L’viv

Ukraine

June 18, 2018

                            You Can read Cyrillic

In the photo galley I posted from Uzhhorod, Ukraine, in the caption under the photograph of the Cathedral of Christ the Savior, I deliberately mentioned the exact location:  Cyril and Methodius Square.

Who are Cyril and Methodius?

The Cyrillic alphabet was an indirect result of the missionary work of the 9th-century “Apostles of the Slavs,” St. Cyril (or Constantine) and St. Methodius. Their mission to Moravia lasted only a few decades. Their disciples went to South Slavic regions of the first Bulgarian empire, including what are now Bulgaria and the Republic of Macedonia, where in the 900s they constructed a new script for Slavic, based on capital Greek letters, with some additions.  Confusingly, this later script (drawing on the name of Cyril) became known as Cyrillic. Saints Naum and Clement, both of Ohrid, Macedonia and both among the disciples of Cyril and Methodius, are sometimes credited with having devised the Cyrillic alphabet.

You can read Cyrillic!

Do you remember that before the fall of the Soviet Union, the Soviet Olympic athletes wore CCCP on their uniforms?

СССР (Союз Советских Социалистических Республик) is a Russian abbreviation for the Soviet Union or Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. So, C = S and P = R.

In high school math you learned the Greek-Cyrillic letter for Pi. (3.14).

So now, in Ukraine, you can order a drink from the coffee shop menu: “експресо.”

Please open the photo gallery here and read each of the letters in the first sign.  It announces the location of the “Golden Arches.”   

You are on your way.

Also, Cyrillic H = N. Cyrillic B = V.  Cyrillic b is a softening sound and is essentially silent.

See my hints in the captions.

Let me know how you do.

Have fun.