Blogs from Kyiv, Ukraine, Europe - page 6

Europe » Ukraine » Kyiv October 26th 2006

My host family introduced me to Kolya, a law student who is 21 years old and lives in the same appartment complex. He has known my host family his whole life and is like a son to them. He's tall, with a good build, is realy cute, has brown hair, and very slavic features. He has a great personality too-he's really outgoing and loves to joke around but can be serious too. Since he studied English for two years he can speak English fairly well. About as well as I speak Russian. Yesterday he asked me if I wanted to come with him for a tour of Kiev at night. We left at 5pm and came back at 10pm. The city is absolutely gorgeous at night. We walked around the oldest part of Kiev, which has ... read more

Kyiv or Kiev ?

Europe » Ukraine » Kyiv July 27th 2006

Kyiv's St. Sophie church

dsthanh

Ukraine was part of the former Soviet Union and Kiev was translated from Russian to English (romanized letters) and Kyiv is the translation from Ukrainian language to English (romanized letters) So for the sake of the "new" country I am going to refer this famous city as Kyiv. Kyiv is a big city with a lots of churches. There are several world Heritage sites here. St. Sophie cathedral is a site to see. I climbed up steps to the Bell tower where I can have a bird eye view of the city and it is a view to die for. It is breathtaking. Further away to can see St. Michael Church with golden domes complex. The metro here is quite sufficient. It is cheap and can help your tired feet. The cost for a subway ride ... read more

The international carriage.

Europe » Ukraine » Kyiv December 28th 2005

Kiev in the evening.

Campo

Our train east for Lugansk left at 11 in the morning. In our compartment was a Russian girl travelling around Ukraine and a man who now lives in Austria, returning for his first New Year's celebration at home in five years. The four of us had a good conversation for a few hours, until the English Russian student and the Ukrainian English student decided to sleep. The train was equally hot and uncomfortable as the one from Moscow, so none of us rested very well. I feel bad that the man left while I was asleep and I couldn't say goodbye, or even find out his name. He was fascinating to talk to and asked me challenging, relevant questions about England - the royal family, religion, food and culture, Jamie Oliver - that I enjoyed answering. ... read more

Try and stop me.

Europe » Ukraine » Kyiv December 27th 2005

A selection of Kiev photos.

Campo

I didn't sleep too badly on the train, but I still felt very uncomfortable when I arrived in Kiev. The youngest man from my carriage showed me how to get to the main hall of the station before catching his next train. Ana didn't arrive until 8.15 so I had a three hour wait. I slept on a bench for an hour before meeting her under the huge Christmas tree at the entrance of the station. We send sms-ki and emails every day so we already had a lot to talk about. We waited for a friend of her father's, Sergei, to pick us up and drive us to his appartment where we would be spending the night. Just driving through Kiev for ten minutes I could already feel that I was somewhere new. The feeling ... read more

The Way It Used To Be - Chapter One: Kyiv and the Train Station

Europe » Ukraine » Kyiv June 29th 2005

Vokzal

sapere18

No one ever cares for stories about transfers in neo-modern, faceless terminals, which beer I had for breakfast after deplaning, or the various looped repeats of BBC World I had to endure before boarding for Kyiv. However, my proverbial five minutes while connecting in Finland did indeed reveal a few points of interest. I used to think Dutch to be an utterly useless language. I always claimed that in its written form in was the result of a fat woman sitting on a typewriter. I still feel this way. Now I have been exposed to Finnish. Envision the Swedish Chef tripping on LSD while walking over a bed of fire blown chards of glass, and then explain how to cook the chicken. That’s Finnish, unintelligible both spoken and written. Any language whose words attack the reader ... read more

The Way It Used to Be - Prologue

Europe » Ukraine » Kyiv June 28th 2005

sapere18

A great number of people choose to travel where bad news is a rare occurrence: Las Vegas, Yellowstone National Park, South Beach, and San Francisco. When was the last time you read about a tourist-induced riot on The Strip or a coup d’état on Hilton Head Island? Others make for those destinations so obscure from where only bad news escapes. How long has it been since you read an in-depth exposé about the new opera house in Sierra Leone? Or the brand new species of orchid discovered in Rwanda? Ukraine, other former Soviet republics, and the emerging countries of Eastern Europe, pertain to neither category. Rather, they belong to an unfamiliar abyss from which practically no news reaches the pages of The Times of London or The Boston Globe. Recent political change aside for the moment, ... read more

Brief history of Ukraine

Ukraine was the center of the first Slavic state, Kievan Rus, which during the 10th and 11th centuries was the largest and most powerful state in Europe. Weakened by internecine quarrels and Mongol invasions, Kievan Rus was incorporated into the Gran...more history

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