Ukraine VI - Poltava | Travel Blog

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July 27th 2009

Published: August 30th 2009

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Ake Och Emma

Sofiyivsky Park

Sofiyivsky Park in Uman was a bit of a disappointment. This photo is nice though

Ukrainian hotels, a large park, a Swedish history lesson and some other stuff we didn't know where to put it

In this entry might look a little bit strange because we have decided to throw in some stuff we didn’t know where else to put it. We still hope you will like it.

We can start with Sofiyivsky Park in Uman. It is a large park from the early 19th century. It contains forests, open landscapes, some artificial pools and other things you expect to find in a park. We had heard that the Sofiyivsky Park is one of the great highlights of a visit to Ukraine. To us it wasn’t. We were actually disappointed. It was nice but we had expected something else.

Before we went on this trip we had an idea of what things might look like in Ukraine. We have both been to countries in Eastern Europe before so our picture of Ukraine turned out to be not very far from the truth. But we still have to admit that there is more to Ukraine than the simplified picture we had in our minds before we set off. We don’t know how you picture what

Sofiyivsky Park

Sofiyivsky Park is from the early 19th century. It contains forests, open landscapes and some artificial pools.

a trip in Ukraine would be like. Maybe the same things we expected to find maybe something else. Perhaps even our previous blog entries on Ukraine have forced you to change your picture of Ukraine? Well, let’s look into two very clear images Ake had before he went to Ukraine and how one turned out to be more or less correct and how the other totally fell on its ass.

For many years Ukraine used to be a part of the Soviet Union. In Soviet Union factories were often large and ugly creations spewing out clouds of black smoke. So in Ukraine and we expected to find a few of these large ugly Soviet style factories. There might have been slightly fewer of them than we expected but we found some of these Soviet style factories. Some of them were forced to close down when Ukraine became independent because they were inefficient or were producing wrong things. But others could adapt their production and are still today in operation.

Ukraine has been nicknamed “the bread basket of Europe” because of the fertile soil and the large agricultural sector. Ake expected in Ukraine to see endless fields with growing

Stereotype of Ukraine?

Soviet style factory in Mariopol. Is this what people expect to see when they come to Ukraine? Sure there are some of these monsters around but Ukraine is so much more

crops. There were much fewer crop fields than he expected and they were not nearly as large as he thought they would be. In fact he had to look hard to find fields as large as the ones he normally sees in the countryside at home. It might be that agriculture is a large sector of the Ukrainian economy but the vast and seemingly endless fields of crops weren’t quite there.

We would like to mention the hotels in Ukraine now that we are not having any specific structure in this blog entry. The hotels really were an interesting experience.

We can start by mentioning “the Brown Hotel” in Kherson, or Fregat as its real name is. Fregat used to be the official Intourist Hotel. In Soviet Union the official tourist agency was called Intourist and the Intourist Hotels were the only hotels where foreigners were allowed to stay. This hotel was built when Ukraine was part of Soviet Union and when we entered it we felt like we were warped back 30 years in time into the era of Leonid Brezhnev. It was so much Soviet Union that it felt like a parody. The outside of the

Stereotype of Ukraine?

Ake expected in Ukraine to see endless fields with growing crops. There were much fewer of those than he expected.

hotel was probably pretty nice once. There were some pools and a fountain in front of the hotel. The pools were dry and the fountain has not been used in a long time so it looks a bit dull today. That could have been anywhere in the World really. But the interior of this hotel is something you can only find in former Soviet Union. The lobby was brown, the elevators were brown, the carpet in the room was brown, the bedcovers were brown, the table was brown, well the entire hotel was brown! When we at the reception to ask if they had any rooms available the receptionist looked like she was thinking “Please don't disturb me. Choose another hotel. Oh no, they are heading towards me. Why do you come here and disturb me? I just want to sit here on my own in my brown uniform in this brown lobby. I just want to sit here and be totally bored. If you come here I might not be bored for several minutes. So please don't disturb me.” Heck, even the personal was “brown”. It was a fun experience to stay there though. The place was so “Soviet”

Other fields

Ake expected to see endless fields with growing crops, but he was surprised to find sunflowers growing in them. What happened to “the bread basket of Europe"

that all we could do was laugh.

Twice when we were in Ukraine we stayed in fabulous hotels from early 20th century. The first of these hotels was Tsentralnaya in Odessa and the second was Hotel George in Lviv. Both these hotels used to be the best of the best when they were built. They have spacious lobbies, large marble stairs with wrought iron railings and large mirrors between the floors, long wonderful corridors and high ceilings. They have seen better days though because they are slightly run down. They were both very clean, the staff was nice and they were also fairly cheap. We really felt like royalties when we stayed in these hotels.

We would also like to mention Hotel 7 Days in Kamyanets-Podilsky. The hotel looked very much like middle range hotels look everywhere. But what is worth mentioning here is the price. We paid 396 grivna (roughly 65 USD or 40 €) for a double room and for this we got a nice and clean hotel room, breakfast for two, dinner for two and we could use the swimming pool in the basement of the hotel. That is such a bargain!

