Our last day in Kiev

After one spends the day in the Chernobyl Dead Zone, anything that comes after that is bound to be anticlimactic. As such, our last day in Kiev, while a fun day, wasn't nearly as interesting. Still, here goes:

We started off going to see the Kiev Pechersk Lavra - the Kiev Monastery of the Caves. It's one of those sights that all the guidebooks (including the much maligned 2010 Bradt guide to Ukraine) tell you is an absolute must-see when visiting Kiev. In my opinion, it was pretty over-rated. I'm not religious at all, so the religious aspects were lost on my. I do love a good onion dome, but I've seen better onion domes, even in Kiev. And the caves themselves weren't exactly cave-like. They were hot, humid, claustrophobia-inducing tunnels, with smooth plastered walls. Every so many feet was a mummified and shrouded holy person in a glass case. Photography was not allowed. Totally not my scene on so many levels.

One of the cathedrals in the caves monastery complex

After leaving the monastery and having lunch, we went to the nearby Monument to the Motherland, which I'd visited with D on my first day in Kiev, as the newly arrived Brits had yet to see it. At the base of the monument is the national world war II museum, which we visited. Quite a good museum, but *much* larger than I'd expected, and I was feeling pretty drained by the end of it. We wandered around that area a bit more, went to a Crimean restaurant just off Maidan for dinner, then returned to our apartment to have a few drinks with Pasha and, sadly, get packing.

Родина Мать - Mother of the Motherland


Our entire group: Me, N, A, B, D, and K


And our group in Pasha's kitchen:
Me, D, B, Pasha, A, and N

With the Brits in Kiev, Part 2

We returned to Kiev frightfully early on Wednesday morning. While the return train trip wasn't as traumatic as our train ride to Dnepropetrovsk, I hadn't exactly had a full night's sleep. And the Cat Lady needs her sleep. I spent most of the day resting in my apartment. Except for when we went for Georgian food.

On Thursday, D and his fiancee went off to some rural Ukrainian festival, and A had to work (via laptop/internet, poor sod), which left me, B, and N to wander around Kiev. After lunch at the Georgian restaurant, we decided to go and check out the Гидропарк - the hydropark. The hydropark has its own metro stop on the red line, which lets you off on an island in the middle of the Dnepr River. Yes, this is the same river we swam in down in Dnepropetrovsk, although it's far cleaner (at least to the eye) up in Kiev. The hydropark island is home to tons of small cafes, tons of walking paths, numerous stray dogs and cats, beaches for swimming, an abandoned amusement park, and a somewhat functional amusement park (consisting of machines from the abandoned one which still functioned). The weather was gorgeous, and we had an absolutely fantastic day, as photos will, of course, show:

One of the many stray dogs, all of whom looked quite well fed.

There were stray cats and dogs on the beach as well.

B decided to go swimming in his boxers. To be fair, I probably would've gone swimming in my undies, too, had I been wearing any.


The train on the bridge is the Kiev Metro

B and N

The first evidence of abandoned amusement park: Vinni Pookh and Petachok (Russian Winnie the Pooh and Piglet)

Second evidence of abandoned amusement park: Geni the Crocodile and Cheburashka

And then came the abandoned rides, overgrown with vines...

...and in varying stages of decay

This was the street of rides which were still in operation.

As we were leaving, we met the friendliest cat ever.

As you can see, B was very happy playing with her!

Unfortunately, when it came time to go, she wanted to follow us. Being unable to take her was heartbreaking :-(

With the Brits in Kiev, Part 1

The Brits (B, N, and A) arrived in Kiev on August 13th. They were flying Aerosvit, and were supposed to get in at 7:30pm. Their flight was delayed by three hours. They were told that the plane was late coming in from Kiev; however, when they were finally able to board, B learned the truth. As they were walking down the gate towards the aircraft, B noticed a clipboard containing some official looking paperwork, unguarded and just begging to be read. It was the maintenance manifest. Apparently the flight was delayed because they COULDN'T FIND THE KEY. Seriously. (Their taxi driver in Kiev asked them if their flight had been delayed because of the London riots. Sadly, no.)

Meanwhile, the taxi driver whom Pavel and I had requested to meet the Brits was getting a little cranky. At 11:00pm, he called us to say that everyone had disembarked and our three folks were not on the plane. We told him to keep waiting. Five minutes later he called to say that he had found them. Woohoo! They didn't make it to our apartment in Obolon (northern Kiev) until just after midnight.

