Thirty two years ago...

Two days ago I posted an entry in Ukrainian, and on this day, thirty two years to the day of my father's untimely death at the age of fifty-two of an aneurysm, it seems fitting to me that others get a glimpse into what probably changed my life to an immeasurable degree. This is not a verbatim translation of my previous post but rather an admixture of that post and some additional thoughts that have come to me that are worth mentioning in order that the non-Ukrainian reader can better understand.

On May 18, 1979 I went through one of those rights of passage experienced when one is just about to complete high school - the prom or grad as we called in in my home town! Regardless of where on this planet one lives it is a significant event in nearly every young person's life. I was no different at that moment when it was happening; but after the event everything in my life changed very rapidly.

Now here begins my digression, or maybe it's just part of my story.

“Who of you doesn't like to sit in your grandmother or grandfather's lap on a cold winter night and listen to those long-extensively long stories, which ring out so nicely in the evening silence! Who of you doesn't like interesting tales about far off, lands beyond the sea, about incredible adventures about sailors on the vast expanse of the ocean, about strange plants and animals of a tropical climate!” This is how the foreword of one of the books I came upon through the generosity of a close family friend a few days ago. Her late husband was my brother's godfather, her son and I were the best of friends. Some of my friends thought that he and I were cousins. We did so much together and with our fathers. All we have left are a lot of fond memories. What I know that I have left is a love for both his adopted home, Canada, as well as his land of birth Ukraine - its culture and its language, which some say is only second, after Italian, in its musicality.

But that was but one of the many books which Mrs L, as I had called her in my childhood even though she had a surname, had passed on to me. Though for some reason my mother wanted to give them all to some community organization and had said, “What do you need those books for you are never going to read them all!” She didn't say this in Ukrainian but English! While some of my Ukrainian friends never knew this until their own parents pointed it out to them my mother isn't Ukrainian, but Canadian with Irish and Scottish roots, but I have never considered myself WASP. Sure non-English sounding names were even pretty common when I was growing up in Canada so in fact few of your classmates actually knew very little about one another and their roots.

The whole issue with the two boxes of books to me had nothing to do with whether I will read them or not but we have to value books. My mother simply has never understood and will never understand what books mean to me. She has an even lesser understanding that these are books that a greater part of the Ukrainian diaspora are not interested in and don't even take an interest in reading things in, for some, their mother tongue. It may sound odd, but it's a fact. Individuals, like electricity, take the path of least resistance, and few take the road less traveled, particularly those who are in fact loosing one of the most important vestiges of their heritage, their language.

This year marks the one hundred and twentieth year of Ukrainian settlement in Canada. The aforementioned forward however is not of a book from Ukrainian literature, but from a book which was first published in 1719, two hundred years earlier than the imprint of that which the citation originates. The author of that book was Daniel Defoe - and most readers simply call the novel Robinson Crusoe, though the original title is much longer. I am certain that many of you have either read it or seen the countless spin offs on television based on the same theme: Swiss Family Robinson, Lost in Space or even seen the movie Cast Away.


The copy of Robinson Crusoe which I have in my possession was published by the printing house of the Kanadyiskii Farmer, Canadian Farmer, in Winnipeg in 1919, as you can see from the image of the colophon I have included. But this is but one of the interesting books which I now have in my possession.


“Published in 1898 by the “Academic Community” student association the collection of my poems “Miy Izmarhad” [ed. In the old Rusyn language Izmarhadymy were a name given to collections of articles and parables of a moral character, from which the reader could garner answers to various questions in their day-to-day lives.] I has not been available for quite some time, and still back in 1909 the board of the Ukraino-Rusyn Publishing Association agreed upon the publishing of a new edition... The character of the collection itself, which is a succession in part of the collection of instructions and stories known under the title of “Ismarahd”, is to be expanded. I resolved that here we would print an whole series of my poems which were written during a thirty-two year period, which did not appear in my earlier collection, but particularly the second edition of “Z vershyn s nyzyn” [ed. From the tops and the bottoms]. This was the forward which Ivan Franko wrote to another of the books which came to me. “The old and the new. A Second and expanded edition of My “Izmarahd” - The Poems of Ivan Franko – published in Lviv, 1911. Somehow this book is closer to my heart and soul for a number of different reasons – but the most important of theses is that it is not a translation of foreign literature, but an original.

I had read a number of Franko's works but this was before the period that I set foot not only in Ukraine, but also in places which Franko had also been.

