Goncharenko centre 2025-5-4: Why I chose to buy a house in the area of Kremenchuk and travelling in varous countries, what is different and what stood out to me

Post event notes: See farther down on this page.

Translation: auto translation of this page into Ukrainian

Why I chose to buy a house in the area of Kremenchuk

This is a bit dependent on the situation. If circumstances had been different I might have bought a house in or near Zaporizhya, or Kharkov. But possibly not because I saw mostly very expensive houses and in/near Zaporizhya a lot of unfinished houses. I wasn't interested in either due to the risks and for unfinished houses, due to not having a long term residence permit.

It evolved, in a similar way to these talks. Let me tell you a reply I made in an email to what someone from Kiev wrote me:

And in a follow-up email I added the following to show how and why the idea for a meeting to talk about my "list of life", happened:

This is a good illustration of how things happen in life, from one thing comes another, possibly something very different.

My travels

After that I travelled to Ukraine many times to decide what to do with my life. I had the idea already before my first trip to UA that I could live here.

I travelled by bicycle from NL to Germany and back one time. I wanted to ride to Ukraine but had too many problems with the bicycle...

I travelled to Poland several times to meet a friend who lives there. I travelled in Poland by bicycle around Wroclaw and a longer trip from Bialystok to see about nature, houses etc. Also with my friend by car to a camping in Chalupy and from there I made day trips by bicycle several times

I travelled to Hungary, Lithuania, Latvia once to see if I could find there what I like in Ukraine.

My travels: Longer descriptions:

I travelled by bicycle in Germany on a 11 day bicycle trip (1400 km) many years ago. I wanted to make a long bike tour to Ukraine but I had so many problems with equipment that I returned near Dresden. I noticed in Germany various things: People were more interested in me/my bicycle than in the Netherlands. People asked where I was going, how many kilometres I ride per day. 1 guy pointed me to a mountain cabin (well, more on a hill), though I think I had already seen it on the map. He also suggested early in the morning I could get fresh milk for example. Some people helped me with some food or directing me to an place to get something to steady my stomach as I wasn't feeling well 1 day and weak the next day. And 1 time I asked for some water at a house and this woman was really hesitant, as if I was there to rob her, or something like that... At the start of the trip, 1st day in NL in the evening at the camp site I didn't need to pay anything (normally it is paid)...

The reason for travelling to the UK was for work, I did consulting work for bicycle and pedelec lighting. I liked the UK and for some reason I never thought about moving there. I like for example humour (as you can see in various TV series such as Red dwarf, Hitchhiker's guide to the galaxy). Brexit would make it difficult to move there, and there are some other things I don't like there. I do like the old style shops and pubs in London, colourful, decorated with flowers, similar to what I experienced in Ukraine, for example in 2024 in Kharkov...

I was in a hostel in 2016, called "Pilligrim". I talked to a guy (I think from Canada, check my travel pages) from about living in Ukraine, he said it would be better to go live in Lithuania or Latvia, it would be easy to move there because these countries are in the EU, and they have what I like in Ukraine (such as the parks).

Hungary: I met a guy here whom I knew via my bicycle web site, we talked about various topics in life, manipulation, the project that I was working on then (which I later greatly expanded to 'understanding life'). Nice and hot weather in summer. I didn't see anything particularly interesting in buildings, parks. I had some interesting talks in a hostel with people from the UK, a guy doing some volunteer 'soldiering' for example in Mariupol. Just before leaving I talked to a girl from Scotland. I talked about NL/Scotland, they have the stingy mentality in common. I prefer to pay the lowest prices but I will pay a good price for something that I really like and especially for good quality equipment (such as my bicycles). I said I was going to walk to the bus station (for a bus back to Poland). She was surprised, it was I think 33 Celsius or so and she said she didn't like the heat. I said: "I love it!"... I didn't see interesting buildings, parks.

Lithuania: See my travel pages. Nothing really stood out and I didn't talk enough with other travellers there.

Latvia: In Riga in a hostel I talked with some girls from Vilnius and Kaunas. We talked about different languages for example, how they are related. I found it interesting how many people spoke Russian outside on the street. I didn't see any interesting buildings, parks were not cool.

Result of travelling to Latvia and Lithuania as per the suggestion of that guy in the hostel in Kharkov: I saw nothing that I really liked there, and the same goes for Hungary so I didn't see anything close to what I found in Ukraine.

in 2021 I was in the final stage of finishing renovations of my house (I replaced the roof, stucco, electric wiring, several radiators and pipes to them, the floors, ceilings, rebuilt an attachment, re-laid all tiles outside, reorganised the garden, and much more.). I looked on especially dom.ria.com and saw some very nice houses, especially 1 in Denishi, a village about 25 km from Zhytomyr. I had visited that village several years earlier to look at the ruins of an old castle. Another house looked nice (but the impression in 2022 was a bit different, it needed quite a bit of work), in Perlyavka, I think about 15 km from Zhytomyr

I think it was early 2022 that a friend from Wroclaw then suggested "Why don't you buy a house in Poland?". OK, I decided to look for houses in Poland, found very interesting and nice houses, for lower prices than in Ukraine.

My friend loaned me a bicycle with Alfine 11 speed gear hub. I travelled around Wroclaw, some days 30-60 km, one day close to 100 km, and I noticed: The landscape is very similar to the Netherlands where you often have city/town, then farmer's land, then city/town, etc. It looks too organised, not enough spaces to sit in the shade (trees) in the summer heat. There are bunches of trees in various places, but usually on farmer's land, not next to a road.

I then went to Bialystok, stayed a few days in a type of hostel, run by a couple from Kharkov who had fled the war in UA. I talked to various people there, especially lorry drivers who transported goods for example from or via Belarus.

