bell ringing. I figured it was the guys home from the meeting so I hobbled my way to the door. I looked through the peephole and didn't recognize the face of the woman standing there, bags in hand. "I'm yours," said the voice underneath the fur hat. "Open the door, IT'S SVETA, THE DOCTOR, I CAME TO MAKE YOU WELL."

So THIS is the Sveta that everyone has been telling me about. I obediently opened the door and in came the whirlwind. She immediately started spouting off instructions about what kind of pots and pans she needed and how much water for the herbs, etc. etc. My head would have started spinning from all of it if it hadn't already been spinning.

I wondered how I was going to remember everything in my dizzied state when in came the guys to save me. Wylie started writing everything down while Jim prepared to head off to the bazaar to get the missing ingredients. SVETA STARTED THE STUFF ON THE STOVE & THEN STARTED CLEANING THE HOUSE! "Men are children," she explained to me, "When the woman of the house is sick, nothing gets done."

She gathered all the dirty dishes and washed away. "What are these potatoes for?" she asked Wylie. "I was going to fry them for lunch," he answered. "O.K.," she responded and consequently began frying. "Should I stop her?" asked Jim. "After all, she came here to take care of YOU not us." "You CAN'T stop her," I smiled. "She wants to help, let her do it." She finished preparing their lunch and then, since I am not yet allowed to eat real food, she counseled the guys, "Do not eat in front of the hungry person. She can't eat yet and you will make her want it." She sent them to the kitchen, heads down, they went.

Wylie had the unfortunate fate of getting up from the table first. He left his dirty plate. "Wylie," called Sveta, "Why did you leave the table without washing your own dirty plate? You have hot water now. All you have to do is SHOOM SHOOM with the sponge and some soap and you're done. The dirty dishes will make a mountain." "Oh," he said and head down again retrieved his bowl.

(How was Sveta to know that it's his dishwashing day so the mountain would be his anyway!)

After this Sveta whipped up some magic milk and potato starch concoction for me. I am happily sipping it slowly with my Siberian herb tea. Some of the remedies make sense, and some of them don't -- to us, anyway, but the LOVE, CONCERN, & GENEROSITY FROM THE PEOPLE who have literally nothing makes all the sense in the world. By the way, yes, Sveta is a REAL doctor and yes, she served in the army -- thus her drill sergeant mentality but know what? We didn't mind.

Olya #1 (We have a congregation full of Olyas) is our elder's wife. She is very worried about me and sent me COOKIES.

Olya #2 is also one of our pioneers and I had arrangements with her today which I of course had to cancel. She stopped by to see how I was and brought me a banana. I was so touched I couldn't stand it. BANANAS ARE LIKE GOLD HERE because they are of course imported and therefore VERY EXPENSIVE. All of the above makes it almost worth it to be sick.

Olya #2's story of coming into the truth is one that you will find very interesting. She was found door to door here in Vinnitsa during the time she was studying at the institute. She immediately agreed to a Bible study and knew it was the truth right away.

Her family lives in their village and she started witnessing to them immediately. They were not happy having been members of the Russian orthodox church their whole lives. Within a month, she visited them in the village. Her father and brother-in-law planned to whisk her away in the car to speak with the local priest so he could straighten her out. They related to her that she should really appreciate the privilege since it had taken a lot of convincing on their part to get him to agree to talk to her. It seems that he was nervous about speaking with someone who was studying with Jehovah's Witnesses.

She went without a worry, assuming that she would be able to have a conversation based on the Bible with someone who had had seminary training. "Please, sir," she asked, "Show me in the Bible where it talks about a Paradise earth" the brothers had read her many such scriptures but she couldn't remember where they were being so new and sincerely thought that the priest could help her.

"There are no such scriptures," he replied, "The Bible does not speak about a paradise earth." Olya was shocked. "Yes it does," she respectfully responded. "I have seen these scriptures myself in the Bible." "I don't know where they are," he said. "Please, then," said our Olya, "Could you tell me what I must do to be saved?" The priest answered, "You must do everything the Russian orthodox church says you must do, follow all our customs, etc., and then you will be saved." Olya was still more shocked because the priest had not said one thing from the Bible -- not one thing about the ransom or anything.