In the summer of 1990 – through my involvement in the Ukrainian Canadian Students' Union, I traveled to Ukraine for the first time. True, it was still known as the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic at that time, but there were changes afoot. Changes which fellow students in Ukraine, members of the Student Brotherhood Association of the Lviv, our hosts, were a large part of. It was an interesting period – students were reviving old traditions, there was a certain self confidence and pride among nationally conscious Ukrainians. I was one of six Ukrainian-Canadian students invited by our host organization. In fact, from what we were told we were the first student group to visit Ukraine that had not been invited by the Komsomol.

We arrived in Kyiv on July 1, Canada Day. The trip had a certain significance, for I traveled a very similar route that my father had emigrated to Canada by, well at least for the crossing of the Atlantic Ocean. The night before we departed from Toronto and landed in Gander to refuel followed by a second stop in Shannon, Ireland. Both my father and I were at about the same age during our respective trips to totally new lands for us. The first few days in Kyiv, are a story unto itself, and while a penned version of that is in the works, it probably won't appear here for some time.

On July 5 we finally got on a train to Lviv and arrived on early the following morning on the eve of Ivana Kupalo Day , the Feast of St. John the Baptist. After settling in with our host families, a few hours sleep and some food, we all gathered with our hosts and a group from our host organization to head off by bus to Kolomiya to not only celebrate this holiday on the banks of the River Prut, but to hold a number of impromptu concerts in that city as a way of stirring up national pride of the townsfolk and its visitors. As a result of one of these concerts a local woman invited the entire group of us, over forty people to her place for lunch. It was quite an incredible experience. One has to remember that at that time it Ukraine was still Soviet, and there were songs as well as poems recited by our Ukrainian student counterparts which under the laws of the time could still be considered anti-Soviet and seditious. At some point during the time we were the guest of this woman she was was sending family members out to the neighbours to get more horilka for her student guests.

Some time in the middle of July there were plans to take a day trip to Nahuyevychi, Franko's home village, but in order to understand one of the things that happened on that trip I have to take a little foray back a few years earlier – to the period during which I was working on my Masters in Ukrainian Literature at the University of Ottawa from 1986 through 1988.

During those years there were literary scholars and historians who specialized on the theme of Ivan Franko who visited Ottawa. One of my obligations within our department was the planning of excursions for these visitors from Ukraine. For the most part these would be to the old National Gallery on Elgin Street, to the National Archives and Library of Canada and to Parliament where they would meet Parliamentarians with Ukrainian roots. I did everything by the book and our guests always said that they enjoyed the opportunity to see a little bit more of Ottawa and at the same time Canada – in 1987 or 1988 who ever imagined that the USSR would collapse so soon?

Let's return now to Franko's native village. The plan was to visit his parents home and the museum named in his honour. Our group was standing about thirty metres from the museum, I know that my friend Roksolana was there as was Markian Ivashchyshyn, a man of big stature and head of the organization that was hosting us. He had walked over to the museum to see if it was open. In all honest I don't remember that we even went into the museum, but what happened next I will recall as long as I live.

We all saw that Markian was speaking to some woman. They he yelled to me, “Vasyl, what is your surname?” I replied and he waved with his hand for us to come to him. There stood a woman with a familiar face and from her lips I heard the following words, “Now it's my turn to be your tour guide?” At that moment and even to this day I don't remember what that woman's name was, be knew we were acquainted. The members of our group were truly surprised. And that was my experience visiting Ivan Franko's home village.

In the late spring of 2007, Ukraine was once again going through some difficult political times. On April third of that same year Ukraine's President Viktor Yushchenko dissolved Parliament and once again there were tents on Kyiv's main square Maydan Nezalezhnosti, Independence Square, and it wasn't the first time that I met my kum [VP. Non-blood relationship, one who is a godparent of someone's child.] beside a tent on that square. He says to me, “Kum listen here! You know Vasyliu I've already been to the place where you grew up, but you have never been to my home village. This summer there's a wedding in the family – let's go to together?” That is how I end up in the village of Lolyn!

So there I was in the same village were Ivan Franko found his first love. That was the second time I found myself in a place that Franko had once tread. Clearly his intentions were a lot more serious than mine and her name was Olya Roshkevych the daughter of the local priest. She even became his betrothed, though after Franko's arrest in 1887 while in his second year at Lviv University his fate change. Her father forbade the two to see each other but they saw each other secretly but their future together was not written in the stars. At a ball in Kolomiya they danced their last waltz together. While the rest of his life story is not the reason for this scribbling, having by chance walked were he had once walked is one of the many reasons I have a greater affinity to the second of these two books.