I then decided to go further down. On one trip I got to an agro-tourism place near a village called Rudka. I noticed I had lost my short trousers + leather belt. The next day it was raining so only made short trips. The next day I left, went back the route I had taken. Found in a village called Godzieby my trousers but my earplugs from the pocket were gone and the leather belt was gone. I saw some children playing. It was hard to talk to them. It seemed they were talking in French. Strange. I decided to go to the farm terrain, met the farmer, talked with him in English/Russian. He then invited me for food and tea... After that I went back on my trip southward to Siedlce (from there I took a train back to Wroclaw the next day, I felt that I had seen enough, and that further looking for a house in Poland was not useful as I just never got the same feeling in Poland, as I got in Ukraine).

I decided to look further for houses in Ukraine. I looked in most regions but found interesting houses mostly in the Zhytomyr region, around Kiev, and several in or near Zaporizhya and Kharkov. I went to Zhytomyr because I liked several things, some of the parks, the small space museum and it is the city where a friend of mine lived. Perhaps a good place to buy a house in or near Zhytomyr? At the start of my trip, when I was in Kiev (I think it was that day that I arrived), I found a cool house on dom.ria.com, when I got to Kiev. I wanted to visit that house, so after a day in Kiev, and a few days with a friend in Irpin, during which time I sent a message to the realtor (but received no answer) I went to Zhytomyr early in the morning, to meet my friend and immediately visit that house. The house was stated to be located in Zhytomyr but actually the realtor was messing with buyers, trying to make it more appealing, by changing its position to be in Zhytomyr. It was actually 25 km away from Zhytomyr... Due to her behaviour after about 3 weeks I left Zhytomyr, then started thinking about other regions. Odessa; Too noisy, perhaps Nikolayev? Kremenchuk? Poltava? Zaporizhya: Too high risk. Kharkov: Too high risk.

Then in 2023 I saw on olx, the house that I later bought in 2024, near Kremenchuk. I like the area, and Kremenchuk has some nostalgia due to staying here for a longer time (about 2 weeks) on my 2nd trip in Ukraine, but also interesting places and objects such as "the most dangerous bridge in the world" (towards Kryukiv), the parks, the beach at the river (even though I am not someone who wants to lie on a beach ;-) ).

Travelling, what I noticed in various countries

People in NL are more closed than in Germany, in Germany more than in Poland, in Poland more than in Ukraine.

Nature is in many places is 'fake' in the Netherlands, such as trees beside the roads at almost equal distances from each other. I mean that such nature is created, not natural. In Germany I didn't find the style of buildings interesting, parks were not interesting except in East Germany, where it was clear that the parks were styled similar to in Ukraine (and I presume similar to in Russia). In Poland I found nature too organised, just as in the Netherlands, further the language doesn't appeal to me (just from the sound), buildings/parks don't appeal to me, people are fairly closed, though some do help, just as in NL, Germany. Also in shops I hear mostly the same crappy popular music (from various countries but the style originates from the USA) as in the Netherlands, not Polish popular music. I only heard polish music once on a walk when some other guys were walking in the opposite direction and were using some device to play that music while walking. In Ukraine people are more happy as I could see walking in Kiev (people smiling, being exuberant), despite the war, whereas in Poland people mostly walk around as if they are surly or in a bad mood...

People in the Netherlands are famous for being direct, and open in business dealings (and famously many people leave the curtains open in the evening, apparently this stems from a few hundred years ago of the trading empire by sea, people trying to show that "They have nothing to hide", but also they are fairly closed, they do not talk about personal matters, even personal matters about say hobbies. The directness is shown in viewing greetings. I and others in the Netherlands consider the 'polite' greeting of "How do you do?" in English as impolite because there is no desire nor need to hear any answer. The response is usually another "How do you do?". A question to which you are not interested in the answer is a pointless question and thus to me and others impolite because it is essentially a waste of time. In Dutch the greeting would be something like "Goedendag" ("Good day", so similar to in Ukrainian "Dobriy dyen") which is not a fake question but a general greeting of positivity, much better.

Post event notes about comment from attendees and things I told that I didn't write about above

I mentioned the issues I had in Zhytomyr and asked whether attendees had experienced such as sudden weird behaviour of someone they knew. One of them said that he agreed with a friend studying at university to do the required projects at the end of May, but this friend saw on the university's system that he had already done something and he got annoyed at him. I said that I had an idea of why he behaved like that and I asked whether he had an idea. Well, he couldn't find the right words so I asked others

One of them said that she cannot know what someone else thinks and I said that that is 'empathy' and being able to understand other people by imagining yourself in their position.

Another said that she felt it was good that he did the tasks already, well, yes, but the point is: Why did his friend get annoyed with him? Of course that guy thinks differently than she does, and already the agreement they made to finish some required tasks only at the end of May indicates that, in that they wanted to put off the required tasks, and do more fun things first.

One of the attendees was close to what I think was the reason, and this is it: He and the attendee wanted to put off the required tasks and do other things first, but since the attendee had done a few things already, this guy felt pressure to also do something and this annoyed him.

The attendee whose friend suddenly got annoyed agreed and this is what he wanted to say but couldn't find the right words at first.

Music: So, I mentioned about music that I don't like any music that I heard in Poland, and in NL too you hear the same type of crappy American and European-but-in-american-style type music (the seller of the house likes for example old jazz and blues and same as I dislikes the current American music, he said it has no class, I agree). One of the attendees asked what sort of music I like, and I like all sorts but mostly unusual music. She suggested to listen to a band she is in and I like the songs: відень спить (https://m.youtube.com/@viennasleeeeep).

Just as something that might be interesting I will list some of the music that I like, some unusual, others not so unusual: