And now for the most exciting part of my trip to Ukraine. Hours before I boarded the plane to Kiev, my cousin June found an old envelope with a return address in Ukraine - the address of our long-lost relatives who stayed behind when my grandfather came to America. Thanks to modern technology and a lot of help from Leonid, the Russian student I was traveling with in the Crimea, I was able to locate our family and talk to them (through a translator) on the phone. They invited me to come visit them, and how could I resist?! So after all of my seder-leading responsibilities were finished, on my "free day" to be a tourist in Kiev, I hired the young woman in this photo, Anna, who works for the Reform Movement in Kiev, to be my translator. The overnight train zipped us across Ukraine to Dnepoproderzinsk, the city where my relatives live.

And now for the most exciting part of my trip to Ukraine. Hours before I boarded the plane to Kiev, my cousin June found an old envelope with a return address in Ukraine - the address of our long-lost relatives who stayed behind when my grandfather came to America. Thanks to modern technology and a lot of help from Leonid, the Russian student I was traveling with in the Crimea, I was able to locate our family and talk to them (through a translator) on the phone. They invited me to come visit them, and how could I resist?! So after all of my seder-leading responsibilities were finished, on my "free day" to be a tourist in Kiev, I hired the young woman in this photo, Anna, who works for the Reform Movement in Kiev, to be my translator. The overnight train zipped us across Ukraine to Dnepoproderzinsk, the city where my relatives live.