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Trip in Ukraine, 20 May 2016 - 15 July 2016:
I stayed at the Predslava which is much nicer situated than the Lybid hotel, in a more quiet area but still a lot of noise from building work going on, and, unlike in NL, work goes on on Sundays and until fairly late (even after 21.00).
I went to Kiev this year, because I wanted to see especially 2 places:
1. Pirogiv: I decided to walk to the outdoor museum of old style buildings from various regions from Ukraine. Interesting also because of the clothes and other belongings from long ago that the people wore and used about a hundred years ago, that are displayed in those buileings (if open, only some of the buildings are open). Thatched roofs are still being used in NL these days by the way, and I have experience with the issues of such roofs... So for me that was not new. The size of wooden churches was quite impressive.
2. The museum underneath Rodina mat, about world war 2: Small, with e.g. personal belongings and a few vehicles and parts of vehicles. If you can read German then it is interesting to read maps and other documents that show how the Germans looked at Ukraine at that time. Added were some exhibits from the recent conflict with Russia (don't deny it! It's Russia, not some 'groups')
Leaving the museum, I went out the direction of Khreshatik, and in this area close to Rodina mat, captured military vehicles of Russian origin were placed. The captions were rather guarded saying this proves (because of parts of the equipment that originates from Russia) the involvement of Russian groups. Uhm, yeah, and where the hell do they get these vehicles, and parts? I don't know of any country where military vehicles and any military parts, are just wandering around without the military in that country knowing about it. It's the same with Russian soldiers captured in Ukraine. The bullshit explanation by Russia (i.e. psychopaths Putin and Lavrov and others) that these people went there on their own is of course completely bogus. No country allows soldiers to just go to another country to fight there, and no country just doesn't know about it if it happens, of course except supposedly Russia. These people are full of BS!
I used the metro more on this trio, and made a picture of the subway system with and for on my phone. Essential to know when to transfer to another line!
Using the metro I went to some places that are not well accessible from the centre of Kiev otherwise, esp. because walking would take far too long, such as the hydropark and the Obolon area.
This is a park combined with sports fields and some beaches too (you just can't find this in NL). Cool, but amost everywhere you still hear the noise from what is nearly a highway, across the river. I suppose speed limits are just a little higher than in NL (within cities) which causes a LOT more noise, just like in many places in Germany. The cobble stone roads in a few places make it worse, just like in a few places in Odessa and Poltava.
Another place I went by metro was the Obolon area, near the Obolon and Minska metro stations, where there are nice places near the older flats including a small lake (well, not really a lake, it's too small), called "Bile" with again a beach (likely all man made but in any event cool), then to the river Dnepro, near Desant, where there is again a beach. cool, in NL beaches are only really found at the seaside.
The recently built flats in Kiev are incredibly ugly, just like the new flats in Sumy... Older style soviet flats have some sort of charm in their simplicity (and some have decorations in tiles, and some have artwork on the side), the newer ones just miss the point entirely of what looks cool, and thus they are not.
I was glad to leave noisy Kiev behind me, for Zhitomir, by bus (80 uah, a little more than 2 hours, departing from the bus area close to the train station), home place of the main man behind the Soviet space program, Korolyov. You can visit his home and a small museum with some examples of satellites and space capsules etc. Entrance is uah 15 + uah 10 to make photos, so, cheap. If you like momentos, they sell fridge magnets, cups, and booklets (I'm not into buying momentos unless really small and light, I have no interest in stuff cluttering up my house)
Zhitomir has an incredibly beautiful park, "Gagarin park". with a bridge going to the opposite side of the river which flows between hills. Walking on this high bridge gives stunning sights of various beautiful trees, the hills and the river. You just can't find this in NL.
Several people from Zhitomir told me they feel Zhitomir is boring, well, you need to travel far to say Kiev for musical performances, but I was never bored in smaller cities and towns, and not because entertainment was 45 minutes - 1 hour away instead of 2.5 from Zhitomir to Kiev, but because I don't rely so much on external stimuli to enjoy myself.
The monastery was not that interesting, but I got a guided tour in the museum of Berdichiv, which lies next to the monastery, which was far more interesting. There's, coincidentally or not, a bust of Korolyev there, and various quite diverse stufff, recent paintings, old vishivanki (ukr.national dress), old devices to make carpets, and the wool etc. other stuff such as about boxing school, world war 2 of course, and more.
