[ email | Criticism/analysis of society | Travelling | Projects | Talks in the Goncharenko centre » | 2025-6-4: Travel to Stryi, Ivano-Frankivsk, possibly later to Lviv. Train and bicycle. Updates to come every day if all goes well ]
See also: Talks at the goncharenko centre 2025.
On 2025-6-4 I will take the train from Kremenchuk to Stryi, with my bicycle. I will post here equipment used, pictures, etc. I will try to upload pictures with thumbnails, though making thumbnails on Android sucks...
So on 2025-6-5 I will arrive a bit after 5 in the morning in Styi, then I will ride about 100 km to Ivano-Frankivsk, then 20 km south to a friend, then the next day or a few days later ca. 70 km south from there to Кривопілля. Then after a few days back to Ivano-Frankivks, perhaps stay a few days there, then probably to Lviv (ca. 200 km).
See my talk on cycling equipment from 2025-4-27, but I will add a bit to that: I forgot my electric kettle and USB charger! This meant I had to use my powerbank to charge the phone which was drained quite a bit from that at the start of the first long day of riding. To avoid such issues, you can have items ready to go for travelling, most of which you don't use for anything else: If it is already in a travel bag, then you cannot forget to take it... More on that later. (This is only a good idea if you travel a lot, of course).
Some more notes; I took a solar panel, quite old, about 10 years and I found it works but only provided about 1 W of power even in full sun, from the indication of the power bank which shows how much power goes in or out. Also a first aid kit, cordless shaver, 2x spare inner tubes.
There was consternation, the ladies checking tickets said there was no space. Then I said I would take the wheels off the bike and put the bike in the high storage space in the coupe. Then a conductor came, he didn't want that I put the bike as luggage in the coupe, that would work with platskart he said, but not coupe, and then he showed that I could put it in the other entrance. He was annoyed. The door of that side on the same platform was stuck. He told me to go to the locomotive, but he meant around it to the other platform. Someone else was there who pulled up the bike. After all that he got more relaxed and smiled and said "yolki palki" :)
images:
Bike and conductor:
Bicycle in the unused entrance of the train:
Having tea + peanuts + cranberries + very tasty yoghurt in the train:
I went to a village about 20 km south from Ivano-Frankivsk. This happened:
I bought some tea in the train at ca. 4:40, put on my cycling clothes at ca. 5:00, filled my thermos bottle with hot water, the train arrived in Stryi ca. 5:15. The 2 conductors who helped the previous afternoon, opened the door where I had placed my bicycle, and took it out. I organised my bags a bit better, had a look in the train station, then went to a park, continued cycling, saw an ATB in Stryi and although I had 3 bottles of yoghurt with me I bought there more to drink + 2 bananas. It started well , across the river I saw the first bus stop with mosaics in the village Slobidka (Слобідка).
Later (see further) I was bushed after very bad roads which started at Велика Туря, but I encountered a lot of interesting bus stops on the route I selected which I selected exactly for this purpose: not highways/motor ways but smaller roads where the chance to encounter such bus stops is greater.
Stryi:
A monument with 3 figures at 120 degrees from each other: Taras Shevchenko, Ivan Franko, Lesya Ukrainka:
Slobidka:
Just before I got to the really bad parts, after Velika turya (Велика туря), I took a break to copy files from my DJI action camera to SSD, and it drained my phone's battery, tried my backup phone, but the battery level was low on that one too. I used my 18650 batteries with ML102 charger/powerbank and tried a solar panel but they were too slow at charging. So I stopped doing all that and just getting to my destination, for which my main phone was needed for navigation, became the priority. I used up quite a bit of energy from the powerbank already at the start before getting off the train because of not having a USB charger and so my main powerbank was close to drained.
After this break I continued on this bad road which became worse and worse, with cobble stones, gravel, and sections under water. I made a fall on that road at some point, when I was trying to evade a pothole with water. Then after about 7-8 km I realised that I was missing my sports jacket. I already lost one in 2024 after making an evening ride from Khutor Gogolya (in Veliki Soronchintsi) and I didn't find it next morning (partly riding again the 20 km route that I rode the previous evening), so I wanted to ride back this time and get it back because I like that jacket. So I went back, riding even slower than before (fast riding is impossible there with a lot of luggage), looking where it might have fallen, perhaps in one of the deep puddles? After ca. 5km, maybe it was 7km, I thought at some point "God, let it be close" and a few hundred metres further I saw it on the ground in the middle of the road :)
So this section was pretty bad, cobble stone/gravel roads, with many sections under water, and riding through water was heavy going, especially where it was muddy. I needed a boat! Because I made a fall and had some pain in my right leg, I took it fairly easy. Then I finally left this road behind me. It seemed to be a barely used road, got to the village Bolokhiv (Болохів).
