Day #4: Kiev

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Arrived in Kiev in the early morning after an overnight train journey from Warsaw. Around midnight the Ukrainian border guards had woken us and taken our passports away for a couple of hours, whilst we waited in a desolate train garage in an unidentified location, listening to the crashing and banging of train works all around us. Our passports were returned and we reached Kiev on time, but feeling flat and sleep-deprived.

Early impressions of Kiev station didn't lighten the spirits: one of the first sights was a huge board of photos of cherub-faced missing children. We sat down in the waiting area to collect ourselves but found that this area of the station is the sleeping place of a number of sad, down-and-out homeless alcoholics. They didn't bother us, but then a larger-than-life, tough-looking old woman appeared and began shouting at and thumping each poor sleeping man in turn, insisting they leave and loudly proclaiming, I assume, that they were disgracing the station. Most went meekly without a sound, but one fought back, until the police appeared and broke things up.

The day improved and after a wrong-station false start on the Metro we found Kiev Pechersk Lavra. Inside the complex was quiet and atmospheric, more local worshippers than tourists (young men in black monastic gowns, older women in heavy, drab dress and younger women wearing towering heels and glitzy headscarves). We stood out as obvious tourists. We walked past the heartbreaking famine memorial and eternal flame. The sun came out as we looked over the view of the city and everything looked a little brighter, but still a sombre day.

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