Two Wheels move the Soul: Magic

Church in Janov (Dolyna)

Today I cried in a church I have never been in before, in front of two men I met only a few minutes ago, and my wife who I’ve known a little longer.

This became a special moment in my life set up by my cousin Joan a few years ago, who I had never met until this last year, but who has been a connection to my grandparents past. But I have already digressed from the magic of the moment as I'm known to do.

Mikaeli, Brian and Stas

You see, I have been kneeling in an old pew, in the church my grandmother and grandfather were married in, back in the late 1800’s in Poland. I haven’t confirmed it yet, but she likely was baptized there as well, and sung in the church choir. In a few minutes Mikaeli would open the door to the choir loft for us to view the majesty of the church renovation below. Stanislaus is just standing there with a big smile on his face, and a twinkle in his eyes enjoying the moment that he has orchestrated.

The day had started innocently enough. We were leaving the Moldavia area of Romania and going to cross the same mountain pass we had the day before on a loop tour of the painted monasteries. It was a pretty ride, and the shortest route to the Ukraine border.

All our research had told us and people who we’d talked to had warned us of the Ukraine border crossing so we approached it with some trepidation. 2- 3 hr line-ups, corrupt border guards, bribes to speed up the process, lost documents. Yikes, why bother? But we went anyway. That’s what the ‘adventure’ in Vstromadventures is for........ isn‘t it?

What we were met by were some stern looking people who became concerned by the “Columbia” on our British Columbia plates. You could hear them mumbling ‘columbia columbia’ to each other. And the ICBC documentation leaves a lot to be desired. It looks like a document I could print out of my inkjet printer. Not very official looking. Sandra suggests we go back to registering in Alberta for the next trip.

But then our guardian angel got to work for us. Since none of them (the Ukrainian border guards) spoke English they got one of the customs people to assist. Dressed smartly in a skirt she could speak quite good English. One of the questions she asked was ‘what is the nature of your visit?’. I explained it was to look for the birthplace of my grandparents who were married not far from Lviv, a place that had been part of Poland before 1939 and fell in the Stalin-Hitler Pact. She remarked her grandfather now lived in Canada, and after guessing wrong the first time I said ’Edmonton?” and she said ’yes”. At that point I had her open our passports to the place of birth, which is Edmonton. The key to our connection was made. A few minutes later after some required vehicle info data entry we were on our way. Done, finito… Arriva Derci. 10- 15 mins tops. And over and over at the end she repeated, Welcome, welcome. and I ....thank you, thank you!

Public Bus Stop

Our ride north and west was punishing, if I’ve complained about the roads elsewhere, they have nothing on Ukraine roads. Every road, with very short respites. Even the 4 lane divided ones. In terrible shape. At one point late in the evening we came out of an underpass to see many people gathered and two motos 1 GS1200 and 1 Suzuki Bandit stopped haphazardly at the side of the road. Sandra said both looked up and gave the typical camaraderie wave, but they were beat and it was a wimpy wave at best. But the scenery is very much like Alberta and then gets prettier with the numerous valleys that are all forested.

Our drive takes us to Derenevicki and a left turn 5 kms off the ‘main’ road to Dolyna, which was renamed after the Soviets took over, from Janov or Janiv. (Remember everything is in Cyrillic) As we venture down the road to Dolyna the road gets rougher, and then cows start appearing all over it, and gaggles of geese start crossing in front. Gee whizz I don’t want to kill a goose and they are so stupid the way they run. And then the tractors, horses and carts.

Janov View from Church

When we arrive in Dolyna it is at a T intersection. On the drive in I had spotted the church on the hill above the sports field,(marked with an A in the aerial photo below) and with a great vista view over the valley. I drove down to the bridge to look for the replacement house to the early one but everything stilled looked a 100 years old. The view across here was peaceful but I could tell we were being watched by the villagers.

Guy comes to check us out

View of town from river

Sandra and I discussed how we were going to approach confirming the church which Joan had sent me a photo-copy picture from her dad’s (my uncle Bill's) diary. We drove back to the little store and parked and approached some boys to see if they spoke English. None did but we showed them the picture and they pointed to the church we had seen. At this point Stanislaus or ‘Stas’ as he prefers approached. He spoke quite good English and introduced himself as owning the shop. We showed him the picture and he pointed to the same church, which I thought looked different but he said it was the same. We then said we wanted to look at it, and he said he would get ahold of the caretaker who could let us see inside. Now we had been told by a cousin that the church was being used as a hay barn or shed, from the communist era, but we thought it would be interesting to see inside.

Stas also provided some history to us. He said about 100 years ago the village was about 1000 people and was a hub of activity. Today about 370 live here and it continues to dwindle as the kids grow up and either move to the EU or America.

Also, this church built in the late 1800's was built on the foundations of an earlier church that dated back to the 10th century. The NW corner is about 10' off the old walled city wall built in the 10th century and the old church made up part of the wall structure.

Church cornerstone from original 10th century church

When Mikaeli came and opened the doors it was like an explosion of color.

Exit to Front

Over the past 20 years, since the end of communism the parish (now turned over by the Catholic church to the Ukrainian Christian Orthodox) has been restoring the church to its former beauty. Now they are working on constructing the alter and sacristy gates which requires alot of work. The interior of the church varies now from what my Uncle Bill photographed in 1934 as the Orthodox religion is very traditional in separating clergy from parishioners.

Front of Church

Pictures, email addresses and thank you’s exchanged we returned back to our motorcycle to find a growing crowd around it and a neat old Russian 500cc two stroke bike that looked like Suzuki’s 500 Titan of the early 70‘s. Stas took us into his store, got us ice mineral water from their cooler and gave it to us. I explained we had just crossed the border and hadn’t been able to get ‘Hyrianas’ the Ukraine currency yet, and he said it was on him and ‘were we hungry?’. Then he pulls a 50 from his wallet and offers it several times so we can buy something to eat, “Maybe later“. We refuse his generosity and explain we’ll be fine. When we turn the bike around on the broken road in front of his shop 30 or more people had gathered, all talking about why we were there. I shook his hand and then hugged him one last time, I just needed to do that, and he had the biggest smile on his face. The face of the collective crowd did too. And as is customary, we beeped our horn and waved as we drove off from the crowd that had gathered. They all waved in return. WOW, this is what home would feel like if I lived here and a little bit will from now on.