Bus stop at Bolokhiv (Болохів):
From this point on roads were still bad and remained bad for almost 10 km but not as bad as that road where I fell. I wanted to ask someone whether I could charge my phone. I saw a cool bus stop with mosaics at the start (or end) of the village, then saw a guy working in a green house. He didn't hear me so I continued cycling. A bit later I saw a barking dog and I saw an older woman looking at me so I approached and asked her whether they could charge my phone. It was not clear so her daughter (and grand daughter) and husband came. They then gave me tea, and food, a few slices of bread with eggs and meat... Then in the end they even gave me a USB charger! I am using that now. That goes in the travel kit.
It was a bit difficult to communicate, Ukrainian is difficult to understand at all, I used the translation on the phone briefly, but after that my phone was being charged so no translation help from that point onwards. The way of speaking also varies per region which affects how much I understand it. I had to guess a lot, and some later talks in the destination village, Горохолина, I had to guess almost entire sentences. One of the odd things was that the man asked me about the army. I thought I told him (in Russian) that I am from NL but he didn't understand it or didn't take enough notice. So I reiterated that and that I don't need to go into the army (and this means I am free to travel without having to 'worry' about getting in the hands enlistment officers). I wondered why he didn't hear that I am not a native Russian speaker but this is probably because of being from a small village (I asked him and he was born there).
One of the problems of using things in daily life and also for trips is that you need to check that you took everything. I want to change that and keep ready to go bags that I only use for travelling. The small electric kettle that I use at home, I bought specifically for travelling but I had been using it at home because I hadn't got round to buy a faster kettle for use at home yet... I will buy one as soon as possible.
From there it was about 8km of still very bad roads until about the village Verkhnya (Вехня) but I encountered a few interesting bus stops with mosaics on that route.
Later I still had to go up 3 fairly steep hills. I think it was before the last one that I went into a shop, asked for cold Zhivchik Yabloka (apple) which is fantastic on hot days, but no. I told her a bit about that I like everything in Ukraine, in the shops. She didn't have this drink cold, I left, then she came out, and asked me about the war. I said "Есть война? Правильно?" (There is a war? Really?) She was confused but then realised it was a joke and smiled. I then explained that I had these plans before the war and "I didn't want to let an idiot from Russia spoil my plans". I asked whether she had any Zhivchik Yabloka, not refrigerated, as that is actually also good. She had that so I went back inside, bought a bottle, and she repeated then what I said about not letting that idiot spoil my plans. This means that she found it very unusual...
I went through a town called Kalush, somewhat hilly, looked nice but didn't spend time there due to all the delays (more than 2 hours from copying files and other things, ca. 2 hours slowly riding on that awful road and back to look for my sports jacket, then riding it again, then ca. 1 hour at the family where my phone was charged to 60% and powerbank to 30% which I thought would be enough), and in general I was riding slowly because of some pain in my right leg from the fall.
It was getting late from all the issues I had but also from stopping and making pictures of interesting places takes a lot of time, so my friend decided to come get me by car for the last 18 km or so, though it didn't save much time compared to cycling. I had ridden about 106 km this day.
In total this day I photographed 7 bus stops with mosaics and the next day another 2 that I noticed the first day but didn't photograph that day because we were in a car (and it was getting dark). The first one is about 10 km from the village, and the 2nd inside the village.
This was mostly a rest day. I cleaned the bicycle and bags from all the mud, I went to Bogorochany (Богородчани), to an ATB supermarket to buy something to drink for trips the coming days. On the way I first photographed the bus stop in Горохолина, then a bit farther I noticed that the Igaro C1 (headlamp + USB charger) wasn't charging the phone. I did some trouble shooting but it was not clear yet. I went to the ATB market, then looked a bit around the town, went to a park, then to the river where people were relaxing (it was a Friday, and quite warm), then more exploring the town, then to the direction of Lisets (Лисець) (further going on that road you would come to Ivano-Frankivsk), where I noticed an unusual bus stop. A bit like one near Skorodystyk (Скородистик) (about 30 km from Zolotonosha in the direction towards Kremenchuk), which is an entry sign to the village + bus stop, but this one is smaller, no village name but it has a mosaic on the rear wall. I found the issue with the lamp/USB charger was with the cable, and I fixed it provisionally. A little later I returned and took the quickest way to do so because the circle route that I wanted to take meant I would be back quite late, at least 22 O'clock. Ride distance: about 26 km.
Note for myself about the travel kit: add slippers for when visiting people, as my friend's family didn't have them in my size.
Pictures to come.
I went to the river, but first to a village called Grabovets ( Грабовець ), where I encountered another bus stop with mosaic. So 7 on the first day, 2 the next day, then 1, in total 10 so far.
River/swimming. The river close to Grabovets: We looked for a place to swim, the river bed was full of pebbles from small to very large. The river wasn't that deep in many places so that limited our swims. What stood out is that people leave too much trash... We then cycled home via a detour to see if we could find a way across the river a bit farther to circle back instead of going back as we came.
