Wed - Mariupol Anna with her baby Eva - I had some writing to do so it was after lunch before I made it back to the Ethnographic Museum ..not really great without a translator. - Then 3.30pm I was a mashruta to Mariupol, where Anna an English teacher had offered me a place at her flat whilst she stayed in the dachau. - I spent 4 hours walking around Mariupol which is quite a bit like Redcar, but the steelplants and heavy machine plants employ 150,000 people whereas my town in the UK with the biggest steelpant in western Europe employs only a fraction of that maybe 7,000 workers plus contractors, but here the plant employs everybody even paying the salaries directly of local government workers. - Actually I just checked the numbers one plant here is almost 50% bigger that Scunthorpe and together both Mariupol plants are 2.5 times bigger. Scunthorpe makes 5.3mT/year with 5000 direct workers. Here the have 100,000 plus. 2.5 times the production with 20 times the workers, that means they use 8 times as many workers per tonne of steel That sounds so inefficient, but Anna said the oligarch owner is really an old communist who runs the business almost as a socail service to help the workers. Thu-Fri : Time slipping away again - Thu - planned to write - then museum, but writing cooking & cleaning took all day. - Fri - I planned internet stuff for Mike from Kiev, visit Satana - cooker knob broke in morning - so no time left for Sartana. - At night I went into the city center. I made the mistake of eating a Sharma kebab and my stomach sickness came back on Saturday morning. Sat - Finally met up Temko. - He's very serious which is not common among the young people I meet these days..He was even early ! He's also patient I first told him I'd meet him on July 25th, but I got delayed in Donetsk and then he'd been at the dachau. We went to the museum and it was great to have him there to translate. Mariupol is quite new - ethnic Greeks moved up from the Crimea 250 years ago and the French started the Iron and Steel Industry 100 odd years ago. - We walked around old town, but actually it didn't impress me : Most buildings have not been renovated and none have much majesty, whereas in other Ukrainian cities I saw old buildings that look good. - Afternoon finally met up with Anna again. I felt bad cos after she had spent time giving me the big tour I'd neglected her for 2.5 days cos of time disappearing due to internet stuff and trying to fix the broken stove etc. - We went over to her parents house in Sartana a village 14Km away. She & Petr stay there in the Summer which is why I was sleeping at her flat. - Her parents have made a good job of renovating the house the grandmother built, but they are both doctors and in most places in the world 2 doctors salaries is enough for a mansion. - Her mother made some excellent Ukranian food : Borsch, pancakes etc which seemed to cure my upset stomach as after then it's been OK. - I went back to the city before 8pm cos I was still weak from the stomach upset. God, these days, with tiredness and sickness I am quite boring to my hosts, usually I have much more energy. Like in Dniprpetrosk I would have liked to brought the wine and made a party, but instead I had to say "Sorry, the bus journey was terrible I have to sleep early. Sun - Meetup with Sasha - Went for a run - plan was -write - internet then meetup with Sasha a friend of Temko and Anna. - I woke up without a headache it started at 10.30am - Trying to do stuff with these continuous headache is like trying to do your exam in a heavy metal concert. - Russsia on BBC Radio : 2 Russia links yesterday ex-BBC Russia correspondent talked about his love hate relationship with Russo culture. "Putin appearing shirtless is part of the culture that "men are men and women are women". - Today Anthropologist talked about Russo relationship with the potato. The that whatever happens in life you can always by survive by growing potatoes at your dachau, and many people remember doing that. And are not optomistic about fantastic ideas politicians have believing that they will back down to eating potatos again like we'll cope. - Temko and I ate lunch at Sasha's. It's quite interesting Sasha's Mum run's a kids home. They seem to think that the best hope for the kids is to get adopted by Americans arguing this lifts them out of the cycle otherwise they get into alcohol/drugs/crime and their own kids end up in the same orphanage. - actually I am surprised I can't kill this idea right away ..yes it seems great for the kid, but surely it's wrong I put my essay on a separate page. PC534o

Monday the infection seemed to move into my head. -That sickness I had got much worse see below - I got the news on Sunday night Anna's husband needed the flat ..so Monday morning I had to pack up and clean and worry about where I was going to stay on Monday night... Eventually Anna came through her friend Julya seamstress and poetess could host me in her tiny 1 bedroom apartment. - 6pm Weak from sickness I made it over to Yuliya's. - Juliya the Punk Poetess with her pet housecat. - She works as a seamstress from making birthday shirts etc. She doesn't make much money : I told her that if those guys in telephone repair can make 500Hr/hour then she also needs to find a niche like wedding clothes or even punk dog jackets. Tue- rush out to Steppes : Kamyani Mogyly - One thing to do in Mariupol is to visit the Steppes 60Km away where there are some old stone statues "babas". but it seemed there was only a bus at 6am and 2pm ..actually there is a bus at 10. So I had to make a plan to get up at 5am on Tuesday to catch a bus to get to AC2 bust termninal before 6am. - Steppe Nature Reserve was founded in 1927, is situated on the border of the Zaporizhia and Donetsk region in between. Rozivka and Ukrainka, the district. Karatysh. The second section is called Kamyani Mogyly, which is a rocky piece of land containing its on unique ecology. - I made it and got off the bus at 7.30am, but I had to rest on the 3Km walk to the Steppe area - Wikipedia article on Balbals - Actually I didn't think there was much to see. In the middle of a load of large farm fields is a large slightly raised hill section with some stickingup granite rock sections. You aren't allowed to walk to these cos it's a nature reserve and there is a fire risk. You are allowed to follow the path. At the reserve centre there is a small museum and 2 nearby things to see. A small path leads 50m past a chain of stone baba statues to some rocks which were obviously an ancient burial chamber. Secondly another 20m path leads to a more recent monument a cross called the Criss Ukraina. - The worker directed me down another path which is a short cut to the exit, it came past the waterfall, but cos it was dry season there was no water.