The unofficial food bank - Orthodox Christmas Eve

The evening of January 6 is Orthodox Christmas Eve. Putin cynically initiated a ceasefire from midday today, which started just hours after Russian shells hit the cities of Kramatorsk and Bakhmut in eastern Ukraine, and a fire department in Kherson, in which a rescue worker was killed.

It's traditional to have 12 meatless dishes, which you begin as soon as the first star appears in the sky (I don't know what you do if it's cloudy!). The must-have dish is 'kutia,' a sort of sweet porridge, made from wheat with poppy seeds, honey, nuts and fruit, which you can eat hot or cold. I bought some, ready made from the shop; we tried it but really didn't like it. 
So I took the kutia to the unofficial food bank, along with half a loaf of fresh bread that will be dry by tomorrow. The unofficial food bank (see title photo) is our nearest rubbish and recycling site - often a mess, with plastic bottles spilling out of one bin and rotting food in another. This is replicated at sites all over the city and, at every one, there is always someone, sometimes several people, searching the bins for something to eat, or maybe something to sell. There's a place on top of one bin where people leave food that they no longer want but is still perfectly ok. We started doing this sometime ago; whatever we leave goes very quickly.

And, although it's not recycled here, there is always a stack of cardboard. This is also taken away very quickly - we think it may be used for lighting fires.
For sure, there was poverty before the war, and a huge divide between a few very well off people and a large underclass, just surviving. This has been exacerbated by the war due to the rise in the cost of living, power cuts, etc. It's something that, we think, should be addressed when the war is over, as all the people who are fighting and suffering for Ukraine deserve a fairer existence. It will be one amongst many other contentious issues, including language, culture and religion. 

As Bob suggested yesterday, there is lots of evidence that the Orthodox Christmas is being celebrated, despite the association with Russia, even in the western city of Lviv. There have been more carols played on the tram in this Christmas period and more Christmas decorations, and I even spotted a Santa Claus driving the tourist coach!

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