Evening: To cemetery, customs, difference with NL: In Ukraine I often see cemeteries from a road whereas in NL I rarely see any. More hidden by selection of where they are placed using nature and/or walls? In Ukraine I often saw grave stones offered in various places such as near markets, whereas in NL this business is also more hidden. I never saw any. Graves are wooden with soil on top or stone with cutouts for flowers that can be planted there, so there is more of a connection to 'the rest of the world'.
The day before orthodox pentecost people go to the cemetery to clean the graves, put flowers there or tree branches.
Pictures to come.
I wanted to leave a bit after 6 in the morning, to cycle to Delyatin and possibly take a train there to Vorokhta. In my mind I was thinking already to just cycle the whole route. We left at ca. 7 in the morning with some tasty sandwiches giving to me that my friend's mother made. My friend had suggested taking the train for a section as the road to Kryvopillya is very busy and people often want to overtake even when there is not much space, and because the road would not be interesting. When I came to the area near Yaremche I felt this was correct about the road, but still I saw many interesting places and some interesting bus stops, so it was worth it. I didn't make it in time to Delyatin for the train of 9:32, due to making too many stops to photograph interesting places, which was fine as I thought it would be better to make the full ride by bicycle.
The closer I got to Yaremche, the more advertisements, bill boards, I saw. Big ones. Annoying to see so many bill boards spoiling the view of nature, of interesting style houses, of hills etc. Many places did the same thing such as renting quads, or about places where you can do rafting. It all felt too touristy and too busy a bit before Yaremche, then especially in Yaremche but after that too for quite a while. This feeling left me in Kryvopillya.
In the area just after Yaremche I saw a ski jump place. No snow, so either not being used with generated snow or perhaps it uses some plastic type landing area.
It was not particularly hilly until Yaremche where there was a relatively steep road with lots of cars parked on the right hand side so not much space for traffic. I walked this and I could see more of what was going on there, the tourist attractions.
I got closer to the Carpathians and it became much hillier. In the end I reached a height a little before Kryvopillya of about 1000m, coming from I think it was 230 m in xxx (total actual climb was a bit more due to some descents, it may have been aboout 1000m climbing. I would need to check the data).
Pictures to come.
In Kryvopillya (Кривопілля) I wanted to have a look at the place that a guy I met in a cafe of a friend some months earlier, was taking care of. From what he said at the time I thought he meant this was a place for music events.
I thought he would be there alone, but that was not the case, from talking via Telegram he mentioned food being prepared. He came down the hill to meet me, we left my bicycle in the shed of a neighbour at the road level and we went up the hill. A bit later he told me more about other people being there and that there is a cost to stay. I also found out that it is indeed a place for music events but with a slant, namely a bit similar to yoga resorts. For some reason I often meet people who are into this (example the woman in Kharkov, in 2016, and later in 2018, and various people in and near Kremenchuk), whereas I am not really interested in meditation, I think there is something far more important that should be done than 'meditation': Explain life, explain what makes sense in how to live, for example as I do in my list of life.
Another issue is that I have further strong criticism of groups that do meditation: All the groups that I know that are in some way organised to have a place for themselves, have had strong negative effects on many people. This is because such groups are created by idealists and idealists are almost always problematic (oppressive, wanting to create change, thinking they know everything better and thus what they are doing is justified). [ (see my criticism page, this one about an indoctrinated woman from Yalta: My site: Email 2014-3-22 from indoctrinated woman from Yalta (Crimea, Ukraine) where I give an overview of such groups as an introduction to the problem shown on that page, which is of indoctrination. ]
[ I talked with one woman a bit more than others, I mentioned that meditation isn't needed, you can do it anywhere, gardening, riding a bike, thinking about nothing, connecting with nature... She agreed. I mentioned a few other things that are important in life, such as that idealists cause problems, and she agreed with those other comments I made too. I thought: "You don't need meditation, if you know all that"... But I suppose she was looking to be in a place with similar minded people. A very important point in life is stated by this saying: "Birds of a feather flock together" as I stated to one person at the end of the meeting. So people want to be around people who are similar. Perhaps also she felt, when I stated the results of my analysis of situations related to these topics, that, "yes that makes sense" but that is different from actually understanding by yourself, the same as when a teacher explains something vs. that you can explain it to someone else which is far more difficult, you need more background information for that.
