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Published: October 11th 2009
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17 hours to Kiev on a train with a stinking cold wasn't nice, but at least we were both suffering!! Since then neither of us have fully recovered but we have had an amazing week seeing the sights and meeting up with friends old and new. Apologies to anyone if we've been a little too generous with our germs!!
Kiev has been an amazing city and we have no doubt we will be back! The question is only when!! Staying with our friend Anthea was lovely and meeting up with Gary and Linda (and Linda's fiance Barry) has made for a memorable week.
The first thing Russ did was to check out the football fixtures. Arsenal Kiev v Dinamo Kiev sounded like it would be brilliant - a local derby with passionate fans. Sadly that's not quite how it worked out. He went with Barry and Gary, taking the metro out to the end of the line and then a bus out past the airport to the town of Borispol. That's actually where Arsenal (formerly CSKA) now play. Their stadium is tiny and makes Brighton's Withdean look like Wembley! Getting in was a problem as the ground holds just
5600 and no ticket booths were open. A tout came to our rescue but we were concerned as the first transaction we saw taking place resulted in the buyer being arrested and escorted away by a couple of officers in uniform. We ended up paying almost 7 times the face value of our tickets but they were still only £5. The game itself was pretty lame and the only goal was scored by Andrei Shevchenko, lately of Chelsea, direct from a free kick. Still, it was good to see how these things work, especially the tout situation!!!
Kiev was a wonderful city for wandering around. At every turn we were wowed by the architecture of the churches and the buildings, the monuments and the statues. The monument commemorating the famine of 1932-33 was particularly evocative. As usual, the military sculptures were of particular interest to us, and we even got to see quite a lot of former Soviet hardware! It was a real shame that the city's statue of Lenin was covered in scaffolding and obscured by mesh, but the communist party were hard at work close by!!
We did our usual cultural thing and went to the
opera. This time we saw a fabulous rendition of Puccini's Turandot, made famous by Pavarotti's rendition of
Nessun Dorma. The performance was tremendous with beautiful music, moving songs and magical stage sets. It's just a shame that so many others did not appreciate the performance and decided to talk all the way through. At least this time there were no mobile phones ringing, unlike when we were in Odesa.
There are countless museums in Kiev too. We only managed to get into one - the Chernobyl museum. It was a haunting place showing many images of an accident which should never have happened. We paid extra for the carry-round audio guide but it was too in-depth for us leaving no detail aside and giving extensive biographical information of many of the heroes of the aftermath. It was good, but there was simply too much information. Whilst it would have been interesting to go to the site of Chernobyl itself, we didn't have the time to organise a tour. Maybe next time.
So that was the end of our trip from Azerbaijan back to the UK. The flight back to Gatwick was at 0900, so we had an 0645
taxi. Too much vodka the night before saying goodbye to our friends proved to be a bad idea, but we'll not concern you with the details!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
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Ronnie Hausheer
non-member comment
sick?
Get some vitamin D 3 drops and take them every day. I put them i my morning juice. Get your D levels checked. Mine were 26. Now they are 64 which is good. Haven't gotten sick once since I started this regime. Highly recommeded for you and you friends.