Saturday, July 20, 2019

How to date in Ukraine (video)

AP; Conor Clyne Tsar Experience, 8/6/18; Sheldon S., Seth Auberon (eds.), Wisdom Quarterly


Reasons to NEVER date a Ukrainian
[How to date in Ukraine? Step 1: Find a fellow traveler, and have fun like you were back home...] In this video we learn another five reasons why a smart person would never want to date a gal from Ukraine. The original five reasons were not enough, so here are five more. Hey, Dummy, if you're going to do it anyway, have fun. And prepare:
Many thanks to all the Ukrainian females who appear in this video. Find them on Instagram πŸ’ƒπŸ»πŸ‘ΈπŸΌπŸ’ƒπŸΌπŸ‘ΈπŸ»:
When you become disillusioned with beautiful, vacuous dates, why not visit Ukraine's Buddhist past alive today?

Buddhists seek new home in E.O. Christian village
AP Archive, Jan. 4, 2018
(Dec. 30, 2017) A small community of Buddhists are causing controversy among the residents of a tiny Ukrainian village where they have set up home. The Buddhists settled in the village after the war in eastern Ukraine forced them to leave their homes in Donetsk three years ago.

STORYLINE: This quiet, snowy road leads to the village of Krivopillya, deep in Ukraine's Carpathian mountains. The local community are Eastern Orthodox Christians, living a rural, conservative lifestyle. Unusually, a group of Buddhist monks have bought a house in the village, having fled the recent war in eastern Ukraine. As this is unorthodox in both senses, their arrival has caused a stir, with some locals even threatening to force them to leave.

"Everything that happened is connected with the Donbas and with war. Everything has started from there. I am from Donetsk, for example, and there we had the first Buddhist community in Ukraine, registered in Donetsk back in 1991. When war started, we just had to leave everything there," says Sergei Filonenko, a Buddhist monk.

The Buddhist community in Donetsk was established in 1991. They had their own temple and were starting to build a shrine in the city of Luhansk. But the war forced them to leave and seek shelter elsewhere. The monks thought that the Carpathian region, inhabited by Ukraine's Hutsul ethnic minority, would be an ideal place for meditation.

Their teacher, the Japanese monk Junsei Terasawa, gave them some money to establish a new house where Ukraine's Buddhists could pray and live. At first there were four of them, but now only Sergei Filonenko lives here permanently. Other worshipers visit Krivopillya during important Buddhist holidays.

"The Hutsuls are a little conservative society with deep Christian Orthodox traditions. But people everywhere are the same, they look at us to find out who we are. I hope that in time, they will understand what we are really doing here," says Filonenko.

Today, monks are visiting to celebrate one of the main holidays - the day of Buddha's enlightenment. Visiting Buddhists have travelled here from Dnipropetrovsk, Kiev, and Ivano-Frankovsk. They say they are hoping that the locals will come to accept that they have chosen the village as a legitimate place of worship.

"Locals do not understand us, because they think very superficially about things like faith. They do not perceive us well, because they think it is something totally different," says Buddhist Vasil Nastyuk.

The locals have mixed feelings about the new arrivals. For them, it is strange to hear the sound of chanting coming from the house at the edge of the village. Ivan Bondarik says some of the villagers were determined to drive the Buddhists away, but he is happy to have them because they are bringing more life to the village.

"Some were telling me, let's take weapons and kick them out of here. But I do not have the right to do so. They have bought the house, and I am even happy they have come here. Not many residents remain in the village. Before there were 12 houses, now only four," he says.

The Buddhists are hoping that, in time, the whole village may grow to accept their presence in these quiet snowy mountains.

No comments: