One of the most interesting and novel places in Kyiv is the State Aviation Museum. It has a wide range of soviet aircraft and technology. Like many displays in Ukraine, it is possible to get up close and personal with the aircraft. It is possible to walk right up to and around the planes and even enter a few for a small payment. The aircraft they have are unique and diverse and include fighter jets, civil aircraft, helicopters, and surveillance aircraft. The museum is only a short drive from the centre of Kyiv and is close to Solomianska Brewery, which is worth a stop if you are in the area.
Oleg Antonov State Aviation Museum
Mil Mi-26
Seeing the Mil Mi-26 helicopters’ size was incredible, they were bigger than many of the planes and had a large rota span. Standing next to the aircraft and seeing the planes’ size difference was neat and seeing the unique design of the Antonov An-71 surveillance plane was a highlight. The museum is well worth a stop for a couple of hours whether you are an aviation enthusiast or not. I am not a particular aviation enthusiast, with my aircraft expertise mainly coming from my frequent travel, but it was an interesting and fun day out.
Antonov An-71
Family Fun
Yakovlev Yak-38 under the wing of a Beriev Be-6 Hydroplane
Nearly exactly two years after getting PNG’ed from Moscow, the spread of the Corona virus has led to the air transport system to buckle and near collapse, as demand for travel diminishes and countries have started to close their borders. Ukraine has been one of the first countries to close their borders, first to Foreigners and now to everyone, and they are banning all international departures and arrivals. This led me to have to rush to get a ticket back, booking an Austrian Airlines ticket on early Sunday afternoon to get home on Monday morning. This reminded me that my life over the last 6 years has been anything but dull.
The tickets back to Kyiv were instantly sold out when it was announced the borders would be closed, as Ukrainians working across Europe seek to get home to buckle down and support family. I managed after checking every 10 minutes for 3 hours to book a seat, which had come available. The elation of being able to get home to be with my family, for what could be a two-week, four-week or who knows maybe a twelve-week lock down. But alas an hour later a text message saying both my London to Vienna and the Vienna to Kyiv flight had been cancelled. Trying to call both Austrian and Lufthansa who the ticket was booked with was impossible, the phone lines kept dropping well before the expected over two hours wait time could be waited out. The only consolation was getting a message that the London to Vienna flight was reinstated. Earlier in the afternoon, the Austrian Government had recommended all Austrian citizens left the UK, due to its laissez faire approach to virus control, which might have had something to do with it.
Then late that night I received a text I had been moved to a special Ukrainian International Airlines flight from Gatwick. A much longer journey to the airport, but I could get home. Having never flown Ukrainian International Airlines and deliberately avoiding it, this was the second time in two weeks, after another long night of flight changes when the KLM plane operating my flight from Bristol at 6am on a Thursday morning had a bird strike at 10pm the night before, which had knock on consequences. The check in line at Gatwick was long and slow, and despite the Ukrainian Ministry of Foreign Affairs highlighting as travelling on a diplomatic passport, I was still able to travel, the check in agents did not agree. I was lucky another family in the same situation had already started the process of contacting the right people to provide the assurances we were good to travel. So after a letter from the Ukrainian Embassy in London had been faxed to the airline, providing assurances we would be allowed in the country we were good to go.
The flight was somewhat somber; it had a quieter tone than the recent flights I had taken. We all did not know what we were returning to and how long the lock down would last. Plus, many had travelled from across the country and self-connected in London to get the last flight back. Of course, the nuances of Ukrainian International Airlines managed to cheer me up. I am not familiar with another airline which allows you to buy bottles of herbal liquor onboard for the journey. Although, it did not feel like the time for such a drink.