Now I want to say something else — as readers you have stumled upon an Internet premiere. Unlike many other premieres, this one will probably go unnoticed. It is the first time that one Franko's poems printed more than one hundred years ago in Lviv in 1911 is to appear on the Internet. The poem which I have chosen is called "To the Rusyn Fatalists" which had seen the world for the first time in a publication called "Zerkalo" (Mirror) in its tenth number on May 15, 1883 — according to the collection I have in hand. The translation below is my own and to the best of my knowledge it may also be a premiere. Now I'm not sure what I'm getting myself into as it may take me a better part of the day to translate this and do it any justice!

To the Rusyn Fatalists “Akhbar Allah! God is great!” Says the Turk sipping his coffee. “May Allah condemn you, The sentence will be inevitable, If you are to hang, you will hang, Though you may drown in sea swells: If they drown you, you will drown, though you wanted to hang, So that you know, that Akbar Allah!” “It's a bitter fate — says the Rusyn — Glory to those plundering princes And the Polovtsi and Lithuanians And the insatiable evil poles; The Turks and Tartars tore us, And plucked did the moscovite people, — Rus' is hard it went through everything, And will still experience more.” “But new days brought to us Charitable institutions : Autonomy, appendices, Execution by taxation, Banks, usury, auctions, Floods, famine, suffering everywhere... But why should we be bothered with this? Rus is hard and will remain. “We have already endured a great deal in life, And will still endure a great deal more : Because we, as you can see, strong in patience ; We endure, which means we live. The wolf will eat the shepherds, will eat us all, And Rus will go on without Rusyns. It has endured so much, That it will even endure itself.”

This was but one little moment I wanted to share with those that drop by. Maybe I will never write anything like this again — because the moment has to be right and I have to find my muse. That muse can take on many forms — in this case it didn't come to me by chance, it came to me with a certain date and thanks to a certain person who gifted me these books, this treasure. I also thank her for the memorial service which she is organizing on May 21, 2011 - its for all those from our small Ukrainian community in Lachine. They include: Teodor Powidajko, Marta Tsiopa, Anastasia and Bohdan Bilohan, Teodor Bilenkiy, Olena and Roman Kupchak, Mykhaylo Kots, Zina and Mykhaylo Hayduk, Elizaveta and Mykhaylo Kurash, Hanya Zavatska, Lukian Danylyk and my father Vasyl Pawlowsky.

All these people called Ukraine there homeland — some of them fought for its freedom against both the Nazis and Red Army for the idea of an Independent and Sovereign Ukraine and had the opportunity to visit only after the USSR crumbled. Others survived the Holodomor and Stalinist purges and maybe others like my father made through WWII and never saw an Independent Ukraine. Though I'm certain that they all were proud Ukrainians and raised their children and even grandchildren while at the same time they worked at building and contributing to the country which had adopted them, Canada.

On the day of that memorial service Georgy Gongadze would have been forty-two years young. But there are a lot of other friends who are no longer with us: Orest Vasyltsiv, Andriy Vynnychuk, Serhiy Naboka, Taras Protsyk, Oleksandr Kryvenko and Ilko Kucheriv.

All of these people who have passed somehow influenced my life, whether they were part of my upbringing in my youth and friends of my parents in Canada, or those of my generation who were born in Ukraine and who later became my friends in Ukraine, friends who were trying to build a new independent nation. Anyone who reads this and knew even one of these individuals who walked among us, remember them and thank the powers that be that they were a part of your life — had they been parent, friend, soldier, journalist or civic activist. One thing that is clear in my mind, they were all patriots of their countries.

Glory to Ukraine! Glory to Patriots!

The morning after – the ShockolaD interview

I got up the next morning and I was still staying on Filetova, not to far away from where I had to be in about an hour, and as usual, for that district of L'viv I missed the time period when the hot water was turned on. Well it was after all Friday and I was still in L'viv, which is incidentally one of my favorite chill-out cities, so what did I have to complain about? Nothing at all!

I headed out the door and walked along Filetova toward Lychakivska Street. From their down towards where it joins the beginning of Vynnychenko Street. I walked by the Kabinet. This is a nice little cafe/bar which is also a hotbed of cultural activity at times. With poetry reading, book launches and the like, which often, incidentally are recorded and podcast. I passed the monument to Vyacheslav Chornovil and a few minutes later I walked across Fedoriv Square and past the monument of Fedoriv.

