So I won't be posting regularly for the next week and a half or so because I'm in Ukraine! I have spent the last weekend hanging out in Odessa with Harvard and ASU folks. Odessa is even better than I remembered it. It remains the perfect combination of neoclassical architecture, cafe nightlife and seedy beaches. And, wow, have German tourists discovered Odessa.
This afternoon I'm heading to Dnepropetrovsk to visit Derek, another ASU Russian alum, and meet his Ukrainian wife. Very exciting. I've been told that honey wine and blood sausage will be served. Eat your heart out, foodies.
Then the three of us are going to Crimea to check out the Crimean Tatar city of Bakhchisarai and the Russian neoclassical city of Sevastopol. My trip has unintentionally turned into a tour of "Novorossiya," which was the name for the territories, mostly in present-day Ukraine but also including Moldova, that were acquired from the Ottoman Empire during the Russo-Turkish Wars of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. (I hope that fact is right since I haven't taken Imperial Russian history since 2006.)
So, I won't be blogging much, but I hope to post pictures on Facebook.
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