IT Cafe

A friend turned me on to a new place in Kharkov, Ukraine. He has an apartment near the Universytet metro station in the center. The place where he is living is a Western Style residence that for some unaccountable reason does not have internet access. This hardship caused him to search for a suitable spot where he could do some business online as well as chat with friends. He decided the best choice in the area was the I.T. Café (http://itcafe.ua/) which is right to the left of the glass exit for the metro. It is directly above the Potato House.

There are a few good benefits of this eatery. First of all the Wi-Fi has a strong signal. (In a pinch you can access the internet at the weaker Potato House as well) They rent computers including the I-Pad for Apple aficionados. (They also have a counter that sells electronics such as computers and phones.) The food is pretty good and they have an English menu. While traveling around town I have been known to stop at McDonalds or Coffee Life (the Starbucks clone) to check e-mail or update my blog. Both of these are OK but I like the atmosphere at the IT café better and the fact that smoking is not allowed is a BIG plus for me. The meals are served ala carte so while they are appetizing and inexpensive, you are not going to get a meal with a soup/salad starter or even a side dish unless you order those as well. The drink prices are low also with a Carlsberg draft costing just 15 hyrvnia (under $2). I actually have given English lessons on Skype here but I was sure not to do that on the nights when they have a band or Tuesday when they have Salsa lessons. 

This place is really catering to the business market. They have presentation equipment on hand, as well as printing and scanning services. They even have consultation by an IT specialist available. If you do plan to visit occasionally then you should sign up for their discount card. The basic one gives a 3% discount and allows table reservations plus they will permit you to get some of their other amenities at a discount or even free.

Posted by John

New Currency Exchange Rules

The last seven weeks have been very confusing to those that exchange currencies in Ukraine. On September 23 the National Bank of Ukraine (NBU) enacted new Currency Exchange Rules.  They required that people who exchange foreign currency must present an ID and the business that tenders the trade would be obligated to make copies of the paperwork. This has been bewildering for Ukrainians, foreigners and the banks themselves. This could also create a massive nightmare for those attending EURO 2012 football games. Some of the kiosks that exchange money just closed because they didn’t want to deal with the bureaucracy. The Ukrainians didn’t like the idea of their personal info floating around while the expats and foreign tourists were S.O.L. because most of the banks would not exchange any money at all unless the person showed a Ukrainian Passport.

The official reason for this rule change was that it was a new tool to fight money laundering and the underground economy. Supposedly, there is $70 Billion in foreign currency in Ukraine that is hard to track. However, it seems more likely that they are doing it to stop people from selling the Hryvnia which causes it to weaken against foreign currencies. The NBU announced a series of gold investment coins that they hope people will buy instead of speculating in hard currencies. These come in bars ranging in size from 1 gram to 1,000 grams.

            There were many complaints from embassy employees about their inability to exchange money. After some time, the banks did start to allow exchanges by foreigners from hard currencies into the Hryvnia. And finally the NBU relaxed the rules on October 28 so that an ID must be shown when up to the value of 150,000 Hryvnia is purchased but a copy of the ID does not have to be made. Of course, this is for a purchase into Hryvnias. People who are buying foreign currencies must still leave a copy and foreigners must show a receipt from the original purchase to exchange the leftover funds back into their currency.           

            These rule changes do not affect me too much because I rarely exchange currencies. If I need some extra cash I just use a bankomat (ATM). The last time I exchanged some money was during August when I got rid of some extra Euros that I had acquired. I just handed the money to someone at the exchange window and received Hryvnia and a simple receipt that had the details of the transaction.

            During the past week I tried to swap some money to see how the process had changed since my last transaction. (This time it would be some leftover rubles.) I went to a bank and when I approached the exchange window they sent me back to one of the tellers. She asked for my passport and the amount of money that I was going to exchange. She then checked a list that she had on her desk. I have no idea what was on the list. She also made a phone call but I wasn’t sure if it was for my transaction or regarding the person who was ahead of me but was now standing to the side. She gave me 3 copies of a sheet of paper that had the particulars of the exchange including my name (but not my passport number). She put an official stamp on each one. I then took these back to the currency exchange window where my passport was checked again. I received my Hryvnias, a copy of the stamped transaction details plus a certificate that could be used for the “exchange of unspent Hryvnias for foreign currency”.  One of my friends said he exchanged some dollars at a kiosk this week and he just handed over dollars for Hryvnia. No extra paperwork was involved. Seems like this is easier but it would be a big mistake if you have a larger amount of money remaining at the end of your trip and were unable to convert it back.

The relaxation of the rules is temporary. They are set to become stricter after the end of the Euro 2012 games. I guess it is possible that this may reduce the demand for hard currencies but I think it is a little scary that the rules will be more severe than most of the other places in the world. I will not even talk about the current restrictions of 1,000 Hryvnia per person that is a rule that is not really enforced at border crossings. I personally do not take restrictions on the free market of currency exchange lightly.  Actually these new rules and regulations are making me think of some of the other events that have happened in the past around the world.