There's a botanical garden, a bit as in Zhitomir though smaller, and similarly was closed when I was there.
It was interesting to see the style of detached houses which I liked more than in most other places in Ukraine.
Back to Zhitomir, after some rest (which means less walking than I normally do :) )
In the restaurant 'Piromani' of the hotel Ukraina, I tried some more Ukrainian food, and the desert of pancakes with cheese and raisins is just fabulous! (with or without the smetana that you get with it). It's sweet, so I drink tea with it, perfect combination :)
I vistited the hydropark, another nice park in Zhitomir. I don't always agree with the travel guides but the Bradt guide to Ukraine says this is a nice quiet town where you would want to live, and I agree.
From here the bus to Vinnitsya, ca. 75 uah, almost 3 hours travel time.
When I got to Vinnitsya, the first day my impression was that it seems so far an industrial town, and I had not yet seen a cool park as in most Ukrainian cities that day. Lots of businesses related to building materials emphasizes this impression. But it is the industrial part of Vinnitsya. I've now been to the big park, and the fountain with lights of various colours and music and the fountain is making patterns to the music, which is nice, but I liked it more in Kremenchuk, where it's a bit smaller and cozier in a street with small park. I like Zhitomir more as a cosy town...
From Vinnitsya I sent myself a package to the Netherlands with a lot of tea that I like such as from Lovare (try the 1001 nights tea), and Curtis ("Banana flambe" and the fantastic 'Mango green') and others.
Compared to other cities in Ukraine, I saw a lot of cyclists in Vinnitsya. Here I saw some cycle/walk paths, one side for walking (for both directions) and the other half for cyclists (also for both directions). There are not that many cyclists compared to pedestrians, and in case off lots of cyclists as i NL, I prefer separately indicated paths on the main road (where cars ride) so that you have room to overtake. NL has many cycle paths and many times it's hard to overtake slow cyclists.
In one of these cycle paths, it ended such that a right angle turn would need to be taken. Sometimes I wonder whay people are thinking. In Germany too I saw some weird stuff, though in NL it also happens. For example I've seen a cycle path around the poles to slow down motorists, made such that cyclists would need to make a far too sharp turn (only works at very low speeds), and so I ride in the middle of the road between the poles where cars ride, in that case.
The parks in Vinnitsya are a bit disappointing:
- Tsentralny misni park: not just a park, also has sports fields, and the combination doesn't give a feel of relaxation for some reason.
- park Yushchenka: too regular, with paths all orthogonal.
- park Druzhbi narodiv: the disappointment is only that there is no real beach :)
With none of these parks I felt that I really got a feel of rest or enjoyment, though it could have been my mood. My feel for vinnitsya, as a whole has definitely improved but I don't feel real interest, also because it's too noisy for me. Not just normal traffic, but for some reason there are also a lot of people with very noisy motorcycles. Not cool. Like in Odessa they seem to want to show what they have by making noise.
I noticed here that almost all signs are in Ukrainian, I saw just 1 ad in Russian. All entrances/exits are labelled вхід/віхід instead of вход/выход, for example.
I like the monument with aircraft (MiG 21 I think) on pedestal inside a circle...
One of the advantages of the train, esp. if you have a coupe, is to be able to get hot tea from the conductor. Tea is for me very important! :) So a good reason already to take the train instead of the bus.
Smallish gray trainstation, and yet not so bad because of the trees and there is a certain charm to the minimalistic style.
For a change I took a hostel and the impressions walking to the hostel were positive. So sharing a room was a change, and it was cool to talk to a guy from Shostka about various issues in life, the only downside is that I need time to digest the experiences, and thus time alone whereas people in hostels always want to talk with me about lots of things. This is interesting, but also tiring. Some streets are only for pedestrians, and there are some nice old buildings. I walked first to the park Michail Chekman, which is quite nice, nicer than the parks in Vinnitsya. Then further, walking a long way to the other side of the railroad tracks where there are various detached houses, bad roads, and in general a deserted look, and not much going on, but, this is part of what I want to see, what the country is like.
The next 2 days I explored first to the vodokanal (?) and while doing that, after a while I came to an area with lots of new houses built or being built, quite ugly in many cases, no trees, etc.