About incompetence of psychologists, she suggested it could be because of studying psychology to understand yourself being more 'in vogue', or 'a fad', to use a few expressions. I said that this is not correct, the incompetence in psychology and in psychologists has been there forever (example: The explanation of psychological projection as you can find on wikipedia, is complete nonsense as I showed in a video on youtube in 2023, with some examples. I analysed what causes this issue of psychological projection (people accusing others of what they do themselves) in detail and found that there are several factors but the essence is this: It is easy to analyse what causes this phenomenon, from principles, but also from experiences: People like Freud and Jung should have known! ]
With this group I felt that it was a business, as usual, not a place for like minded people, that is more the intention I think, but in reality I felt, especially later when looking at their website and seeing luxury stays but also simply things like their 'cafe' area with price list, that it was just a business. A relative said that luxury places in sich places can cause envy. I am not sure that that is an issue. For me it is not, as I don't care about luxury. I do care about good quality, for example in my bicycles I always pick good equipment, but I can live with low quality stuff or for a house or apartment with not much space, when I don't have other options, such as limited funds and then I do not look at what other people have. It is just something that I then accept. With meditation it seems to me that it is, or should be, more about being something like charity: If you want to improve the world, then you need to provide that world with things to improve it, in this case: wisdom, a place to relax and ponder about life, and not just a place where to meet people while you are charging more than what you would need to pay for a hostel and food at say Puzata khata... I feel improving the world should be kept separate from business ideas. This is why I decided to leave there as quickly as possible, I didn't like the whole setup there. See also the issues with the cult of Shunyamurti, where those who pay more are given better places to live, and even, better food.
I had been thinking at the start of the trip that after Kryvopilya, I could cycle to Lviv after, a trip of a few days, but I wanted to do a few things in my house and I found a train ticket to Kiev + ticket for another train from Kiev to Kremenchuk. So I bought those (electronically). The train to Kiev would leave in the evening from Vorokhta. The next morning I found a ticket for a train to Oleksandria which was not available the day before, which would leave at ca. 14:10 from Vorokhta (Ворохта). Because I wanted to leave as soon as possible I bought that ticket and returned the other 2. I went from this place at about 10:30 with just 1 cycling bag down the hill, this was a mistake, I should have taken everything in 1 go even though the bags were heavy, because it took ages to climb back up the hill... In the end I was back down the hill the 2nd time, then started cycling towards Vorokhta at just before 11. I had 3 hours to get there, plenty of time, but there was a lot of climbing to do (in particular in the first ca. 4 km, about 200m climbing). It turned out I needed 2 hours including breaks (I take breaks to make the trip enjoyable) and buying drinks at 2 stores so I had 1 hour left to wait. In the train station of Vorokhta I saw a guy charging his phone, I thought "I will do that too" but then looking in my bag with electronic stuff I realised that I had forgotten the USB charger that I was given several days earlier at the place where I stayed the night! Well, that is for anyone who needs one then at that meditation place...
In the train I took the wheels off the bicycle, put the bike cover that I took with me for the train, but which turned out to be not needed, on the top plank (riding platskart, this is better than coupe because there is more room for the bicycle), then 1 cycling bag there too to make the bike angle towards the wall, so it would not slide towards the middle and fall off the plank. I put the bike on the bag, then the wheels on top of the bike near the wall, and this way it was rock solid, no movement.
Pictures to come.
I took care to charge the phone with the 18650 cells in the ML102 charger/powerbank in the train to prepare for the ca. 80 km ride back home (this doesn't work when cycling as the cell loses contact in the ML102 from vibrations) The charging of the Igaro C1 didn't work so I was careful to not have the screen on much [ it later turned out that the cable from the dynamo to the Igaro C1 was broken... ] I took a route towards my house/Kremenchuk that I mostly hadn't taken before, but first to 2 places in Protopopivka (a bit beyond Priyutivka which has a train station, both are not far from Oleksandria), that I had seen while in a car in February while on a trip there but didn't get to make good pictures. One is a bus stop with painting, the 2nd a house with a sign partly shaped as an arrow, saying "Pölzig 1950 km". Why this sign? No idea. I made a tea break at a bus stop at some point, then quite a bit farther I came across a canal, and in one part there were a lot of herons. A bit later there was a choice of 2 roads: Left along the canal or right into hills. I thought left would be better though not long later I checked on Osmand (map/navigation) as it was going uphill too and this was shown there to be worse than the road on the right. But I continued. It was a really bad road with various steep uphill sections... Downhills are as usually something that you can not enjoy that much because the roads are bad, need to be careful to not damage your wheels in potholes.
After that roads I got to Svitlovodsk and I decided to buy some items in a supermarket (especially something to drink) and in another store. In the rest of Svitlovodsk I took a different route from the previous times that I was there, then from there on the route was 'old hat' to me because there is no choice in riding to my house from there (except if you don't mind long detours).
More to come.
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Copyright W.H.Scholten, 2025. To contact me you can email or send a message via telegram (via phone +31648816383), viber via my Ukrainian phone number (or via vk.com, https://vk.com/w.h.scholten, which I don't really use but I will get notified of messages from there). I don't use: facebook, linkedin, twitter. |