·        The Weimar Republic in 1922 forced its citizens to exchange their foreign currencies into German marks. Government officials actually would search customers at restaurants and other business and seize currencies that were not turned in. Eventually, Hyperinflation destroyed the savings and pensions of the entire country.

·        The Roosevelt Gold Confiscation of 1933 required that all privately held gold in the United States be sold to the government. After this was completed, the dollar was devalued against the price of gold and the US made large profits on their seizures.      

·        During the Argentine Economic Crisis of 1999-02 many people tried to convert their money into dollars and get their money out of the country. This caused a run on the banks and the government froze all of the accounts except for minor withdrawals. All dollar denominated accounts were forcibly converted into pesos at the official rate by the government. The resulting hyperinflation wiped out the savings of the middle class.

·        After the Ukrainian Hyperinflation of the early 1990’s the Hryvnia was set at 1.76 to the dollar. By 2008 it had fallen to 4.8 to the dollar. Then in about three months in late 2008 it fell to 7.9 to the dollar. At this time anyone who had loans payable in dollars had to pay 65% more. The Hryvnia since has been pegged at an 8-1 ratio to the dollar. But how much longer can this last?

Posted by John

How to waste your time and learn to start hating English

The test of English as a foreign language (TOEFL) is a necessity for applicants of international exchange programs in both US and Canadian universities and may also be required for some jobs abroad. The current test consists of four sections: Listening, Reading, Speaking and Writing. The results of the test have to demonstrate that you’re capable of comprehending information on academic topics and have tolerable skills of expressing your thoughts in oral and written forms.

 I decided that I needed to get more organized in my preparation process and attend a decent school for a short time. I have been poking around for a while trying to find an appropriate one and there it was: the school that offered a free trial lesson. Let’s call it “IH”.

So I went there…The very first thing that raised a red flag was when I noticed that the students didn’t talk much among themselves in English before class (only about the class payment), neither did they after entering the class room. But I was only a newcomer, so I thought that it might just be my first impression that they weren’t really interested in what they were doing.

In the very beginning of the class the teacher for some reason started giving notes about one girl’s essay that was written at home. He devoted 5 minutes to this issue, while the others’ essays didn’t deserve his attention at all. Maybe this was the only essay that was turned in?

After the teacher finally decided to give his attention to the whole group, we were given a whole bunch of papers, among which he picked a vocabulary one for the next part of the lesson. The teacher really didn’t give us a chance to explain all the words. But surprisingly for me the students really didn’t seem eager to explain the meanings of the words either. He felt satisfied, told us to fill the gaps (blanks) in the text below with those words and…left the class. As we were reading the text he gave corrections, without discussion about problems that we could come across trying to find the correct matches.

The second and the most boring part of class was right in the middle. The teacher put an old cassette in his stereo and…left for more than 30 minutes. That was an old version of the listening comprehension test that used to be provided in 90s, but doesn’t exist anymore. I expected from him the discussion of our results, but, again he just read the correct answers. I forgot for a couple of minutes that we live in the 21st century and could download as many audio files as we want from the net. I could have easily done this listening part at home and checked everything by myself.

I really was hoping that the speaking or writing part would shake me up just a bit and wake me from this prostration. Yes, he gave us an essay topic, but it was assigned as homework. This was a big mistake. Essays during the test should be written in 30 minutes without using a dictionary. There is no way; you would be doing this correctly at home! Instead you will spend a couple of hours working on your composition until it looked immaculate, but during the test everything is about timing and concentration, and there is only a slight chance that your home writing assignments will help you. The speaking part was reduced to discussing papers that described our strange dreams. We had to talk to each other while he pretended to be interested in our pronunciation. “No Russian in class” – he hushed me one time, but he didn’t really listen to what I was saying in English anyway….We didn’t have to use out thoughts or really express ourselves. Not unexpectedly, while we were reading these “dream texts” the teacher was absent from class, this time smoking.

At the end of class I felt pity for all the students in attendance. I thought they were supposed to hate English so far studying like this since September. Regarding my question “Is it always that boring?”, addressed to one girl, I got the answer “It can be worse. Today we had a lot of talking comparing to some previous classes”.

           So the role of the teacher in class was very limited (well, he was absent for 45 minutes so no wonder), the tempo ˗ very slow, the explanations –weak,  the forms of class work were picked according to what the teacher thought would be the simplest for him, the materials were old, the methodic was obscure. I wouldn’t say anything if the results of their studying was perfect, but the group didn’t not seem to make great progress, or to be really interested in what they were doing. Maybe I got too spoiled studying at different places, being a lecturer myself and having observed a lot of good teachers. But I really like the language and I just would hate classes like this. However, I don’t think that trial lesson was a complete waste of my time. I would attend this course…for free. But there is no way I would pay for this.

     

 Posted by Helen.