His cousin, Ella Babinsky, and her husband, Gennadiy, live with their two grown children and their young granddaughter in an apartment in the city. May. Her husband and son work together transporting goods and equipment wherever the need takes them. They are fortunate to have an aging Mercedes van and in fact are doing well enough to have a new color TV in their living room and a satellite dish to bring in myriad channels from all over Europe. Ella visited her relatives in Davis in 1989 and her face breaks into a huge smile as she recalls that vacation, which included trips to Yosemite and Disneyland. She also took trips to China and Vietnam but now says that her days of traveling are over.
Times are just too tough.
She agrees that tourism in L'viv is increasing, but says the city will have to upgrade considerably to bring in more dollars. They sell their personal possessions and raise food in small gardens. Ella said they don't stop going to work, however, for fear of losing jobs that one day might pay wages again. Parts of the ancient city don't have water, she added, and no one is taking the responsibility to fix leaking roofs in municipal buildings. Rachel Benton, a Peace Corps volunteer assigned to L'viv, used her contacts to gather more than a dozen bilingual L'viv university students to act as interpreters and guides for the American group.