A social-minded Torontonian, Chachula was surrounded by all things Ukrainian growing up, and she's immersed herself in true Ukrainian life here since then.
office of the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE). “I grew up speaking Ukrainian as my native language, not English.” She took Ukrainian dancing lessons for many years, and went to Ukrainian camps every summer “where, if they caught you speaking English, you got into trouble,” she says.
Chachula, 24, sat down to lunch at Pantagruel Osteria recently as she often does, her office being just up the street from the Italian eatery. She’s a vegetarian and has been for six years now; she doesn’t even like the taste or texture of meat. When she orders the thick Tuscan tomato soup (Hr 29), she makes sure to ask if the soup is vegetable-based (it is). She also orders a tall glass of cola with ice (Hr 6).
“It’s hard to be a vegetarian here,” admits the blue-eyed blonde. “When I went to visit my great-uncle in Lviv two years ago he asked what kind of disease I had that prevents me from eating meat. He even asked if I would at least eat sausage or salo, but I said no.” Now all her relatives here know she’s a vegetarian and work to accommodate her, too.
Happy Returns?
When Chachula arrived in Kyiv in September 2002, it was actually her second time in Ukraine. In 1990, when she was 11, Chachula toured the country as part of a Ukrainian band ensemble, but the experience was so horrible – the long hours in the bus, the breakfasts of liver and kasha, the poverty she saw – that she swore she would never return. But she did return, just a little more than two years ago, though she remained fearful of what to expect. Even her parents were teary-eyed when she left to come here.
“I felt a lot of apprehension, there were many unknowns,” she says. “I remembered about the toilet paper [as a kid], so I brought eight rolls of two-ply with me.”
“I was surprised by life in Kyiv,” Chachula continues. “It’s so cosmopolitan and there are so many things to do. I was frustrated at first by the Russian, and I’m learning now, but I still prefer to speak Ukrainian.”
Chachula came to Kyiv as part of a Canadian government internship program in the fall of 2002. “My parents told me to go. They said it would open my eyes,” she says. She had just finished a double honors degree in political science and sociology at the University of Toronto that spring and caught the travel bug while doing a nine-country backpacking tour of Europe with her friend Natalia just a month before coming here. Her internship was with the NATO Information and Documentation Centre for six months; then she got a three-month extension to continue working there and finally landed the job at the OSCE.
“I feel very lucky to have this job,” Chachula says. Every day she compiles and sends out a daily press package for local offices and government bureaucrats, and edits the OSCE Web site, but her real joy at work comes from her coworkers, whom she considers her second family. The NATO office employed only six people, which made her feel lonely – she needed more mental and social stimuli. But at the OSCE she’s part of an energetic, outgoing team of 30 people. “It’s a good working environment,” she says. “If I leave it will be very hard.”
Deeply Rooted
Ukraine and the Ukrainian language have given Chachula many things: some of her best friends, whom she met at the Spilka Ukrayinskoyi Molodi (Ukrainian Youth Organization) camp during her teen and pre-teen years; her job working with Spaniards, Austrians, Americans, Italians and others helping to overcome the inertia of bureaucracy and Soviet-style authoritarianism; and the strong family connections she, her parents and grandparents have with family here. She visits great-aunts and great-uncles and second cousins in Lviv or Ivano-Frankivsk oblasts every few months. The visits aren’t always easy, either. She cried when she saw her great-aunt in Ivano-Frankivsk not long ago: the calloused hands, the rundown little shack which serves as her home, virtually everything. Still, she remains upbeat and positive.
Chachula’s friends are always a source of fun and inspiration for her, whether she’s having them over for a dinner party or traveling abroad to meet with them. She took a recent trip to Georgia where she visited with former Kyiv residents Sven and Gina Galbraith Holdar, discovering Georgian food all over again, not to mention Georgian wines. Chachula is as big on wines as she is on travel, and learned much about them and how they’re made in Toronto while working for the Liquor Control Board of Ontario. Dinner parties are a favorite indulgence of hers, and normally she tries to have people over once a week for food and drinks.
A couple of weeks back a relative dropped off some dried and preserved mushrooms, which she made into soup and other things, like non-meat variants of borshch and varenyki. And she’s not completely afraid of meat, as she even prepared some for a dinner party in the summer.
“I made this chicken with a creamy garlic-basil sauce,” Chachula says, her eyes widening as she describes it. “And they said they really liked it, and I believed them, of course.”
Future Preparations
Despite all the fun she has been having in Kyiv, the festive and social Chachula is still stressing over two dates that loom on her calendar. Halloween is coming up this weekend, and she has no idea who or what she will go as on Oct. 31 (she’s narrowed it down to Marilyn Monroe and Paris Hilton). As for her job, her contract expires on Dec. 31, but she doesn’t know yet what she’ll do afterwards. She may stay for a few more months, or go back to university in Canada to do a masters degree. There’s even the possibility she’ll switch her focus to business and venture off in that direction.
In all likelihood, Chachula will end up back in Canada, Toronto to be exact, because that is her home.
“I couldn’t live here permanently,” she says. “My family in Canada always pulls me back.”
Until her younger brother’s visit in the summer, Lida had not had any visits from friends or family in Ukraine. Her father has expressed his desire to come, though is unlikely to because of work reasons. Her mother, who was last here in the mid-70s, hates to fly, and another close friend recently got engaged, so a trip by any of them is unlikely. She says she has missed out on a few things since being here, but that doesn’t mean she’s not enjoying life.
“It’s still great to be here,” Chachula says. “Now is such an interesting and exciting time in Ukraine. It’s history in the making.
“I never thought I’d ever come back to Ukraine, but I did. I guess my motto should be ‘never say never.’”
Pantagruel Osteria (1 Lysenka, 228-8142).
Open daily from 11 a.m. till 11 p.m.
English menu: Yes.
English-speaking staff: Yes.