At the agreed upon time of 10:00, I walked through the heavy wooden doors at Dzyga and began to look around for two guys I had met the night before through Markian. One of them I was told was going to make sure I had the equipment in order that I could do an interview for radio with three of the members of ShockolaD that would be able to meet with me that day.

I walked into the first room and looked around. Then I glanced into the second room up the three steps to the right. I didn't notice anyone that looked familiar, so I turned around to walk out and then someone came running up behind me, and I could hear a somewhat familiar voice calling me, “Pane Vasyliu!” I turned around and there stood Yuriy Kucheryaviy, one of the guys I had met the previous evening sitting with Markian Ivashchyshyn after the ShockolaD show.

“Andriy should be here shortly, with everything we need for you to do this interview with ShockolaD,” said Yuriy, and just as he said so in walked Andriy Izdryk, a tall lanky figure with a satchel in one hand and a army surplus style back pack that would be suitable for a two to three day trip away from home. Andriy greeted me and sat down at the table next to me. First he unloaded his satchel, pulling out his laptop, then came the surprise. Out of his back pack he began to pull out a number of things, and as he was doing so in walked Anastasia Lytvynyuk, Dana Vynnytska and Ihor Hnydyn of ShockolaD. We all greeted one another, and Andriy handed Dana one microphone and then another, as I recall they were AKG's, not top of the line but better than anything I've seen anyone pull out of such a back pack before. But what followed was an even bigger surprise!

Andriy moved somethings away from his laptop and next to it he placed an eight-channel mixer. Within a few minutes he was ready to roll. Well not quite, there was still the matter of background music and the ventilation ducts in the back room of Dzyga. Yuriy got up and spoke to the administration about that and soon I was ready to start the interview with ShockolaD! But first we all decided that coffee would be a great start. After all it was only ten in the morning.

Once our coffee arrived and we checked the levels things got underway.

As a favour to my friend and fellow blogger Pawlina whom I recorded this interview for below is a translation and transcript of the interview which transpired, for her listeners.

VP: Dear listeners of Nash Holos in Vancouver, not to long ago I was sitting with a musician friend of mine, Misko Barbara of Mertviy Piven'[Dead Rooster] in Kyiv and he told me about a girl, who's name is Dana. Dana sings with not such a new band from L'viv, but I think they still have a lot to do. And what I heard at a concert at the Jazz Club at Dzyga on Virmenska Street yesterday evening, that's to say Thursday, I liked a great deal. Dana maybe you could briefly tell our listeners how this project started and when it started?

Dana Vynnytska: In 2004 each of us was a student at the Musical Academy. When I say each of us, I'm talking about Ihor Hnydyn our drummer, Anastasia Lytvynyuk, pianist and me Dana Vynnytska. Then we were studying at the Musical Academy and for the first time we went to see the Jazz Bez Festival in L'viv. We were so enthralled by the music that we all started dreaming of how to try to start playing something similar. First Ihor got in touch with Nastya, and then I joined in and then at one time five years ago in 2004 in the month of June we met up and started to play the standard My Funny Valentine.
It looked something like this. We were playing sheet music, we weren't sure how to play, we were uncertain. We tried listening to things, we were searching, we tried to copy things tried to find our own thing, but we started with the standards. At first there were three of us, then we had one contra-bass player join us. Well the story with contra-bass and bass players was classical. The bass line did not hold its own under intellectual and emotional tension and then a new figure appeared, in August our saxophonist joined us with whom we are working with until this day and that is Volodya Urban. And this is how the group ShockolaD was born.
That same year we participated in the Jazz Bez as juniors, and at the festival at one of the jam sessions we heard some very interesting musicians from Poland. I have in mind Joachim Mansel, pianist; Aryk Skolyk drummer and Mikhail Baranski vocal. When conversing with them in a more intimate setting they told us that in Krakow there are international master classes which take place, called the International Summer Jazz Academy. And that summer we went to those master classes and understood a bit more, because up until that point we were contriving our bicycle, but because of such a good experiences and pleasant knowledge that we were able to obtain last year, in as much that the three of us, Ihor, Natya and myself received a stipend from the Polish Ministry of Culture, Gauda de Polonia, we were able to be in Warsaw and cooperate and study under legendary Polish musicians: Czeslaw Bartowski, drummer; Andrzey Godinski, piano and Janusz Szroma for vocals.

VP: This is an interesting story, but I noticed that your drummer works a lot with arrangements and writing of music. It sort of reminded me of something, like á la Phil Collins, as you know Phil Collins is a drummer but also writes music. How did this all come about, I think it would be interesting for our listeners, because it kind of rare, it rarely happens that the drummer takes care of arrangements?

