| DanB: Re: Velyki Komjaty | We spent three days last week (July 26-28) in Velyki Komjaty. My grandfather, Paul Borsos, left V.Komjaty in 1912 for Wilkes-Barre, PA. My family has kept in contact with the cousins in V.K. over the years but this was the first time a family member has gone back. First, let me apologize to the people who asked me to check on various family names. I had not looked at this forum in several months and didn't see the requests until today.
We traveled by train from Budapest to Mukachevo. Crossing the boarder at Chop was interesting because we had to figure out the immigration forms ourself. But there were no major problems.
Where to begin...
This is a beautiful area with rolling hills. The Carpathian Mountains are visible in the east. I will try to attach a photo. You can also see some photos of the area in photos.yahoo.com/dborsos
There are 7 (or maybe 9) villages that make up a greater area called Komjaty. These include V.Komjaty, Little Komjaty, Onok, Salanky, Borzavsky and others. The area is predominately agricultural. Most families have 5 or 6 hetors of land given back to them after communism that are planted with tomatoes, peppers, cucumbers and corn. This is for personal consumption and for sale. There is a wide range in what you will see. In one field you will see a modern combine harvesting wheat and in the next you will see one man with a horse drawn cart. Early in the morning you see herds of cattle driven through the street.
Unfortuately unemployment is high, but the small, individual farms help make ends meet. My family is fortunate in that they are school teachers. So they have that salary plus their farm produce.
Surprisingly there are many new, large houses under construction in the area. These belong to people who work part of the year in either the EU or USA. They work as cleaners or in hotels, etc. Back home - because the cost of living is so low - they can build a house like you would see in an american suburb with "two of everything".
We visited in several schools and spoke with some teachers who were working there over the summer. My 15 year old cousin's algebra school work looked just like my 15 year old daughter's.
There are four good-sized churches in town: Catholic, Orthodox, Penticostal or Baptist, and Seventh Day Adventist. We saw the Jewish Cemetary which has a small memorial. According to an older cousin, the Jews were rounded up by the Nazis in late 1943. Sadly, the Jewish population of that area is now very small.
During our stay the Ukranian parliment was trying to form a government. People were glued to their TV sets. The socialists had won the plurality of the votes. The heavily russian eastern portion of the country would like to join back with Russia. In the west, where we were, the Orange party and Victor Yushinko (sp?) is popular but people are frustrated because reforms have been very slow.
I spent several months before our trip learning Russian (because I could not find a Ukrainian course) and it came in very handy. My family is friends with a Peace Corp volunteer from Charlotte, NC who teaches english in the schools in V.K. and she was with us for a good part of our visit to interpret. But even when she was not around, with a little russian, a little english, a little german and a pencil and paper we were able to communicate just fine.
It was an unforgetable experience to meet this part of my family face-to-face. They were so gracious. If you have family in the area or are just curious I would strongly advise making this trip. I just wish that we hadn't waited this long.
From Budapest there is a direct train that stops at Mukachevo (40 km north of V.K.) but it arrives at about 4:00 in the morning. We traveled during the day so we would arrive in the afternoon. This involved 4 trains - Budapest to Nyiregyhaza (3 hours), Nyiregyhaza to Zahony (1 hour), Zahony to Chop (30 minutes) and Chop to Mukachevo (about 90 minutes) - so there was a lot of schleping baggage. On the way out, we were able to get an over-night sleeper from Chop all the way to Vienna. That was a much easier journey.
Please forgive this hurried post, but I wanted to share a little of our trip.
Dan B |
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