Then more exploring in and around the centre, such as some areas where buildings, esp. flats are apparently not used and perhaps they will be replaced by new buildings? I saw this too in Poltava, where areas were blocked with concrete slabs, and you are not supposed to go in there. Well, in Poltava I did it anyway, even though I suspected it was not allowed, via a route walking in the forest, where I came across that cordonned off area and I wanted to see what was going on there.
It's quite nice there, nice parks, nice old buildings. All in all I like it more than Vinnitsya, but, instead of spending more time to get a better feel for Khmelnitsky, I went on to Ternopil and then from there I wanted to make a day trip to Pochaev, as it's close to Ternopil.
This time I went again by train, which is much nicer than taking a bus, but trains go less frequently, so if I had missed the train (I made the decision to go to Ternopil suddenly, so I still had to buy a ticket, and had only minutes left if the train hadn't been delayed), then I would have taken the bus.
I bought a platskart ticket this time, and it's fine for me, even in case of night trains this is enjoyable (if you are worried about valuables get a low bunk, below which you can stow your stuff and valuables so nobody can get at them while you sleep.
There is a big park, hydropark 'Topilche', which could become nice but it's unfinished. There are sports fields next to it. I feel a park is more a real park without a section of sports fields...
I noticed here and in Pochaev that people are harder to understand, i.e. they speak Ukrainian, and don't change to Russian when they hear me speak Russian. And I'm sure they hear that I'm not a Russian... But from talking about this more with various people, I now think the travel guides are wrong, it's not about a dislike for Russian, but not knowing Russian or not using it much. Older people have no problem undersanding me, younger, say under 30 I see it more. This also became clear at a Mcfoxy on my last day in Ukraine, in Kiev, near the trainstaton,. A young lady had to ask someone else what a молочный коктейл is, i.e. a шейк it seems in Ukrainian. Ukrainian seems to borrow lots of words phonetically from English which is not cool. There are perfectly good translations of 'second hand' and 'milkshake'... More on this further on.
I went on a day trip to Pochaev and just as in Kiev, but in other places it happens too, I thought a lot about whether these buildings are useful. The buildings are beautiful, but is it useful to inspire people? I think in a poor country the money should be spent another way.
I found an interesting book in the hostel, about Ternopil, from 1986, and decided to visit 2 spots in that book to compare to what it is like now. There were other spots pictured too that I later noted I visited, such as the 'old park' (with the row of heroes leading to a hill with sort of crown structure.
The T34 tank from victory square is gone, and it seems not a recent change from the state of the asphalt in that square. Victory square is now empty and so does not give meaning to its name... Perhaps this tank is the one that is now located at the edge of the 'old park'?
On Sunday in the park near the water was a cultural festival, I love the colourful traditional clothes...
The 2nd of the spots from the book that I tried to find, is the monument with the MIG jet on a pedestal. Not as cool as the boat on the pedestal in Kherson, but very nice.
I recognised the flats, some of which are placed at an angle from the others (and the road) just like in the book. There are more buildings now, but the biggest difference is that it's less neat than in the picture (good) and with many advertising signs, also one very close to the MIG on the pedestal (not so good). I feel that that sign shouldn't be in that position.
I arrived with rain and had to think back to a comment from someone who had studied in Lvov, that it is much more rainy there. Well, it rained quite heavily on my arrival. I walked to the hotel and my impression of Lvov was worse than I had imagined, and I hadn't imagined much! I expected not to like Lvov because, despite the old style buldings (which I like), the streets are fairly narrow. This expectation was correct though I wanted to reserve writing down my impression until the next day after a long walk without rain. Well, my impresion from the long walk in the rain has not changed. For example I miss green (esp. trees) in the streets. At least in the centre. There is a lot of green in parks, which are not far, but here I am also not that impressed because of the hills which means walking in the parks is more sport than relaxation.
Another irritation is that some people don't want to understand Russian. At least that is what it seemed to be, which would be a confirmation of what some people in Ukraine told me but also what the travel guides write, namely that some people in western Ukraine don't want to hear Russian and pretend not to understand it. If so, then this is really a form of fanaticism which I don't like. I know this happened 20 odd years ago (possibly still now?) with German speakers in some other eastern european countries, still a leftover from world war 2, which is in some sense understandable (though the Germans from that time have nothing to do with that war), but here, native Russian and Ukrainian speakers can undoubtedly hear that I'm not a native Russian speaker, so they shouldn't be annoying about it. Surely the guy at McDonalds knew what I meant with "молочный коктейль". Instead in Ukrainian they use шейк so 'shake' was imported phonetically. This happens too with Second hand -> "секонд хенд". This is not cool as there are proper translations! So Russian is not ok, but importing unnecessary words from English is no problem?
