Last night Isobel and I went over to Natalie's house for supper and to meet two friends of hers. Natalie is from Australia but is of Ukrainian descent. Natalie's Grandparents fled to Australia when Stalin was persecuting people and forcing starvation upon the Ukrainian people. She has lived in Ukraine for apx. 5 years now. The people we met are fromAustralia but are also of Ukrainian descent. Their parents fled Ukraine the same time that Natalie's grandparents did. Petar (Peter) and Nila (pronounced like nila wafers) plan bandura's which are a traditional Ukrainian instrument. It is the equivalent of 3 guiters in one. They don't have frets, tho. Peter's father learned to make them as a young man. At the time only certain people were allowed to make banduras; it was a trade secret how to make and play them. He fled Ukraine with two he had made but one was taken away from him. He then made them in Australia. He met another man who had fled Ukraine who taught him to play a certain style of music on them. In Ukraine they are generally made from willow; in Australia he met someone who connected him with a source of hard woods from which to make his baduras. Peter and his family have donated their father's bandura to a museum in Australia. Peter and Nila have learned to play some traditional songs that no one in Ukraine any longer play and sing. They say that they also speak a dialect of Ukrainian that is lost in the big cities and is generally only spoken in certain parts of the country side in Ukraine. They both played fantastically and Nila has an extremely beautiful voice; she can sing in many different octaves. It was an extremely interesting evening talking with the three of them. Peter and Nila knew so much about Ukrainian history which was very fascinating.