Ihor Hnydyn: Well like Dana said earlier that we started from learn from traditional jazz music, but learning from this music you begin to understand that the more you swallow of that music, then the greater the space for development in traditional music. But in order that, but because there is so much traditional jazz music in the world, and in America they play so much of it, and we are very far from there, and we wanted to something of our own, and I started to try to write for the first time, because earlier I never considered myself seriously as a composer, but it was when I was in Ireland working and the yearning for Ukraine came out in music. It was the first time where I didn't know where to place my soul, and I began to sit behind the piano and in principle began to think about Ukraine, and quite simply Ukrainian motifs appeared which I had heard from the time I was little, in as much that I myself am from a village and everyone in our village sings or plays on an instrument, and I simply wanted that music, simply for those ethno motifs to grow into something that was bigger. And in principle we tried to do something, and our first album called Number One,which we recorded in Poland with Polish musicians, that came out as ethnic music.

VP: One thing that really impressed me last night was the arrangement of Shchedryk by Leontovych [ed. Known as Carol of the Bells] I really liked it.

Ihor Hnydyn: But that was Volodymyr Urban. That's our saxophonist, he wrote that ten years ago, and the music laid there until it found its performer.

VP: It's a good thing that the performer was found.

Ihor Hnydyn: Yes!

VP: Like Dana said the other night at the concert, 'It's ours, everyone borrowed it from us. Over there the Americans borrowed it, the Japanese say it's theirs, but we all know that it is our own!'

Ihor Hnydyn: Chuckles.


VP: Not something foreign. You said you were in Ireland. What would you say – Celtic music and let's say our Hutsul music, there are certain nuances, there is something particular about them both. Did you ever have that feeling?

Ihor Hnydyn: Yes at one time I really had the opportunity to experience the feeling of real Irish music, when I entered a small out-of-the-way town, but there were a lot of tourists there and I was walking by this pub and I entered it and there I heard.... I don't know what to call their – accordion, it was similar to a bayan, and there this guy was playing Irish music with a flute and guitarist. It really was something to survive through, because there was something incredible there, first of all it included their coloring, at one moment, and I heard so much jazz within, and ... and... in principle you really could compare it to our Hutsul kolomeyky or something similar when they start improvising, because improvisation is strength.

VP: Well we could say that jazz really is improvisation, an individual take some small nuances and begins to build something from it. Nastya I heard this a little last night in your role as pianist and you added something on the synthesizer that really reminded me of the beginning of the 1970s when they really started to make use of that technology. Could you please tell us a little about your vision of ShockolaD and jazz?

Annastasiya Lytvynyuk: For me ShockolaD in principle now is the embodiment somehow of all my musical views, musical impressions and there I can express myself as a musician in the first place; and... well what is jazz, well that's very... we could sit and talk about it day and night and we could still do not know if we could to come to a complete explanation. But for me personally, it is music, at the given moment, music with such freedom that you can put in anything you want, in principle, because jazz as understanding, because now time has extreme expanses, it can be the ethnos that we personally put into ShokolaD, and it could be academic music or avantgarde music, we can put in anything possible. Regarding piano jazz or regarding my personal improvisations. Right now I am searching for myself searching for my own personal style, even though it is difficult for a young person to do, but thanks to the fact that I had an opportunity to study in Poland, now I am trying to find some of my own personal things that would become recognizable, and I hope that in a certain time I will be able to accomplish this.

VP: Dana actually we met last Sunday at the 20th anniversary concert of Mertviy Piven, and Misko was not mistaken when he told me about your voice. I heard it last Sunday, and I heard it last night. You as a singer have to give something to your audience, and I can see it in the audience, when each individual plays their role but somehow it all comes together as a general work. There were a few times where I would say, 'Dana just a little bit louder, just a wee bit so I could hear you better!' I have it all written down and maybe we can share ideas. What are your next plans for ShockolaD, lets say in the next little... let's say during the summer, because summer is a period which will always exist?

Dana Vynnytska: Thank you for your warm words, now when we are talking about when I sing very quietly, well its because silence is also very strong music and I want to edify the audience so that they also hear that silence. Well regarding our plans with ShockolaD, we are now working on arrangements and texts of works of Polish and Ukrainian authors. Now in particular, in this album POKOSY there is a bonus track which include the song to the text of the poem by Juliusz Slowatski Maty do syna [ed. Mother to son], and now we are completing the composition Rym [ed. Rome] and this summer we plan on putting out,... on creating compositions to the verse of Juliusz Slowatski and we are trying to add the texts of Ihor Bohdan Antonych. Right now we are on a road where we are searching for different poets that inspire us and we are now trying to find that place were there is a crossover between the word, music and improvisation.

