Couching Disappointment

Furniture shopping is not what it used to be in Kyiv. In the Soviet Union, people often had to register to receive new furniture. And you needed to maintain your place on the list by showing up at the furniture office to let them know you still want to be on the list. Sometimes, you had to wait in line all night to make sure they checked your name. If you missed once, you were off the list. Often, only after several years of waiting did you get your new couch.

Not so these days. We went to two furniture stores today. One was the old House of Furniture, one of those massive, concrete and steel Soviet space-ship like places that engulf and dehumanize. It's been taken over by the capitalists. High-priced European and American furniture hold sentinel on the first floor while the furniture for everybody else keeps guard upstairs. Today a band was playing right beside the information desk. It was so loud Lena had to read lips to figure out the answer to her question. We wanted to buy an office chair since ours is about to fall apart. (Joe and Judy, thanks for that chair--it's lasted quite while!!). We found one but will have to come back when we are ready to purchase since their free delivery no longer applies to small items. Couches are much harder to come by. We found a nice American-made couch for $1000. A little pricey in our minds. But most everything else was more expensive or very uncomfortable.

We then headed to a barn-like building several metro stops away. Not much there. One we did like would have to be ordered from Poland--about an 8-week wait. There is one other place we want to check out but we can't quite remember how to get there. It's near an engineering university which isn't near much of anything and the last time I was there, all the furniture was under large tents. I think we will wait till the temps get above freezing before we go looking.