Touching

US dollar now quoted 9.10-9.60 hrivnia in the streets, although the official rate remains 8.35 - something wicked this way comes.....

However, here is a fine courtesy which we miss in England. My office is in a 1990s block run by a Government agency. Every morning when the lift is crowded, everyone in the cabin (whether known to each other or not) shakes hands with every occupant and says 'Good morning'; that is, to be accurate, all the men do so - there is clearly some subtle sexism underlying this. If you tried to do this in a lift in England, you would probably be carted off for assault.

Almost at home

This is the first long-term job abroad I have undertaken for seven or eight years, having spent most of the intervening period hanging around at home and pretending to be a student. Mrs. Smerus having had enough of this has sent me out to earn a living, pay for my daughter's wedding etc. - and quite right too I suppose. The first time I undertook such a mission was about 15 years ago, when I was posted to a curious place called Kaliningrad - in fact, I was the first Englishman to live there since the RAF had bomber it to smithereens in 1943, in the days when it was still called Koenigsberg. In those antique times, the internet was still a novelty - I had to explain to everyone carefully about e-mail. Now of course one has broadband almost wherever one goes. The immediate consequence I recognise is the absence of any feeling of isolation, which regularly attacked me in my Kaliningrad days. I can for example skype Mrs. S. and chat face-to-face for as long as we like, free of charge, or have BBC Radio 3 or Radio 4 playing in the background as I work or read. There is also the miracle (which in the present economic and eco-fascist climate may not be long-lasting) of cheap air-fares - one can even fly Luton-Kyiv return (no visa needed) for around £100 - so Mrs. S. can come out to sample the shampanskoye and the opera with me whenever she wishes. It's not much more stressful, in fact, (and a good deal more pleasant), than being posted to Birmingham.

By the way, the hryvnia is now 9 to the dollar and still falling........

An Eventful Walk

The Khreshchatyk, Kyiv's central thoroughfare, is about a mile and a half in length. You can judge the state of the Ukrainian economy by the fact that, when I walked along it last night, the offered exchange rate in the booths at the start was 8.30 hrivnia/dollar, while by the time I had reached the other end the booths were offering 8.75. If I had been nimble enough, there might even have been opportunities for backwardation, as we used to call it on the London Stock Exchange in my distant youth - i.e. buying dollars at one booth and selling them for an instant profit at another. The pound sterling of course is not as fragile....yet.