VP: Well I would like to thank you all very much that we all got together this early. I remember earlier on Annastasia said, 'Oh my head isn't working yet, but maybe if we have a bit of coffee, everything will work fine!' Because I think that when our listeners in Vancouver will hear the music, listen to the compositions from this disc they will somehow be enthused! I would like to thank you all for your time and I think we will meet again not only on air but maybe our listeners will be here in L'viv and will be able to walk in some place, or maybe somehow sometime we will take you to Canada so that our listeners could hear you and I wish you all the success, prosperity and creativity.

Dana Vynnytska: Thank you very much, and we are our part would like to tell all your listeners that sooner or later we will visit you; [laughs] and we would like to wish them all the very best and more pleasant experiences from Ukrainian music.

So there you have it folks... I think we all went through about two coffees each that morning during the interview. But given that Andriy had his whole kit out and running, remember there was an eight channel mixer, microphones, laptop there on the table, so Yuriy, as a literary critic decided to also hit ShockolaD with a barrage of questions for one of the many projects that these to guys are working on.

Buy the time we were wrapping everything up we realized it was nearly twelve-thirty... Oh how time flies when you are having a great time.

In any case, I chatted with Ihor some more that day, and Markian Ivashchyshyn gave me to the OK to try to organize a second evening for ShockolaD to present their new CD Pokosy in Kyiv. A few hours later as I was going to meet a fellow Rotarian at his office in L'viv, I made a call to Fedir the head honcho at Kupidon in Kyiv.

“Vasyl, what ever it is you want to do, its fine by me,” said Fedir.

After having coffee at Genna's office and chatting about the possibility of getting some things from their Rotary Clubs in L'viv for our Charity Ball, he offered to drop me off where ever need be. I told him Dzyga, as I still had to finalize a few things for ShockolaD. I walked into the back room, where we had done the interview to find Markian and a few others sitting at a table, amongst them VlodKaufman. They were discussing some project, but they invited me to join them, after they finalized some of their matters, I finalized things with Markian regarding ShockolaD and then we just made small talk. I understood that there was a long standing conflict over work done by VlodKaufman for Fedir at Kupidon, but Markian said that if I can work things out with Fedir for ShockolaD, then it would be great. “Vasyliu, as you know, just how much room is there in Baraban, anyway!” God it was good to be in L'viv!

The first little nibble of ShockolaD

I had been up early that day and in a totally different part of town working on a project taking place out at the Shakespeare Restaurant, owned by another friend of mine, located on Lublinska Street. It had been drizzling on an off all day long, that twenty-eighth day of May. I was a little tired but I had my mind set on getting back into town and heading to meet Markian Ivaschyshyn at Dzyga, and then to head up stairs to the Jazz Club and have a listen to something I had been told was sweet, as sweet as chocolate. After finishing up matters at the Shakespeare, I realized there wasn't a snowball's chance in hell I would make it back downtown using public transit, so I had the restaurant staff order me a cab. As I left the Shakespeare the door man offered to walk me out o the cab with an umbrella. There was a little bit of mist coming down, but nothing that warranted an umbrella. “Forget about the umbrella,” I said, as I gestured with my hand.

Within about twenty minutes I got dropped off by the Dominican Cathedral and made my way towards Dzyga. I found Markian sitting with someone, I didn't recognize her, but he introduced us. “Vasyl, this is Anastasia Lytvynenko, keyboardist from ShockolaD! Nastya, Vasyl Pawlowsky,” said Markian. We politely shook hands as I acknowledged to the waitress that I wanted to drink what I had a few days earlier. A Stare Misto, brewed by the First Private Brewery of L'viv. After a long day I figured I deserved it. Anastasia went off up to the Jazz Club, Markian and I sat under the umbrella at a table on the street and made small talk. Just before eight, Markian said, “Let's go the show is about to start!” I followed him up the same winding stair case, just across from the “Laboratory”, as I recall the bathroom was once called in Dzyga's early years. Markian mumbled something to one of his wait staff who then led me to a table closer to the performance. “Vasyliu, I'll be over in the other room where my office once was, enjoy the show,” said Markian while motioning with his hand towards the other room

The place was quite the buzz, there were few familiar faces but this crowd knew what they were coming out to hear. When the first couple of notes sounded there were a few eager fans in the audience who broke out clapping. I had been seated at a table with an older guy, maybe in his late fifties to early sixties, but looks can be deceiving in this part of the world, who I think I had seen at Dzyga previously. He had small gray goatee, wire frame glasses and a pipe. He nodded at me as if acknowledging that we knew each other, but we both went on to listen to the music. I actually, made some notes during the performance, where they have disappeared to I'm not too sure, but when you write on small slips of paper they are bound to get lost. It's just the nature of the game.

