I Know That Place

The Lavra, also known as the Kyiv Monastery of the Caves, is a historic Eastern Orthodox Christian monastery.

Is this photo familiar? These are the golden domes you see over the shoulder of newscasters reporting from Kyiv.

The Lavra is a section of the city named for the monastery, buildings of the treasury and the museum. The museum is where I was literally tossed out on the street. Better than being arrested, but I still don’t know what I did to earn such a ceremonious departure from the building.

It could be David’s fault. He told me I should learn a few words using the Cyrillic alphabet and others would come to me. Actually David was the reason I was in Kyiv. David worked for the US government as an adviser to third world countries, mainly former Soviet Union nations, in setting up their fiscal and monetary policies and other financial matters. This was his second assignment to Kyiv, and he and Mary Lee, his wife, rented an apartment just one block off a main street. They had invited me to visit and I eagerly took the offer.

We had gone to the opera the night before and afterwards, where else but McDonald’s. As I studied the overhead menu, all of a sudden I could read one word: Fry. French fries, it had to be. Hurrah! I could read a word in Ukranian.

And that’s what got me in trouble the next day at the Lavra Museum, or I think that was it.

This story will be continued.