A, N, me, B, and Rosya the cat

The next day (or at least up until 11pm - but that madness belongs to my next post) was pretty laid back. We all slept in, then went out to eat Georgian food and explore the city. I took them to Mimino - which I have to admit I'd been eating in pretty regularly since I discovered it. Then we wandered around the city, taking pretty much the same route I took the other day - from Kontraktova Ploshcha down to Pochtova Ploshcha, up the funicular, around St. Michael's Cathedral and St. Andrew's Church, then down the Andriyivskyy Descent and back to Kontraktova Ploshcha.

N & A and tons of khachapuri


B meets Kontraktova Ploshcha dog for the first time


A interacts with a statue, as one does


St. Michael's Cathedral


Random church. I don't know its name, but it just looked so different from typical churches in the area that I had to photograph it.

Stay tuned for the next step in our adventures, which began that night at 11pm...

stray animals and cultural differences

I spent yesterday and today doing very little of consequence, just resting up for the upcoming madness. I’ve done a good deal of wandering about, playing with the stray(ish) animals. I say stray(ish), because many seem to have their own territories staked out, and seem to do very well off scraps provided to them by their neighboring humans.

In Korea, keeping animals as pets is somewhat of a novelty, and really only done by those who purchase purebred animals from pet stores. The idea of taking an animal off the street (generally viewed as dirty, diseased, and dangerous) and bringing it into your home is just about unheard of. Granted, cat and dog cafes are becoming popular in Seoul, but they’re still quite a novelty. When I say that Charlie was once a street cat, most Koreans tend to recoil in horror. (“Why didn’t you buy a cat from a pet store?” is a common question.)

Stray animals in Korea are not treated well by the general populace (they’re viewed more like vermin than anything else), and as a result they tend to do everything they can to avoid contact with humans. The only interactions I’ve had with stray animals over the past year (prior to arriving in Ukraine) involved opening a can of tuna, setting it down, then watching as a stray cat warily snuck over to eat. Most strays don’t have an International Cat Lady around to put out tuna. However, as a result of the way garbage is collected in Korea, there are plenty of ‘trash heaps’ in every neighborhood, and that’s usually where stray cats and dogs eat. There are far more stray cats in Korea than stray dogs.

In Kiev, there are stray dogs and cats all over the place. The dogs aren’t small, either; most of them seem to be large-sized shepherd mixes. And, oddly enough, most seem fairly well fed. Few seem fat, but I’ve yet to see any that are skin-and-bones. I haven’t encountered any threatening stray dogs. Most are either friendly, or rapidly become uninterested as soon as they discover that you’re not bearing food.

My favorite Kiev dog is a female shepherd mix who lives in a park near Kontraktova Ploshcha. I’ve seen her there three times now. She is incredibly sweet and friendly, and is totally willing to play, whether or not you have snacks for her. I brought her a hotdog today, although as someone had recently given her the remains of a t-bone, she only ate part of it. (She did however drive away the few pigeons who sought to steal her hotdoggy prize, so I guess she’s saving it for later, when the steak wears off.)

The dog that lives near Kontraktova Ploshcha (in the park across from Пузата Хата)

Not only do I see stray dogs with their begging territories, I see stray cats with them, too. I saw quite a few kitties both times I walked the Andriyivsky Descent – and the second time I walked it, I noticed souvenir vendors sharing scraps with the cats. One had even brought some catfood! Meanwhile, here in “my” neighborhood, there is one particular cat who hangs out near a group of kiosks (one of which is a butcher’s). He’s incredibly friendly, and I’ve seen quite a few locals playing with him – and feeding him.

Me and Kiosk Cat in northern Kiev

Then there’s Rosya. He lives with my host family, and is seventeen years old. He’s quite a stately chap, and very demanding when he wants something. He frequently demands entrance into my room, simply so that he can sniff all of my bags for eau de Charlie. Apparently, in his younger and more athletic days, he used to sit on the floor beneath an open window, patiently waiting for a pigeon to land on the windowsill – and he was apparently quite good at catching them! (Keep in mind, he lives on the 13th floor!)

Rosya

Rosya

Then there’s the part of the US where my mom lives (and where – rather frighteningly – I’ll be in less than ten days). My mom is now up to NINE dogs, all of which had been abandoned, and most of which were starving when she found them. This is her latest acquisition, an incredibly friendly skin-n-bones hound that was dumped out on her land just a few weeks ago:

Having worked with animal control in that neck of the woods, I am most unfortunately aware that being a stray in that part of the US is much more similar to being a stray in Korea than in Kiev. People would call and demand immediate removal of a “dangerous animal” (which nine times out of ten would be something small and friendly) and threaten to shoot it if it wasn’t picked up within the hour. Christmas puppies would grow into summertime dogs and be left tied at the shelter’s gate – or dumped on my mom’s land. Animals would be hurled over the shelter’s fence in the dead of night, often resulting in injury or death. Idiots hurling a puppy or a cat over a 10 foot fence into a pen of adult, male dogs? Yes, that happened way too many times. Dog fighters who train with puppies and kittens? Sadly, I've seen then remains of that too many times, too.

