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Published: April 20th 2008
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April 14 - 16, 2008
KyiV, Ukraine
We arrived in Kyiv on Monday noon and took the afternoon to visit the center of the city close to our hotel. We were a little surprised at how modern a city Kyiv is. There is a lot of new construction including some very large, and modern, high rises. They have a very good “metro “ system, too much traffic, like most big cities, a reasonably good ( albeit expensive ) selection of accommodation and all the conveniences you would expect.
Tuesday we took a long ( 6 hours ) walk to visit a very busy tourist part of town that includes many churches, a war memorial and museum and an important 1000 year old Orthodox Christian center, The Kyiv Monastery of the Caves, and a beautiful collection of architectural masterpieces in the several domed churches that are part of this complex. This was a nice spring day, a little “fresh”, but a nice day. The fruit trees are coming into blossom and the trees and flowers are coming alive. Reminded us of Canada.
Following our visit here we walked through the main shopping district in Kiev and the home
to too many high end “Brand Name” shops and stores. Business is good in the high end clothing business and we were surprised at the amount of very well (and expensively) dressed men and women in the city. There seems to be a very good business here in shoes and boots. If this is any indication of how much money there is here, they are doing O.K. We didn’t find any particularly good deals but a lot of selection. This is also the area that is known as Independence Square and home to some more malls including a very large system of underground shopping that is connected to the Metro system. We suspect that life in Kyiv may not be indicative of the rest of the country. We did find some decent Ukrainian food and enjoyed couple of good meals.
Wednesday we visited a different part of town, and some more walking, to visit a local craft market area that is close to the center of town and the home to some more Orthodox Christian Churches ( St. Andrews Church, St. Sofia Cathedral, and St. Michael Monastery )
The Churches are really beautiful pieces of architecture, some from hundreds
of years ago that seemed to have survived the communists. Many have been, or are being, renovated and refurbished. A lot of beautiful frescos and art in these buildings.
We decided not to take the road trip to Chernobyl as it takes a whole day and didn’t look that exciting. This is a popular visit for tourists and with some money, and a prearranged pass, you can get close to the “sarcophagus” that houses the problem reactor. Not for us !!
We enjoyed our visit to Kiev. It was obvious that Kyiv, and maybe all of the Ukraine is a little behind the times in looking after foreign tourists. The language issue is a real issue as we found little English spoken and little effort to help in most stores and even at our hotel. We were surprised that with some very interesting things to do in the city there were no “ city tour “ buses or similar that are available almost everywhere. The only thing of that nature we were offered was a $140 US -3 hour site seeing taxi ride through the city in the back seat of a small car. Not for us !!!
We have to comment on the changes we have seen over the past few weeks in getting a beer. In Asia it was available everywhere, In Dubai and Egypt it was almost impossible except at a hotel or restaurant, in Turkey it was available at small stores in most places, In the Ukraine it was available ( and cheap - .70 US for .5 liter ) in too many outlets and is drank on the streets by old and young. ( In fact it is a small problem with bottles lying around everywhere). Quite a difference in attitude! There must be happy medium somewhere in between Egypt and Ukraine. I think Turkey has it about right.
Thursday was a relaxing morning at the hotel with an afternoon flight to another part of our adventure in Budapest, Hungary.
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