After eighteen months in Kyiv, which has been busy working on numerous projects and outputs, I managed to finally undertake some teaching. Despite this being, the first time teaching in Kyiv I have previously gone to several universities for meetings, but it is always nice to actually engage and interact with a student cohort. Despite living and interacting within a culture, engaging in an education system always helps you to understand the culture more. I delivered an entrepreneurship class to journalism students at Taras Shevchenko National University of Kyiv. The class focused on highlighting the difference between management and entrepreneurship and I sought to demonstrate this using the classic jigsaw and patchwork quilt activity. This was rather challenging given the class had approximately 120 students, and the students were more familiar with traditional didactic teaching methods, but I always like a challenge and the key learning points seemed to transfer to the cohort. Unfortunately, the closure of the public schools and universities the following week due to the spread of Corona Virus, curtailed any additional teaching this semester, but it is always nice to engage with a new cohort even if only for a short while.
In March, I led a team to submit an EU Erasmus KA2 project bid. The bid was a revised version of a bid submitted the previous year that narrowly missed out on funding. Against this backdrop, it make sense to revise and resubmit. After a month’s delay in announcing the funding of project, we received the good news that our project would be funded. Under my leadership, the University of Worcester will manage the project, working with partners from London, Belgium, Sweden and Turkey to develop tailored cross cultural training materials to support the development of learners cross cultural skills in both higher education and industry.
The project aims to develop the intercultural competencies of graduates in Europe by enhancing the quality and relevance of their skills to enable them to be active professionals in the European working environment. The project investigates the perceived and actual intercultural competencies of graduates needed by employers and subsequently provides outputs that help address these needs. The project responds to the European Commission’s (EC) Strategic Framework – Education & Training 2020 view that there has been a lack of focus on the involvement of social institutions on the cross-cultural skill-needs that companies have and on the effectiveness of investment in education and training in this area on business productivity.
The outputs of the project will include:
A Competencies and Skills Report, which will highlight the intercultural skills needed by employers and highlight gaps in current student competencies;
A Cross-cultural Competencies and Skills Development Toolkit, which will include a range of case studies and teaching materials;
A Cross-cultural Competencies and Skills Development Training Manual, which will explain how educators can effectively utilize the teaching materials. The outputs will all be open-access.
As the output from the project are complete, I hope to share links to them via my blog and website, so stay tuned for my information.
After going to Chernobyl and Pripyat for the first time in March I was keen to go again, as it is place with so much to see and take in. My parents visiting to see my wife and I and their new granddaughter, offered the perfect opportunity to visit the exclusion zone again. Whilst the Chernobyl plant itself is rather static and functional, particularly as there is so much ongoing work in the area attempting to deconstruct the reactor and securely storing the spent fuel, the surrounding villages and towns within the exclusion zone have so much to explore. These also have an eerie sense and presence, which you can take in whilst exploring. When visiting these villages and towns I get a feeling of exploring modern history in a way, which is not possible elsewhere. Whilst in Kyiv there are buildings from the Soviet era, many of which are still fantastic to see, they have been updated in a way the buildings in the exclusion zone have not been due the tragic events which unfurled nearby. On this visit I used the same company I had used previously, but we followed a significantly different path, which allowed us to see different things. This again highlighted how much there was to see. I think a large part of the route on the day depends on how confident the guide is and what their understanding is of the security patrolling on that day. Whilst it is forbidden to leave the path and enter buildings many of the guides will still presently suggest some off-path detours, which let you explore further into the exclusion zone.
We started by venturing into the village of Chernobyl and saw a statue of Lenin, one of only two statues of Lenin in Ukraine after 1,320 Lenin monuments were dismantled during decommunization, both of the remaining two statues are in the Chernobyl exclusion zone. We also walked through several streets which had houses overgrown by trees and foliage and saw the church, which is still in operation today. After this we headed to the reactor site, passing those reactors which were still being built at the time of the Chernobyl disaster. It is interesting to see the changes which were already underway with the different designs of reactors five and six, which sit some way from the reactors one through four, which are adjacent to each other. It is eerie to see such big constructions sitting half built, knowing they have been this way for the last 30 years. Seeing this and knowing that reactor three, which sat next to reactor four, which suffered the reactor core explosions kept generating power until 2000 puts the area and need for power into perspective.