While there are certainly people in the area other than my mother who have ridiculous numbers of animals (and who do so because no one else is willing to care for them), the vast majority of people in that area simply don’t care. I’ll be there soon, and I’m trying to prepare myself. (This might give you a clue as to what I mean when I talk about the ex-job, and you can probably understand why I get pretty worked up about it.)

the next few days...

Not much has been going on the past few days, although starting tomorrow (Saturday) things are going to get pretty hectic.

Tomorrow evening, B, N, and A are flying in from the UK.

Sunday evening, the four of us are taking the train to Dnepropetrovsk, where our friend D lives. (From what I gather, Dnepropetrovsk is an industrial sort of place where no one in their right mind would go while on vacation. D has written a little about the absurdity of five foreigners being in Dnepropetrovsk at one time on his blog, which you should totally read.) After taking the overnight train into Dnepr, we'll spend one night and two days there, taking the overnight train back into Kiev on Tuesday night, rolling into Kiev at some ungodly hour like 6am on Wednesday.

We don’t really have much in terms of specific plans for how to entertain ourselves in Kiev during the rest of the week, but having traveled with these folks before, I know we’ll be able to amuse ourselves with no problems. On Friday, assuming all goes as planned, we’ll be off to Pripyat and Chernobyl for some pleasant romping through radiation.

Then bright and early Sunday morning (actually, probably not bright at all…) I’ll be boarding a plane for the USA :-(

I don’t know how busy I’ll be whilst the Desolation Travel crew are together, and I may or may not have time to blog about our adventures on a daily basis. No worries, though, posts about our adventures will totally go online as soon as possible.

More Georgian food, the Chernobyl Museum, and Podil

I spent most of my day today in the Podil region of Kiev. I set out with the goal of visiting the Ukrainian National Chernobyl Museum. As a secondary goal, I wanted to try another Georgian restaurant, Mimino, located in the same part of the city. I knew that both were located somewhere within walking distance of metro station Kontraktova Ploshcha. I had their addresses, and a very crap map (I believe I've mentioned my disdain for the 2010 Bradt Guide to Ukraine...), and figured I could probably find them.

I found the restaurant first - and rather accidentally - but it was already 2pm by that point, and I was pretty hungry. Minimo was great! Much better ambiance than Alaverde (where I ate on Monday), and incredibly good service. I didn't just eat khachapuri this time - I added in an appetizer of eggplant in walnut sauce. Both the khachapuri and the eggplant were fantastically scrumptious. Monday's khachapuri at Alaverde was yummy, but todays was simply wonderful. Granted, this place cost a bit more, but it was DEFINITELY worth it.

There were a handful of people dining, although you can't see them in this shot. Even nearly empty of customers (2pm on a weekday isn't exactly prime dining time), the ambiance of Minimo was far superior to Alaverde.


Egglpant in walnut sauce appetizer. Yum!

After my lunch - and feeling wonderfully stuffed - I continued on my quest for the Chernobyl Museum. The museum's website provides its address as Khoryv Lane #1. Silly me, I only looked at the English language part of the website, not the Ukrainian. All street signs here are in Ukrainian, but I figured I could transliterate it with no problem. I had jotted down Хорив #1, and set off on my merry way. Well, I found вул. Хорива with no problem - and although I had no idea what the abbreviation for 'lane' was in Ukrainian, I figured that surely this must be where I needed to be. I had a nice scenic walk down to #1 вул. Хорива, only to discover that it was a furniture store, located within an absolutely hideous example of Soviet era architecture not even worth a photo. Sigh. Wrong place. Time to retrace my steps. Luckily the area was scenic.

Seen while walking about looking for the museum

After much more walking, I discovered про Хоревий #1 (ironically located a stone's throw from Minimo). Apparently in Ukrainian, 'lane' is провулок (similar to the Russian переулок). Ahh well. Anyhow, I had arrived at the Chernobyl Museum. Entrance to the museum costs a little over $1 (although if you want to take photos, which of course I did, you must pay roughly an additional $2). I'd say it was worth $3. If you didn't know very much about Chernobyl, and hadn't spent the better part of the past year researching it while planning your upcoming trip there, it would probably be incredibly eye opening and educational. As it was, I'd pretty much seen it all before.

I'm not sure if this was a deformed pig or sheep. I thought it was interesting that it was on display, since many of the tour agencies that take groups into the exclusion zone (I'm going next week!!) point out on their sites that you will not see deformed animals on your trip...


Photos from the abandoned city of Pripyat, where those who worked at the reactor lived.



There was a lot that seemed designed more to creep one out than to educate.

