somewhat grouchy

I've been really tired this week. I'm beginning to get into a routine with work, which is great, but on the other hand, it makes everything feel more, well, routine, and less like an adventure! But I'm also doing double-time, hurrying to finish a paper at night while working all day. I have a commitment next weekend, but I'm beginning to think that it's time to take a little trip somewhere as well--maybe Odessa.

Bed calls, no stories. Except one little tidbit. It turns out that the municipal archive, which is very laid-back and friendly, is also across the street from Babi Yar, the infamous Nazi execution pit where 33,000 residents of the Kiev area were executed in ONE DAY in 1941. The 65th anniversary of the massacre is this week, so there's been a lot of talk about it in the news. The other day, I took what has to be the world's most depressing lunch break and had a look at it. It's really moving: there's a small menorah monument paid for by Israel (and of course the requisite cross dedicated to Ukrainian partisans), but the monuments are small and understated--uncharacteristic for this part of the world. They've just left the woods, which are really beautiful, as they are--and the ravine, of course, which is too deep and too spooky to be a building site. They seemed to be sprucing up the site: raking away the trash and burning it in bonfires. Lots of babushki are there with little kids, and lots of old men, wearing their medals from WWII. It's a weird place--at once very beautiful and pleasant, and excruciatingly sad.