Introduction
Day 1 - San Francisco to Prague
Day 2 - Kyiv from the air
Day 2 - Boryspil International Airport
Day 2 - First Views Of Kyiv
Day 3 - Guided Tour of Kyiv
Day 3 - Kyiv - On our own
Day 3 - Night train from Kyiv to L'viv
Day 4 - L'viv with Father Ken
Day 5 - Radekhiv
Day 5 - Vytkiv
Day 6 - Trip to Kolomyia
Day 6 - Halych
Day 6 - Ivano-Frankivs'k
Day 7 - Bazaar at Kosiv
Day 7 - Between Kosiv and Kolomyia
Day 7 - Kolomyia
Day 8 - Zvenyhorod
Day 8 - Back in L'viv
Day 9 - L'viv with Orest and Vitali
Day 10 - L'viv - Morning walk with Dad
Day 10 - L'viv on my own
Day 11 - L'viv with Dad
Day 11 - Night train to Budapest
Day 12 - Budapest
Day 13 - Budapest
Day 13 - Szentendre
Day 14 - Homeward bound

TRIP TO UKRAINE
September 19 - October 2, 1999

DAY 5 - VYTKIV/ NEW VYTKYV - (Новий) Виткiв
From Radekhiv to New Vytkiv

We headed east towards the home of the Vlad's mother, with frequent stops along the way.

Metal fences like the one at left on this photo were very common - I suppose they are durable, but they looked too Soviet-utilitarian for my taste.

We stopped to visit an old friends of Dad's - not a relative - who was preparing to make wine. She seemed an interesting character, about whom I would have liked to know more, but we had only a few minutes with her.

At the home of the famous shower, we drank a small toast - Dad insisted we did not have time for a meal, and had just eaten - twice. The man next to Dad is the brother of Vladik's mother, so Vlad's uncle, but not a blood relative of ours. The woman holding the child is the old man's daughter, and the child is her son.

THE FAMOUS SHOWER. A woman Dad now knows in Canada visited here earlier this past summer, and to help make her stay more pleasant (she was apprehensive about the primitive conditions), the old man built this contraption for her. I did not see what the alternative was, but they had an outhouse, so presumably no indoor plumbing. She had asked Dad to deliver some money for refurbishment of a grave stone, and to take a picture of the shower. Here it is. The woman pointing is the old man's daughter.

The wife of the old man, another daughter, and her son. Everyone was very warmly dressed, but the temperature must have been 75 by this time - late afternoon.

Their root cellar, and pumpkins. They grow a lot of pumpkins, mainly for pig food.

DAY 5 - NEW VYTKIV

We resumed our journey, stopping at a cemetery, and visited the grave site of Dad's grandfather Teodor, and Teodor's second son Ivan, (dad's uncle), with two inscriptions.

The black-and-white photo, taken in 1992, is easier to read. The inscriptions (translated) read:
Teodor Senkus, 1840-1893, This grave site provided by his children
Then the later one: And Son Ivan - 1880-1969

The roads from Radekhiv to New Vytkiv grew progressively worse. We saw almost no other cars, no trucks, no tractors or other farm machinery. Instead, there were horse-drawn wagons and plows.

Finally we reached the home of the mother of Vladik, Maria ,and Lyuba, in New Vytkiv. Dad had to pet the pigs, who seemed to enjoy the attention, never dreaming they will be next year's sausage.

Dad, standing on the spot where his father was born (I presume there was a house here then.) I forgot to ask him whether he had ever identified it before.

While posing for the previous shot, Dad spotted this cow in the neighboring field, and decided he should pet it. The owner consented, but the cow did not.

Vladik Senkus, his sisters Maria and Lyuba, and their mother, in the yard of her house in New Vytkiv, on the farm where Dad's father was born in 1876.

Another meal, number 4 of the day. I was glad I'd avoided the alcohol, as I'd have been regretting it by this point - I was tired enough just from everything else we'd done so far.

We said goodbye and started back to L'viv. Vladik stayed at his mother's house to help her with the chores (he was unemployed at the time, but has found work since).

On the way back to L'viv, there were fires in the fields everywhere, and the air was thick with smoke. Apparently air quality is not an issue. We saw these fires every night we were out in the countryside.

Returning the way we had come, we passed through the outskirts of Radekhiv (population about 1,500), which had just celebrated its 525th (!) anniversary, and erected new signs at the city limits to commemorate it.