This was the first time I had heard ShockolaD perform, and I was impressed. I could tell by both the smiling faces and the couple of swaying bodies that others in the crowd were also enjoying the show. The interplay of the individual musicians, during each composition, with each of them contributing both to their individual solos and to the pieces as a whole.

From the beginning I recognized nearly all of the songs as being traditional folk melodies, but their arrangements were different. In fact they were something fresh, something that anyone with a taste for music could listen to and find something that they enjoyed in the melodies, the rhythms.

The time just flew by in the close to 90 minute program, but there was one thing that hit home pretty hard. It was somewhere about two-thirds of the way through the program when Dana Vynnytska, whom I had met about five days before at Liviy Bereh opened up the next song with a few statements.

“The entire world thinks that the following song is theirs. From Americans who play this song around the Christmas Holiday season, all the way to the Japanese who have somehow adopted this next song as their own,” expressed Dana. She paused for a moment and continued, “But we all know that Shchedryk, a composition by Leontovych is something that is traditionally ours, and it goes back a long time, long before others started to say it was theirs, and probably even before Leontovych put down the notes. It is ours, it's Ukrainian,” stated Dana, and then another pause. This was followed by round of applause as the first few bars were played of the traditional Christmas Song that is known throughout the world as Carol of the Bells, however, it seems that everyone else thinks that it is theirs. Not so!

Sure it was a little bit out of season, but as a jazz arrangement, it could find its place at any time of the year, in any country of the world. In any little club where people gather to listen to something new and something fresh. Something that is familiar to them, while at the same time being something that opens up a totally new door in their understanding of something that they seem to have known since they were little children listening to the radio in the kitchen on Christmas day, after having opened up all all their presents. Or if it was after a midnight mass, when families also gathered for a Christmas feast. This was a different feast, it was a feast for one's ears.

What followed, was nothing short of some incredibly great music which all present appreciated. But this was music being performed by a hometown group for its fans. I thought to myself, what if they were to perform for an audience of about the same size in Kyiv. I already knew that they would be in Kyiv on June 13 to present their latest album entitled POKOSY. An while this was not being held in a location that I was averse to, it was quite small... I thought to myself, “How to heck are you going to get five musicians in the place and even have an audience.”

Clearly, ShockolaD came back for an encore after their performance, but my thoughts were already focused on what I would be talking with Markian about after the gig, and what questions I would ask them in an interview I would be doing for Ukrainian language and bilingual programming in Canada.

It became obvious after the show that Markian, just didn't want to talk to me after the gig about their performance, but also about introducing me to other people, with other ideas, but nonetheless interesting ones. As we sat in Markian's former office, a couple of members of ShockolaD came to speak to him and who he introduced me to set up a time to meet for an interview the next day. In particular he introduced me to Ihor Hnydyn, the group's drummer and arranger of most of their material. Somehow, we connected, but it became more evident the next day. But in due time I will hit on that topic.

While I have been without a digital recorder since the summer of 2006, when it was stolen in Donetsk, I have always found some way to document things, in a recorded format, whether I beg, borrow or .... In this case Markian had made a particular arrangement with people he knew to make the interview the next day happen.

The conversations that ensued, were interesting to say the least, and there was a sharing of thoughts and ideas about where we should be going with new media. Places that Markian and I had been previously and somehow it had to do with being in totally different countries, where crossing a bridge made all the difference in the world about the society one was in. It took us from states near the Mason-Dixon line all the way up north to the bridge spanning the Ottawa River between Ottawa and Hell, I really meant Hull, but those who have ever lived in Ottawa will understand what I am getting at. Moving from a very conservative community to one that was just a little more liberal.

In any case, it was a great evening, some great conversations and an agreement to meet with ShockolaD for an interview the next morning at 10:00. The time may have been a mistake, but in any case it happened,

Pre-SockolaD – but just as sweet working out some deals for charity

Between the time I had first met Dana at Liviy Bereh underneath the L'viv Opera, a few days had gone by, but during that time I had arranged accommodations for some employees of a friend of mine who were coming into town on Wednesday morning and had been running around meeting with journalists and trying to ensure media coverage of an event being held on May 28.

