Blogs from Ukraine, Europe - page 4

When in Kiev… have Chicken Kiev What a great city. It is kept very clean by old women with brooms made of sticks sweeping the streets and scrapping gum off the pavement at 6am and 6pm. It was a very walkable city with 3 of its main attractions being orthodox churches with gold domes. Jim and I went one day on the metro 3 or 4 stops away from anything touristy what so ever. It was not as clean as the city center, and the architecture was a soviet block style apartment houses. What is very interesting about this city are the stalls to sell things. They are everywhere. They pop up on city streets (both in city center and away) and under the street, which I will get to later. The nightlife was great. Somewhat ... read more

With less than 2 weeks until we return to Washington DC, the place where our adventure began, we find ourselves again in Moscow ready to head to our large apple, aka New York City. We split our time between Kiev and Odessa. Our Ukrainian friend from DC Anna set us up with a home stay with her parents. We stayed in her old room even. The food they prepared was amazing. Everything maybe except the sala, which is the top layer of pig fat with spices. I tried a bite. Its like chewing gum with an aftertaste. I hope it won't remain in my stomach for 7 years. We also had nalishniki, a favorite. It is a bit like a crepe with some cheese inside. This cheese is hard to find in the US and I ... read more

The main avenues of Lyachakovskoye Cemetry are lined with impressively ornate and expensive tombs - marble statues of the deceased playing harps, dancing with angels and the like. Colourful little candles have been left around their bases by Ukrainians who come here once a year on All Souls Day to honour the dead. Move away from those pristine, brick-tiled pathways and deeper into the huge, overgrown, wooded and walled enclosure that is Lviv's largest graveyard. The tombs and the statues adorning them become less pretty, less smooth and less perfectly polished. Here you find grief distraught families, spouses and children eternalised in crumbling, moss-ridden stone, the unimportant alleyways snaking their way past while in the process of being devoured by the everpresent vegetation. The emotion on some of the statues' faces is simply mind-boggling: the hope ... read more

Well here we are at the end of our time in the Ukraine, we have been to Kiev, the Crimea and the last few days in Lviv. It was very emotional to think we were here in the birth country of Henry's mother and grandparents while his sister Anita was being buried in Adelaide. We are both very tired after a week of 5 hour guided walking tours. The guided tours are a great way to see lots and learn something of the history and you lose a lot less time getting from one point to the next. Asking questions yields more information - the guides have been very well trained. The apartment we are in is a renovated C19th era, 4th floor, no lift, but at least the renovations include a toilet/bathroom with the communal ... read more

When on the road travelling and you have no plans, but then suddenly things do not go according to the plan of having no plans, what does one do? I know what I would do: Head to another country. And since I am not fit for working in a small farming village in Romania, and I have turned down all my suitors asking my hand in marriage, it only seems reasonable that I recover in a hostel for 5 days before packing up my rucksack and taking a rickity bus across the border of Suceava, Romania to Chernivtsi, Ukraine. At the border, the border officer looking at my passport asked me to step off the bus because he mistook my first/middle name and believed I was Vanessa Mae, the Asian violinist. In Chernivtsi, I hadn’t booked ... read more

We had a hostal pre-booked in Kiev. It was about 3kms from the station and as we had no hyrvni, we walked. Kiev is a pleasant city and surprisingly hilly. Still we found it straight away and thoroughly enjoyed our first shower for a couple of days. Good food and beer followed (We found our hryvnia in a hole in the wall). Our train for Moscow left at 9:30pm so we had a full day in Kiev. We explored monastery - Kiev Pechersk Lavra, and the open air musuem commemorating the 1941 - 45 war. (historical note; 1939 to 1941 the USSR supported Hitler whilst dividing up Poland between them). I tried Ukranian borsch for lunch and was so impressed I took a before and after photo. We had plenty of time to make our way ... read more