"Please," he pleaded, "Speak with a priest that is higher up than me. Maybe he will be able to talk to you better." But our Olya's mind was already made up. All the way home in the car she couldn't stop talking about her amazement that after only 1 month of studying the Bible with Jehovah's Witnesses, she knew more about the Bible than a seminary graduate. Her family was still not happy.

Time passed and Olya became our sister. Again she was home visiting her family. In the village in order to get to the meeting she has to get on a bus and travel to the next village where a group meets. Olya faithfully attended despite her family's opposition. On this particular night it was raining VERY hard and her mom kept saying that Olya should not go out because of the storm. Olya did not want to miss the Theocratic school and service meeting but it soon became apparent that the bus was not even going to come in such weather. She was dejected. Her mother joked, "Why do you go out at night for these meetings anyway, better you should have them here."

"Fine! Olya joked back. I will. The meeting starts in my room at 6:00." At 6:00, Olya sat in her room, Bible and books in hand and guess who was first to appear -- Mom. A few minutes later, a knock was heard on her door. It was her sister, later her brother in law, and finally her father. All were in attendance. Olya conducted the meeting and everything went smoothly. Since then, no one is opposed. Her sister and her husband have started studying, and Mom faithfully reads the magazines. Olya studies with her whenever she is home visiting. Papa reads the magazines occasionally but at least is no longer opposed and no longer sends her to the priest. Olya is optimistic about all.

IF YOU THINK THIS EXPERIENCE IS GREAT, JUST IMAGINE A CONGREGATION FULL OF THEM!

IT'S LIKE LIVING IN THE YEARBOOK! So come visit and see for yourself. And don't worry about getting sick here, we'll just call Sveta and she'll come over and make you well!

(Source: These experiences were contained in a letter to Weldon Howze which he shared) 

"Dear Friends, As might be imagined, the past two months have gone by very quickly. I finally got access to e-mail, so I can start writing.

FIRST A LITTLE BIT ABOUT BETHEL IN THE UKRAINE: The branch is in a Kingdom Hall (it is actually a six Kingdom Hall complex) in a part of Lvov called Livondovka. There are many spare rooms in this building that are used for the offices, kitchen, dining room and laundry. The Ukraine branch has about 120 Bethelites. The fun part is trying to learn everybody's names. It is not that there are too many names to remember. In reality I only have about 10 names to remember (like Andre, Igor, Victor, Volodia, Bogdan, etc), but the struggle is trying to remember which name to attach to which face.

CONSTRUCTION OF THE NEW BRANCH: There is a lot of excitement here in connection with the construction of the new branch about 12 kilometers from here (of course all Americans know that's about 5-1/2 miles). Right now there are about 80 working with the construction family, but it will grow to around 200.

LANGUAGES: So far, there are about 21 different nationalities represented at the site. Most of the workers cannot speak Ukrainian (they're gringos like me). So, we have two in-between languages to speak, English and Russian. Most who speak Ukrainian, Hungarian, Polish, or Romanian also speak Russian, and the rest (Americans, Germans, Canadians, Spanish) can speak at least a little English. As you can see, we have a lot of fun just communicating with one another.

OUR LIVING QUARTERS: Now, let me tell you about our living quarters. At this branch, there are no dormitories. Everyone lives in apartments and houses around the city. In fact, quite a few live with their parents. I share a room in a house on the other side of town (about a 20 minute drive from the branch) on Lichakovska street. My roommate's name is Valeri Kislomed. He is from Kharkov (a city in the middle of Ukraine).   He was a special pioneer in Kharkov, but now works in Hospital Information Services, heightening awareness of the local medical community of the benefits of bloodless surgery. By the way, by profession, he is a masseuse. Twelve people live in the house on Lichakovska.

