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Published: September 9th 2007
привет, хороший день !!!
This is a long entry, with 34 photos!
First I'll write about my last 3 days in Croatia: I spent the Sunday afternoon at Polari camping around the pool because I was invited by the animators, and also monday evening when they had live music there. I hung around and had some drinks together with Andrea, Tonka, Mario, Zdravko and Zeljko. Later I went again to Monvi with Mario and two of his friends. Tuesday we left Croatia by bus, drove through Slovenia, Austria and Germany...and 24 hours later I was home. That day my school called me and said that they've found a new teacher so I don't have do postpone my trip to Ukraine.
I took off to Ukraine two days later. Sendly had to play in Donetsk, so his driver (Sasha), wife (Nini + her daughter Bianca), and their daughter Xhienty came to Kyiv-Boryspil International Airport to pick me up. I always wanted to visit far Eastern Europe one day due to the Soviet past, which is interesting to me. My first impressions in Kiev: a LOT of Lada cars around; many big, massive, sometimes old appartment blocks (mostly built during the
Soviet Union period); and a lot of female beauty (it's like Sweden...but they're all gold diggers here!). Girls would approach you easily in a disco and do as if they're really interested in you...but then you'll notice that they're only interested in the content of your wallet! You'll notice that people don't speak much English here. Even Sasha doesn't, but Sendly speaks enough Russian and Nini speaks a little, so they communicate with him. I speak to Sasha with a lot of gestures and a few Russian words I've learned. Language is the biggest barrier when visiting Ukraine. At trainstations there are almost no signs in English, and the Russian/Ukranian alphabet is different which makes everything even more difficult. I learned some of the alphabet and that really helps a lot if you want to find the way. Even in Odessa which is more touristic they don't speak English, worse than in Kiev! I didn't see any tourist info, city maps are hard to find. It felt like still being in the Soviet Union. That's the adventurous part of this trip...I've never been in a country where it's so hard to communicate with the people!!!
Kiev is huge, with
many wide and busy avenues. Once the third largest city of the Soviet Union (USSR), today Kyiv is the capital and largest city of Ukraine with ca. 3 million people. Many people think the city is ugly and grey, but it's not! The city is pretty colourfull and has many nice monuments, and large squares and parks: it's very green!!! It lies at the shores of the Dnipro River with bridges, parks and stunning views. The city has a good metro-system with three lines. A single ride costs only 0,50 Hryvnia (which is about US$0,10). Beside older flat buildings there are many modern, nice hotels, shopping centers, and there is an excellent nightlife! Once we came home after 7:00 and Nini wasn't happy at all, lol.
Sendly played in Donetsk vs. Shaktar and they lost 4-1. He came back to Kiev together with Alan, a Brazilian from Parana who played in his team last year. We all went out that night, together with Gil (another Brazilian, from Recife, who's also playing in Arsenal Kyiv).
I took the train to Odessa, a city in southern Ukraine. It lies at the Black Sea, which I've seen for the first time! The
city is colourful, great architechture, nice beaches and many parks. Odessa is a very busy place during the summer and attracts many (especially Russian) tourists. I saw more tourists in Odessa than in Kiev, some of them were supposed to be on a cruiseship which has Odessa as port of call. On the northeastern shore of the city you can see the harbour and industries and at the eastern shore you can find the beaches. The beaches were much better, nicer and cleaner than I expected! Thank God I found a citymap here and I did my own city tour.