After visiting the powerplants we visited Pripyat, which is an amazing place to explore. As part of this trip we did not visit as many buildings as the previous trip. But I enjoyed strolling through the town and seeing the buildings and propaganda. It is interesting to see the Soviet posters and images which are still strewn around the planned model Soviet city and how life and the city was presented. After visiting Pripyat, we headed to the secret Chernobyl 2 military base, which was hidden within the now irradiated forest. During the Cold War the military base was highlighted as a children’s summer camp on maps. The main feature of the military base is the gigantic Duga 3 transmitter and receiver, which sent out and received a woodpecker noise, searching for incoming missiles as part of the Soviet anti-missile defences. As part of this trip we also explored the buildings at the base, which allowed us to see an original model of the military base. Exploring the Chernobyl exclusion zone is definitely one of the many highlights of living in Ukraine.
The new academic year started with confirmation of receiving funding from the National Natural Science Foundation of China for a project titled ‘Researching the Effectiveness of Entrepreneurial Education in HEI’S: Measurement, mechanism and contextual factors’ (71974093). The project is being led by Dr Junhua Sun from Nanjing University, who I have previously worked with as part of a similar project researching how inspiration and educational characteristics moderate the relationship between entrepreneurship education and the development of an entrepreneurial mindset. I am acting as a foreign expert on the new project and am looking forward to getting involved and supporting the research.
Whilst, it has always been possible to hunt down craft beer in the big cities in China, it was previously a bit of a challenge and search. This normally involved searching and visiting a specific bar and having a draft beer. There was then an extension to being able to get drafts and occasionally bottles in a few restaurants. But on my latest visit to China, whilst visiting Beijing, Chengdu and Nanning I noticed a shift in the availability of Chinese craft beer. Whilst, in Chengdu I was able to have a craft beer in a Chinese (upmarket and central) restaurant, plus when going back to the hotel I was able to get another craft beer at a convenience store. Later in the week when staying in the Tongzhou district in Beijing, I was able to get a couple of interesting craft beer bottles, including a mint beer, from a restaurant with a range of local and imported beers in their fridges. This was particularly useful as I struggled for sleep that night, before flying back to Washington the following morning. I left realising how far the Chinese craft beer scene had come, from having to search for craft beer, to it being offered in convenience stores and small local restaurants. Let’s see if the growth continues during the coming months and years.
Despite Chernobyl and Ukrainian energy being a regular topic of debate in our household I was yet to visit the Chernobyl Exclusion Zone after 8 months of living in Kyiv. Although, that was set to change as I had a friend visiting from the UK, so it was a good opportunity to undertake some of the more touristic activities, which daily life limits. We visited the Chernobyl exclusion zone and within it Chernobyl itself, Pripyat and a secret Soviet base which housed a ginormous Anti-Missile radar.
The visit to the exclusion zone started with a visit to the small town of Chernobyl, after which the nuclear power station got its name from, before a visit to reactor 4 to view the new casing. Whilst, the view of the casing itself is not too impressive, it’s amazing to think that the reactor only the other side of the wall, reactor 3 was still active and generating power until 2000.
After visiting the power plant we visited Pripyat, which was definitely a highlight for me. The ability to walk around the model soviet city, which was now a ghost city was an amazing experience. With my friend having played the STALKER shadow of Chernobyl series of games, he enjoyed walking through the city exploring many of the buildings which appear in the games. Many of which and the general landscape around the exclusion zone, he described as surprising accurate. Whilst, walking through the city it was eerie to think about the residents, who were given only hours to evacuate and told they would return in only a matter of days, but who never returned to live there again. The desperation of the liquidators, who were given the task of cleaning the costly model city after the disaster with the goal of allowing the residents to move back, highlights how little was known about the disaster and its effects at the time. The liquidators went through the city clearing the apartments of radioactive items and then burying the items in trenches, cleaning the buildings and removing the topsoil. Some areas of city are still highly radioactive including the hospital where those around the reactor were treated after the disaster and the graveyard where the liquidators were unable to remove the required depth of radioactive top soil. During our walk around Pripyat we saw numerous sights and visited the Supermarket, Palace of Culture, Fairground, Middle School #3, the Azure Swimming Pool in the Leisure Centre and the Police and Fire Station. Viewing these buildings was like going back in time and showed the slow decay of a city left to nature.