On Wednesday afternoon I finally met up with them in by the Neptune fountain on Ploscha Rynok, L'viv's main square surrounding the City Hall. I wandered around with them doing the tourist thing for some time and then led them off to Dzyga, stopping at the Dominican Cathedral along the way.

After they took a look around Dzyga and with no place to sit, with the exception of the four seats at Markian Ivashchyshyn's table, which he kindly offered, they went off and I met with Markian to discuss the possibility of a few items his gallery may be able to provide for a charity event taking place in Kyiv on June 13. The Kyiv Multinational Rotary Club Midsummer Night's Dream Charity ball.

Discussions, were usually outside on the street outside of Dzyga at the end of Virmenska Street, often being interrupted by people either one of us knew just saying hello, but for the most part they were people Markian had business with. After explaining our reasons for the charity event with the Rotary Club of which I was President of from July of last year, Markian finally said he had some items he could provide for the charity event, but he would have to locate them. “Vasyliu, what you are doing is a good thing, I've known you for what, nearly twenty years now, if has to do with helping children I'm all for it,” he said in his low voice. “Let me see exactly what I can come up with for you before you head back to Kyiv, and before your event,” he added.

After sitting around and me sipping on some medivka [a fine spirited drink made from honey] and Markian on his Becherovka, Markian says, “Dana tells me you are coming out their show tomorrow night, don't worry about the cover, you're my guest, just be here for seven-thirty tomorrow evening, and don't worry about your bill I'll pick that up too, let's head upstairs, the music is about to start.” I picked up my remaining medivka and followed Markian up the curved steel staircase up to the Jazz Club at Dzyga. A number of years earlier, the room that now houses the Jazz Club was Dzyga's operations office. When dropping into L'viv during the mid to late 1990s after they had relocated to this location from the Porokhova zezha [The Powder Tower], this was the office I dropped in on first. This is where I could find out exactly what was going on in town by asking my friends who worked there, or musicians I knew who would often drop by, be it Mis'ko Barbara, Vsevolod Dyachyshyn, or John Suk.

Markian and I sat down at the table by the door. Apparently, there were some patrons who wanted to watch the football match. Through his staff Markian clearly told them that if they wanted to watch sports they could go to a sports bar, this is after all a jazz club and the music starts at 20:00. Markian ordered a plate of snacks, comprised of kolbassa, ham, and other crudites.

We listened to jazz and chatted about old times and I even brought up a matter that had been bothering me for a while, which we quickly resolved. “I can't remember what that was all about Vasyliu, but it is behind us now, we've all gone through a lot together and lost many close friends along the way, particularly shortly after we had sort of lost touch with one another,” said Markian calmly but with an air of sadness in his voice. I knew who he was referencing. In 1994 our close friend had been murdered by poisoning, that case was never solved; in 1996 another close friend had lost his short but painful battle with cancer, shortly after finishing his Master's degree in Prague, and his wife was about 6 months pregnant when he died; and a third friend we had known in different capacities, whose headless body was found in the woods outside of Kyiv. The entire world knows how badly this case has been handled. But there were many others which were not as tragic but nonetheless losses.

We sat for a while had a few more drinks and some food and then Markian pulled out a piece of paper and wrote down what he could provide me for our Rotary Club charity event in Kyiv.

At the top he noted:

На Київ для “Павловського Василя”
Внесок Мистецького Об'єднання “Дзиґа”
Благодійний бал — акціон, 13.06 Київ

1) Картина Василя Плітко (дитина) 7 років, 1997 р.
“Ікона на шлкі” назва “Свята Родина”
2) 5 ексклюзивник пляшок “Медівки”

An old friend of mine and I, were once again connected. And if when we met we both were striving for Ukraine to be an independent nation, now we were helping out each other to ensure that children born prematurely in Ukraine, would receive the medical care they needed.

He explained to me that the icon they were providing us was done by a seven-year old boy back in 1997 after an icon workshop. The bottles were done by well known Ukrainian artist, Mykhaylo Dzyndra, and would be filled with the precious golden drink.

Having covered what we wanted to, we both looked at each other and agreed that it was time to head home. A waitress came over handed Markian a bottle of medivka, he picked up and handed it to me and said, “This is for you!

Given it was raining to beat the band, as my grandfather used to say, Markian offered to drop me off where I was staying a few blocks away. We walked out of Dzyga, and got in a cab. As I got out in front of my friend's place Markian said to me, “See you tomorrow, goodnight!”

I headed up the stairs and headed off to sleep. Tomorrow was another day.