>>20134643Half of the Donetsk Oblast has been under Ukrainian control for a year and a half. That area is stalemated for the time being, but there is talk of a Russian summer offensive that may involve the Ukrainian portion of the oblast. Then again, with the recent U.S. cash and weapons infusion, such an offensive could be repulsed by Ukrainian forces.
Many Ukrainian coal mines are in the Donetsk Oblast because some of the best coal of the Donets Basin is found there.
I have been in troubled foreign countries without (much) understanding the language before, including my first ever trip overseas to an African country when I was 22 and won a prestigious research fellowship. My family were too poor for me ever to have traveled abroad prior to that -- not even to Mexico or Canada.
I can handle myself in a region in political and martial turmoil as a foreigner who only marginally knows the language. Plus, like Appalachians, I respect the people of the Donetsk Oblast for being blue collar, heavy industry types -- the same folk my family descend from, only in America.
It's of course not written in stone that I will go, but I am considering it very seriously. I have yet even to get the official job offer. But if I go, I likely stay there as my new homeland, whether where I live remains under the government of Ukraine or that of the Russian Federation.
Look at the flag of the Donetsk Oblast. There is the sun rising over the field in the open blue Ukrainian sky, but unlike with the regular Ukrainian national flag, there is a black presence consuming the entire bottom of the flag -- where the wheat field should be -- and that, I think, is symbolic of the coal beds under the land of that region and administrative district. Like in much of Appalachia, coal mining has been a main occupation that has marked that place and continues to do to -- and will continue to do so for generations to come.
In short, perhaps I could find community and fraternity, even a family, there.