The Ukrainian Research Institute was in a wooden colonial house, with offices in the different rooms. About a third of the people who worked there were actually Ukrainian, and seemed always on the verge of being really upset. If anyone said “the Ukraine,” instead of “Ukraine,” or assumed that some word in Ukrainian was the same as in Russian, or asked whether a Ukrainian writer wrote in Russian, it was enough to push them over the edge. This kind of touchiness was familiar to me from Turkish people, and gave me a fond, protective feeling.