I guess you've heard about the Chernobyl accident of April 1986. A fatal accident occured at a nuclear powerplant in northern Ukraine, not far from the cities Chernobyl and Pripyat. This accident caused a huge economic damage in the country (still USSR then) and thousands of people lost their lifes due to extreme radioactive radiation. Belarus and Russia were also seriousl affected because the plant is situated near the border with Belarus and southwestern Russia is also nearby. This accident is notorious all over the world as the worst nuclear disaster in history. All people have been evacuated from
the area and today Prypiat is a completely abandoned city. This city lies not even 5 km from the powerplant and has been highly contaminated....humans will be never able to live in this place anymore as there is to much radioactive dust inside the buildings. Staying just on the streets in this city is safe though. Chernobyl lies much further from the plant (ca. 20 km I guess) and there are still people living there, but not many. The radiation in these cities is still higher than it naturally should be, but not dangerous for humans. The soil, plants and grass could be highly contaminated though and it's better to remain on solid, concrete grounds when in the area. Even waterpipes are built above the ground. Sasha drove me to the area and he told me we'll try to go to those cities. You might ask yourself now "why" I want to visit the place and that I'm crazy....but yes, I really do want to go because I'm too curious about it! I knew that you'll not be allowed to get through without special documents. There are tours organizing tours to the area and they arrange also those documents, I
did read about it on the internet. In Kiev I called and they told me that you should notice them two weeks in advance so they can arrange everything...I didn't know this! Since I came just for 9 days here, I knew it's going to be impossible to get through. Sasha told me that we're going to drive there anyway and at the militairy checkpoint he'll try to talk to them and maybe they could let us through if we pay them some money. Approaching the checkpoint, you'll pass along a few small villages, sometimes just a few houses. Many of them old and abandoned after the accident....the area was very very quiet, complete silence, no other cars around. It gives you a creepy, scary but adrenaline feeling! When we arrived at the checkpoint they didn't let us through, which wasn't a big surprise to me because I expected it. They wouldn't even accept money because they're very strict about their rules. If you get caught inside the exclusion zone of Chernobyl without the necessary permission you could end up in jail.
We drove after to the city of Slavutych, a small city built after the Chernobyl accident, a
bit further from the plant, especially for the victims and people who have been evacuated out of Chernobyl and Prypiat in 1986.. On the way to Slavutych we took a road through the rural area and we passed along many old, rural settlements. It looked very poor sometimes, agricultural based and not modern at all....people are still using carts pulled by horses and other animals, many elderly people and bad roads! We also saw a militairy base with signs along to road to warn you for crossing tanks. The base is very old, surely in use since the times of the Cold War. Slavutych was exactly planned before built...it looked like Sim City (a strategy game where you, as a major, have to built and rule a city). It looked like they've put a couple of big concrete blocks next to each other and connected them with a few streets. And they've also added a park, a square with some commercial spaces, one or two schools, a small football stadium, a trainstation etc. etc. As usual since the USSR, many buildings are not very well maintained and today, 20 years later, many appartment blocks in Slavutych looked like they need
some new painting. There was a monument for the victims of Chernobyl in the middle of the city with pictures of a few persons (firefighters I guess) who died during, or short after the meltdown. The strange thing about the city is, that it was very quiet, too quiet! Very little people on the streets, in the parks, on the square etc. and I told Sasha that this city is probably similar than Chernobyl itself.
I couldn't visit the cities of Chernobyl and Prypiat, but in the future I'll surely try to come to Ukraine again and I'll make sure to arrange the documents in time to go into the exclusion zone..."ku Dios ke"!
In Holland I'll be working for 6 weeks now: looking over students at my old school and giving them assistance with geography when needed. I will also teach geography 8 hours a week...I received an email from my school three days ago and they need a teacher for the first weeks to teach classes 1, 2 and 3 because the teacher they've found called and said that he/she's not interested anymore. Twice a week I'll work also a few hours in the evenings at another
school as concierge.
The plan is to probably visit Spain and northwestern Italy in October / November where I will visit friends/acquaintances, and after to leave to Australia in November.
Take care all and be allright!
Elton
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Eunice
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Hola!! Mi amor!...
espero que estes bien... Me imagino que la estas pasando de maravilla por alla, me alegro mucho por ti. olle me encanto este email, si me pudieras mandar uno asi de Holanda con la informacion de este tu pais por que es que estoy haciendo un trabajo de la univ, y escogi este pais. nada cuando puedas me escribes cuidate mucho tu amiga Eunice Marie!! .PONCE P.R.