In the room next to us is the branch coordinator and his wife, the Didurs, from Canada. Also in the house are two fleshly brothers that are Hungarian (Andre and Misha Simkovich), a German couple, an MTS graduate from Germany, and a few other Ukrainian brothers and sisters. In this one house any one of five languages could be spoken (Russian, Ukrainian, English, German, or Hungarian). It keeps life very interesting. But in the end, everyone gets along with each other very well.

MY CONGREGATION ASSIGNMENT: Upon arrival I was assigned to Lvov Center RUSSIAN.

CONGREGATION. We have about 105 publishers, but normal attendance on Sunday is about 170. I am the seventh elder in the congregation. After just a couple weeks in the congregation, they started a 10th bookstudy since they had a new elder. Interestingly, two of our elders are still learning Russian, so most of their talks are translated from English. In general, people are quite amazed that an American can speak even a little Russian (it is really very unusual. They would probably be quite impressed with how well everyone in Queens Russian speaks Russian). Since our congregation does not have a Kingdom Hall, we meet in a rented hall in the center of Lvov. Behind the stage is a big stained glass window, and we all sit in church seats. What a scene it is. But, the brothers are very warm and are very zealous in the ministry.

THE FIELD MINISTRY: Right now I am fully booked with appointments for service into the month of January (I am simply not used to scheduling every Sunday for the ministry like that, but it is good). The local brothers' zeal for the ministry is very encouraging. It is not uncommon to see 50 - 60 meeting field service from our congregation on Sunday.

Since our congregation is located in the middle of downtown Lvov,
     
most of our ministry is street witnessing. The people of the city are very religious, Roman Catholic by denomination, and just a few Orthodox. This part of the Ukraine has received a very thorough witness, and many of the people in Lvov are already familiar with our message. Still there is very good growth, but the big growth is in eastern Ukraine, where many have still never heard of the Truth. The city of Lvov is quite a beautiful city, about 700 years old. The center of the city is filled with historic old buildings and a very nice opera theatre
  (built by the same architect who built the theatre in Odessa and another in Vienna). Just my third week here and a group of us went to Swan Lake and sat in the expensive seats for about 10 Hryvnya per head (that's less than $3).

A LITTLE ABOUT THE PEOPLE: In general, the people of the area are really quite friendly (although they many say that the residents of eastern Ukraine are even friendlier). Some very amazing things happen, at least from the eyes of a cynical westerner.   For instance,  some  things happen here that are simply impossible in

NYC. Like the marchrootkas (these are the little busses that are designed for 15 people but commonly hold 35) and how we pay. You see, every person must pay the driver while he is dodging pedestrians and traffic (which is interesting to watch in itself). Now, the amazing thing is if you get in and sit in the back, you simply give the money (we pay 50 Hryvnya per ride) to the person ahead of you, and they continue to pass it on to the front. If the driver owes you change, it will be passed back to you in similar manner. And the wild thing is, nobody seems to cheat this arrangement!

Now that is a little about the honesty of the people in general. The authorities are another matter. For instance on the top of all police cars are the letters -L- which stands for the governmental agency of militia (I am not sure of the exact translation). However, everyone just calls them in Russian ôðø (pronounced die) which means in Russian "GIVE!". And if you are pulled over, that is just what you will be doing.

WINTER IS COMING, and we have had our first couple of snow storms. Everyone is saying that this will be a long winter. All the young Bethel brothers are looking forward to skiing in the Carpathian mountains,

and it looks like they will have to drag along one American on those trips. Jehovah is making this a very comfortable home for me. PLEASE COME AND SEE THE WONDERFUL SPIRIT OF THE BROTHERS AND SISTERS IN UKRAINE..

"Shawn"

Other interesting articles:

The Valley of Blossoming Beauty, : g05 4/22 24-5
A Trip on the World’s Longest Trolleybus Line, g03 3/22 22-4
A Promise I Am Determined to Keep, g98 6/22 20-24
Houses With "Fur Coats", g05 10/22 22-3

Researching Ukraine on Society's CD you will find a mountain of information about the country, the work there, & the need for brothers who know the languages of Ukraine,Russian, and others, and for those willing to learn them.