The last

The brown hotel

Hotel Soviet style. The lobby is brown, the carpets are brown, the elevators are brown, the front desk is brown, the table is brown etc. Even the staff are "brown". For the photo Emma too is brown

hotel we would like to mention here isn’t really a hotel at all. It is better to call it a guest house. In Yaremche we stayed in a place called U Lesi. We thought it was a hostel but it turned out to be a woman who has a few spare rooms in her house where tourists can stay. This is not unusual in Yaremche for people to have tourists stay in their private homes. We could see several other houses where it is possible to rent a room. What makes this particular place worth writing about is the woman who owns the place. She really took care of us, almost like a mother. Every time we came and went she asked us where we were going or how the day had been. She was not nosy or intruding, just friendly and curious. One day we went hiking in the mountains. When we came back she greeted us with a message she had written down on a piece of paper. She could speak enough English to communicate but not enough to actually be able to talk to us. But this time she really wanted to have a serious talk with

Fregat - the Brown Hotel

The exterior of the hotel was probably pretty nice once.

us so she had written everything she wanted to say down on a piece of paper. She explained that she had been sitting in her house the entire day worrying about us. She told us that it is dangerous to hike in the mountains if you are not prepared and that they every year have tourists who get lost. She was so cute when she was standing there delivering her speech. We didn’t have the heart to explain to her that we had a map and that all the hiking trails were so clearly marked that the hike we had done was the simplest thing ever. She was even so worried about our wellbeing that she the next day arranged for us to join a group with a tour guide for the hike to Mount Hoverla.

The real purpose of this blog entry is to tell you a little bit about our visit in the city Poltava and check out the battlegrounds of the Battle of Poltava. The Battle of Poltava took place in 1709, almost on the day 300 years prior to our visit. The battle was between Russian troops on one side and a combined force of Swedish and

Hotel George in Lviv

A fabulous hotel from early 20th century

Ukrainian soldiers on the other. We noticed something interesting in Poltava. It seemed to us like the Ukrainians looked at us Swedes like we were their blood brothers. The Russians won the battle consequently the Swedes and the Ukrainians lost. If we got things right the Ukrainians lost a lot more than just the battle on this day 300 years ago. They also lost their independence and were from this day on occupied by Russia. Now today the Ukrainians are once again independent and it seems like they haven't forgotten that we Swedes once fought for the Ukrainians right to their own land. They might be thankful for whatever we did to help them back then but we seriously doubt that the Swedish involvement in this war was "for a good cause" or to "save Ukraine from occupation" or anything else that might sound noble. Whatever the reason was for the Swedes to engage in a war down in Ukraine we bet that it was purely selfish ones.
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The Battle of Poltava took place in what today is a field outside the modern city Poltava. On the edge of the battlegrounds there is a museum with a surprisingly good

Hotel George in Lviv

The staircase of Hotel George in Lviv was large and impressive. A real piece of art. Too bad we couldn't really capture it in a photo. We tried our best though

exhibition on the event. In several places in and around the battlefield there are various memorials.

There were three armies involved in the battle and for all three countries this battle is an important part of the country's history. Therefore there has over the centuries been erected a whole lot of different memorials around Poltava battlegrounds. The latest of these monuments was unveiled only two weeks before we visited Poltava, to commemorate the 300 year anniversary of the battle. This was our favourite of the monuments on this sight. It was the only monument erected as a common project of all three nations participating in the battle. The monument is a "triple arch" and on the pillar of each arch is a nation flag, one from each country, and a plaque with the text "Time heals wounds. To eternal remembrance of the brave soldiers who fell in the Battle of Poltava on June 27 1709". What we like about this monument is that it is over all the fallen soldiers no matter what side they were fighting on. We also like that it sends a message of "peace and understanding" rather than "fight and disagreement".

Other monuments involve

Hotel George in Lviv

The staircase of Hotel George as seen from the cavernous lobby

one Russian monument over the fallen Russian soldiers, one Swedish monument over the fallen Swedish soldiers, one small cross and a large number of identical stone pillars spread out over the battlefield. The small cross and the identical stones we never managed to figure out exactly what they were there for. It is possible that the cross marked a mass grave and it is possible that the stones marked the battlefield. But most likely both symbolised something else.

We might as well add here that Ake has at least one possibly two ancestors who died in the Battle of Poltava. Most Swedes do so it is safe to assume that Emma could dig up one or two in her family tree who fought and died in Ukraine in 1709.

After we had seen the battlefield and the museum we went back to Poltava city centre again. There we noticed a city bus that looked somewhat familiar. When we looked closer we could see that it used to run in regular traffic in Stockholm once. One of Ake's colleagues used to be a bus driver and he used to work for SL (Stockholm Public Transport). It is possible, albeit

Monument over Battle of Poltava

This was our favourite of the monuments over Battle of Poltava. The monument has been erected as a common project of all three nations participating in the battle.

not likely, that he has driven this particular bus.

When we stood at the bus stop we could see more buses that once were Swedish. These buses have in Sweden been replaced with newer buses. But instead of sending the old buses to the junkyard they have been sent to Ukraine. This shows that there even today is a connection between Sweden and Poltava in Ukraine.

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