Michael McKenny looks on Chumatsky Shlyah
(The Ukrainian National SF Convention)
October 1992

Words are such poor things to try to reproduce something of the
spirit. It is one thing to look at letters on a page, and something
more to feel what they are trying to suggest.

For a week I was in Kiev and that was a special time during which I
met many people. Some of them I knew from correspondence. Most I
had never heard of until I arrived. I had been up some 24 hours by
the time I met Alexander, Boris and several others at the airport.
Yet a fannish energy kept me going for many more hours during the
wait for David Hodges (the other Westerner to attend the con), the
warm reception they gave us at the house of Boris Stern, etc.

Two Ukrainians had gone to Worldcon and there they stayed at the
home of Andre Norton. So, David and I were most graciously placed
in the home of the leading sf writer of Ukraine, Boris Stern, during
the time we were not at the convention site.

David Hodges, a friend of Terry Pratchett, had the background of one
who protects airplanes from birds, who has trained falconers, and
who for 8 months was paid full time, along with 18 other guys, by a
well known chocolate bar company to keep birds out of their factory.
As one who spoke neither Russian nor Ukrainian, he can testify that
language is no barrier to having fun in Kiev. Many fans have been
reading English sf and are eager for spoken practice.

The con site was a recreation base on an island in the Dneipr river.
There was a cafeteria which served plenty of tasty food. This, along
with the feasts at Boris Stern's place, convinced me that Ukrainians
know how to eat.

"The aim of a com committee is to gather together as many fans as
possible." This was uttered by someone at the con and I memorized
it. Once the fans were together they made a wonderful convention,
with many greetings, with gatherings in rooms, with long and
fascinating discussions, with room parties and filk songs. I was
most impressed by the Kiev filk singer "Like", who surely is of
professional calibre. Going back to con coms, these are known as Orc
committees there and those on con committees as Orcs. (that derives
from "Orgkimitet", Russian abbreviation of "organizers' committee")

There was programming: the official awards presentation and banquet,
the video room, the 6-hour boat ride Saturday night on the Dneipr.
However, much of the activity was made by fans themselves and they
did not need to be told what to do.

The historic event which was the cause of much discussion was the
appearance in the past few years of THE LORD OF THE RINGS in
Russian. This has presented fandom there with its first experience
of the special interest group, as Tolkien exerts as potent an
influence there as he did here in the 60s. The Tolkienoids, who
seem obsessed by Tolkien, who have created a live-action game based
on the adventures of Frodo et al., are a very vibrant phenomenon,
whatever the debate over their belonging to fandom.

Of course, it is an eye-opener to realize just how similar fans are
here and there. Soon after we arrived I heard someone say, "There
are two fans, one from England and one from Canada." This brought
the reply, "Well, they look like our fans." Later someone commented
on how alike Alexander and I look. The discussions, the parties, the
fannish interests only intensify this awareness of similarity, and
the regional surroundings in Kiev are identical to Ottawa. One has
to look at what man has added to spot the difference. This common
identity is very sobering when we realize that, however unwillingly,
we have been swallowing some horse manure about our differences and
came close to blowing up the planet because of these.

There was one related, and very touching, experience for me, which
of course mere words on a page cannot clearly convey. The emotion
of seeing such a thing unfold in my own room in front of my own
eyes cannot fully be suggested to someone moving their eyes over a
page of paper. Anyway, I was talking to someone in my room when the
door opened and someone else looked in. The two of them greeted each
other and stood shoulder to shoulder, not an unusual occurence,
except that these two fannish friends had chosen to leave their
native republic rather than participate in the war there, where they
would be on opposite sides.

After the convention, Alex and Boris showed us the General Post
Office in Kiev, from which they send us letters and to which our
letters go for them. Then we walked a block or so to their club
house (how many clubs here have such a thing?). It was fascinating.
And it was a great day, for two large boxes of books had arrived
from some US university. So everyone had fun going through them.

They also showed us some of the historic sites in Kiev: the old city
gates, St. Sophia cathedral, the ancient pagan idol retrieved from
the river into which the Christians had hurled it. It is a replica
of this four-faced (one to each side) idol which is awarded, as we
award our Aurora.

At the con I met Sergei Berezhnoy, who worked on Fenzor. I heard
that Nick Sadofyev was believed to be very sick. I met the
irrepressible first fan of the USSR, Boris Zavgorodny, who organized
Volgacon. And I met many others from Kiev, Kaunas, St. Petersburg,
Moscow, Ekaterinburg (Sverdlovsk), Volgograd, etc. The Maplecon
tape Lionel sent was much enjoyed, especially the Chernobyl
engineer. They also showed us a tape of Volgacon which was very
good.

I could write forever, and still not do justice to the con. It was
wonderful, and you should all go and see for yourself next year.

(I have taken this from CHERNOBYLIZATION 6; it was also published
in a number of places in the West)


Solarguard Russia and Eastern Europe



Solarguard Homepage