Hi, everyone!
I’ve gone through Pre-Service Training and I’ve officially sworn in as a Peace Corps Volunteer, and now I’m all settled into my site!
For those of you who aren’t familiar with Peace Corps lingo, my “site” is the city that I’ll spend the full two years of my service living and working in. The site assignment process is… interesting. Peace Corps staff interviewed each of us to determine what our living priorities are (for example, I said I would love a site that had a yoga studio, even though I was of course willing to be flexible — pun absolutely intended) and then matched us with our sites based on our skill set, language abilities, etc.
We all got our site assignments via email in the middle of language lessons. Needless to say, the language learning immediately stopped and we ALLLL opened up Google Maps to start scoping things out.
With that said… welcome, Randi, to Khmelnytskyi, Ukraine!
The first glimpse I got of Khmelnytskyi wasn’t much. My train arrived incredibly late at night, so everything was dark. My school’s headmaster, Viktor, picked me and Oksana up at the train station, and then Oksana took me to my host family’s house and translated so I could settle in.
Then, I spent my next few days unpacking, relaxing and getting familiar with my workplace.
Oksana was incredible about getting me all set up for a successful tenure in Khmelnytskyi. While I was absolutely itching to go explore the city, she spent the first few days meeting me every single morning to show me around. She introduced me to my new manicurist, took me to the markets in order to introduce me to her vendors (making sure they knew NOT to overcharge me just because I’m foreign), helped me buy some food, showed me her favorite restaurants near the school and spent hours asking me question after question over coffee. I already love how curious and motivated she is. She reminds me a lot of myself in a lot of ways, and her passion for life and travel and culture is incredible. Ugh, maybe I’ll write a separate post just fangirling over Oksana.
Anyway!
It wasn’t until a few days after I arrived that I really got to explore my city beyond my school and home.
I’ve only been here since mid-October, so bear with me! I’m still learning more about my site and its history, and falling in love with all of its sites, monuments, restaurants, coffee shops, streets, places and people.
I’m sure I’ll post something more in-depth after my two full years (wow!) living here, but for now, here’s a quick introduction to my new home.
Khmelnytskyi is an oblast center (so, basically a state capital) in the western part of the country. It has a population of about 270,000 and is located on the Southern Bug, which is one of the longest rivers in Ukraine. It’s a military city, so even though it’s located in the western part of the country, most people here speak Russian… which is kind of frustrating.
I feel like I really lucked out with my site. I’m about a five-hour train ride away from Kyiv, and I’m even closer to Lviv. Khmelnytskyi is a somewhat big city (not what you think when you think “Peace Corps,” huh?) so there are a lot of Ukrainian chains here, like Lviv Handmade Chocolate. There are several malls and large shopping centers, and a lot of nice restaurants and coffee shops. We have grocery stores like Silpo and ATB, and several smaller markets. Khmelnytskyi is also home to the largest bazaar in Eastern Europe! That’s actually where my host mom works.
I feel like there are a lot of pros/ cons to living in a relatively large city. I don’t have a small supportive community village site like most volunteers do, which gives me a certain amount of anonymity. (Good? Bad? Unsure.) There are several other expats in Khmelnytskyi, and a lot of other English speakers. So not everyone here knows me as the token American/ the native English speaker.
So, with that said, a few photos and videos of the city of Khmelnytskyi!
I’m not sure if this is a thing in all major Ukrainian cities (hopefully, I’ll find out!) but I love that — like my PST city Zhytomyr — Khmelnytskyi is centered around a pedestrian street. Khmelnytskyi’s pedestrian street is called Proskurivs’ka Street, which is actually the former name of the city.
Proskurivs’ka Street is lined with everything from restaurants to coffee shops to convenience stores. Ukrainians love to just aimlessly walk around, so this street is a huge destination for everyone in the city.
I took WAY too many videos, just so you could get a feel for Proskurivs’ka Street.
Right off of Proskurivs’ka, there’s a little side street called Proskurivs’koho Pidpillya which is lined with coffee shops.
In addition to Proskurivs’ka and Proskurivs’koho Pidpillya streets, downtown has a few other cool things going for it. There’s a park named Taras Shevchenko Square and an Independence Square (separate from the one in Kyiv, of course) filled with memorials and statues in front of the regional state administration building. (Because Khmelnytskyi is an oblast center, all its state-level business is handled here.)
There are also TONS of shopping centers all over Ukraine. Zhytomyr was the same way, and I can’t get over it! Any type of shopping center you can imagine, it’s here. There are small food grocery stores with checkout lanes — ATB and Silpo — like a Busch’s or Mariano’s back in the U.S. There are mid-sized markets with vendor stalls — some open air and some inside large buildings. There are tiny sidewalk-adjacent product stands called productys that just line the roadways. There are giant department stores — like Epicenter — reminiscent of Sears and JC Penney. There are shopping malls (here we have Oasis and Lybid Plaza) full of furniture stores, clothing stores and other various shops. There are product bazaars full of clothing, crafts and other odds and ends.
It’s mind blowing. Everywhere you turn, there’s just a stall where you can buy something from someone.
Because Khmelnytskyi is a fairly large city, it’s divided into neighborhoods, of course.
My school and host family are located in “Mikrorayon Vystavka,” which translates to the “Microdistrict Exhibition.” We’re about a 35-minute uphill walk across the river from the city center.
I’ve been busy settling in, so I haven’t had a chance to explore too many neighborhoods short of the city center and Exhibition, for obvious reasons.
I’m just… ugh. I’m already so overwhelmed in the best way, and I’m completely enamored by this city. I can already tell I’m going to love my time here, and I can’t wait to explore more!
This post was originally published Jan. 24, 2021. Its timestamp has been updated to better reflect the timeline of my Peace Corps service.