The most interesting part of the whole thing was the speaker. There was some large group of middle-aged American tourists at the museum, and their guide had arranged a speaker for them. I may have snuck in. The speaker's name was Vladimir. He had been in the Soviet Army reserves in 1986, and was drafted to be part of the cleanup process after the accident. He worked at Chernobyl for a month and a half, leaving with severe radiation poisoning. It was incredibly fascinating, and I wish I hadn't missed the first half of his speech.

Vladimir (right) and his translator (for the middle-aged American tourists)

After leaving the museum, I decided to walk around Podil for a little bit. I'd gotten somewhat oriented during my quest for the museum, and after walking around just a tad more, I realized where I was in relation to the funicular and the church that's I'd tried to visit on Monday. And off I went! This time I had no problems getting on the funicular. I'd already checked the internet and determined that the church I was looking for was the St. Andrew's Church of Kiev - and I knew exactly how to get there from the top of the funicular. Yay, google maps! The church is currently closed and undergoing massive renovation (apparently it has some serious foundation problems), but I was still able to get quite a few good external shots.

St. Andrew's Church of Kiev

Afterwards, I walked down the narrow, winding, cobblestone street - the Andriyivsky Descent - which leads from St. Andrew's Church, back down to Kontraktova Ploshcha. The street was lined with tons of venders of Ukrainian arts and crafts as well as of Soviet era kitsch. I must go back some day when I have more cash in my wallet. Along the way I encountered several cats and dogs - all of whom were friendly.

This cat was chilling on a souvenir stand... and there was no human in sight. Was he the salesman?


Bet you can guess who this silly critter reminded me of!

taking the fun out of funicular

I meant to spend all of yesterday studying for the GRE (which I'm taking tomorrow morning). Instead I decided that what I really needed to do was to find a Georgian restaurant (as in the country, not the US state) and eat some khachapuri. The restaurant I decided to find is called Alaverde, and it's located a short walk from the Poshtova Ploshcha metro station. The ambiance was pretty underwhelming (although that may have been due in part to the fact that I was the only person dining there at the time), and the service was pretty terrible. The khachapuri, however, was quite yummy.

It might have been a different experience, had the place been filled with lively folks having animated conversations...


There was also an outdoor seating area, which was far more appealing... except for the waiter scrubbing the chairs with a bucket of smelly, grey, allegedly soapy water.


Yum!

After gorging myself on way too much khachapuri, I decided to walk around the neighborhood, as it was a part of Kiev I'd yet to visit. The day was beautiful, and both the streets and river embankment were excellent places in which to stroll.






Look what I found! Look what I found!

An old school Volvo! A *green* old school Volvo! Just like the one I used to have. (A few years older, actually, but pretty damn close.) And I swear I heard it before I saw it. There's something about the hum of an old Volvo engine - it's a sound you never forget. The driver gave me quite a look - I did, after all, stand in the crosswalk to take this shot. Sadly, the light turned green, and he drove off before I could get a shot from the front.

After noticing a church I hadn't yet visited, spires gleaming from atop the hill, I decided to take the funicular to the hilltop in order to see if I could find it. I do enjoy a good onion dome.

I stood in line for at least fifteen minutes, waiting to buy a 'token' that would allow me to pass through the turnstile and onto the boarding platform for the funicular. I amused myself by taking some pictures of the station.

Now, I knew that the cost to ride the funicular was 1.5 gryvna, but I wasn't really paying attention - my brain being distracted, anticipating the joys of riding a 105 year old eastern European funicular. Safety, shmafety. When I finally reached the cashier, I handed her two gryvna, took the token she gave me, and stuck it into the turnstile. And it popped right back out. I tried again; same result. Then I looked closely at it. Wait a minute! This wasn't a turnstile token, it was my 50 kopeck change! I cut back in to the front of the line and told the cashier, "You gave me my change, but you didn't give me my token." She gave me a completely blank look and replied, "To get a token, stand at the end of the line," then she turned her attention to the next person. I had obviously been dismissed from her thoughts. Welcome to Ukraine.

The line at this point was at least double what it had been when I'd arrived. Not wanting to wait thirty more minutes in order to buy yet another token, I did what any sensible person would do: I climbed the damn hill on foot. There's a rather boring park along the same hill as the funicular - nothing but some winding brick paths and a couple of benches. After a rather steep hike, I arrived at the top of the funicular, only to discover that while I was indeed at the foot of a fabulously onion domed church, it wasn't the church I had seen from down below. Instead, I was at the back of St. Michael's - a pretty church, but one which I'd already seen. At that point, I was hot, sweaty, and tired, and wanted nothing more than to return home and take a nap. And as the closest metro station was at the foot of the funicular...

Yes, I rode the funicular down the hill.