Before returning to Kyiv we visited an abandoned Soviet military base which housed a Duga anti-missile radar. The radar was responsible for the Russian Woodpecker noise and is the only one still remaining, as the two others which were located in Russia have been removed. The radar is massive in scale, standing at 150 metres tall and nearly as far as the eye can see long. The area around the radar is like a beach, as the army sandblasted the radar after the Chernobyl disaster to clean it. The radar was launched in 1976 and decommissioned in 1989 as it was not as successful as hoped due to natural fluctuations in the atmosphere, but it has been left there untouched as it is in the exclusion zone.
It was time to return to Jinan and Shandong University of Science and Technology (SDUST) to teach marketing as part of a University of Worcester collaborative program. The course had to be revised this year in line with new requirements from SDUST. This meant that Market Street was gone and an exam had to be included, alongside some more practical assessment. These changes made constructively aligning the course, whilst ensuring it was true to similar courses at Worcester, more challenging. However, it was still possible to achieve this, which allowed for some fun activities such as blind water and snack tasting and designing playdoh sweets.
The exam required both multiple choice and short answer components according to the new local regulations. This was my first time writing a multiple choice exam and took longer than I expected, as it was harder than I expected to come up with answers which were not obviously wrong. It is challenging to come up with multiple choice questions which can separate high and low achieving students, thus the answers cannot be too easy or too hard.
The trip was busy as the teaching schedule was intensive and the weekends were taken up by a trip to Nanjing and a trip back to Beijing to see colleagues off and meet new colleagues. This meant that it was not possible to explore Jinan much, although I did manage to find a cat café, which had good cats, coffee and cake. All of which can be challenging to locate, certainly all in one place. This brightened up the evenings after a long day of teaching.
Whilst, in Nanjing we visited the Ming tombs and the Sun Yat-Sen Mausoleum. The Mausoleum was more challenging to visit than I previously remembered, as you needed to register your details on WeChat to get an eticket. Luckily, we found someone who could help, as the registration was all in Chinese, and I had an active sim card, as without these two things it would have been nearly impossible to get the required eticket. Whilst, in Nanjing I met with colleagues to finalise a new funding bid for submission, so fingers crossed for a positive outcome. Plus, during a visit to 1912 I managed to visit a new craft brewery. During previous visits there, I have not seen any craft breweries so this was a welcome addition to the cliché bars and restaurants. After a busy 20 day trip in China it was straight to Germany to teach on the Worcester DBA.
Whilst in the US for New Year I visited the Turkey Hill Experience in Columbia Pennsylvania. I had previously visited the Turkey Hill Experience numerous years ago, when it was a lot less interactive. This visit was far more engaging and we undertook a tea experience and an ice cream lab session. It felt like being on The Apprentice, as there is the opportunity to design a new type of ice cream, its packaging and an advert. When designing ice cream, we started off with a vanilla base and then added flavourings, then inclusions before variegates. There was fifteen different flavourings, twenty inclusions including nuts, sweets and biscuits and ten variegates to swirl into the ice cream to choose from. The ice cream I designed was teaberry (with a hint of cotton candy) with a marshmallow and peanut butter swirl and graham cracker and marshmallow pieces. On reflection, the ice cream was rather overloaded with taste and flavour.
The experience also provided a good over view of the emergent strategy that Turkey Hill went through, originally focusing on milk and ice cream production and then added ice tea using excess production capacity. They also moved from a local delivery system to developing mini markets and gas stations to further expand their range. This led to them having a range of vertically integrated business interests to supply and distribute their products.
Robin Bell 