But then someone remarked that actually these people may really not understand Russian. And the travel guides are definitely wrong about motorists in Ukraine being careless drivers, as I remarked on my other pages already long ago. So, possibly on this topic too they assume that incidences are "something that always happens". And that is my conclusion now, that mostly it's caused by really not understanding Russian. So the travel guides are wrong and the people from Ukraine who told me about this issue, also look at it differently than what reality is or they have had some experiences which they extrapolate too far...
I walked past the rail road line to the other side of Lvov and here it was nicer, fairly quiet with a park without hills, but it doesn't stand out, and really nothing in Lvov stands out at all as interesting. I saw 1 interesting monument for ww2, but no single buildings or parks or anything else that made me feel 'cool'.
then the next day to the regional landscape park "Znesinya". Oh my god! Lots of climbing again, and walks on the crest of a hill, actually a little dangerous and not my idea of fun at all, and it certainly wasn't relaxation!!
Then a day walking in the centre and visiting some (small) museums. This was more interesting, but nothing gripped me.
Then a day to another section of Lvov, again outside the centre where it is more like any other Ukrainian city except more boring, I didn't see cool parks . The 1st park I went to that day is rather wild, small and not interesting "700 richchya lvova", then through built areas with detached houses, flats, and then a park "Zamastihivsky lisopark" which is a small section of forest with some paths clearly outlined from people walking there a lot, others not so clear, more exploration than relaxation.
Summary: The parks in Lvov are not so cool, I saw no cool monuments /statues, the streets in the centre are too narrow with not much green in the centre, the noise level is high (less so on Saturday and Sunday) because of fairly heavy traffic on those cobble stone roads. There are cycle paths which are not used much. All in all, Lvov gets a thumbs down from me. For me the wider streets in many other cities in Ukraine (except in Crimea where roads are also narrow), are an attraction and returning to NL always gives me a claustrophobic feeling because of how confined everything is, so I more or less expected Lvov to not be 'charming' to me, even though just about everyone else likes it. This is why it took so long before I went to this city, which is recommended in the travel guides and by various people from Ukraine.
I needed to wait 4 hours in Lvov, went to a hall and was after a while told that this is a paid hall. 10 uah per hour. I'm all for service and the money is not an issue, but what do I get for this? One thing I noted was a strong wifi signal, which didn't connect. Was there an alternative? Yes, another hall. "Is there any advantage to this hall", I asked. A shrug. I went to the other hall and it was a little more crowded, logical, but really rather the same. A less strong Wifi signal which also didn't connect. The choice was thus clear. What's the point of that other hall? I used the 4 houirs waiting time well, I read more than half of the book "4 habits of highly effective people" by Covey while analysing and writing down my comments on what I read. I will use that in my own book which will deal with manipulation. (just a note: Covey's book is in essence really no different from Dale Carnegie's "How to win friends and influence people", but more on that to come elsewhere)
I selected platskart, 282 uah. About 800km or so, 16:38 (20 June) to 12:21 next day (21 June).
talked to 2 ladies on the train to ternopol, about life in Ukraine, Lvov etc. The older lady liked the new Forum-Lviv shopping centre, whereas for me it's an ugly new style building, with lots of shops inside selling products that many Ukrainians can't afford.
Kharkiv has lots of cool old style buildings and it's not as noisy as Kiev/Odessa. The parks are better too, though I don't like much the main parks Shevcheko and Gorki, they are too neat and you are not allowed to sit on the grass to have a picnic. It's like some people who always keep a plastic protective cover over the couch. It will look nice very long but you don't experience that it's nice when actually using it...
I went to the place where the Lenin statue stood, on Dzherzhprom, made some pictures for comparison.
Also I went to the historical museum which was being rebuilt in 2013 when I was there for just 1 day, and for some reason now has a glass facade covering the building on one side. Why is this? It was closed each time I went there so I made walks to see other things. It was, it turned out, due to festive days, and on my final day in Kharkov I visited the museum with an acquaintance from Kharkov. It was interesting, but 1 question remained unanswered: Why is there a glass enclosure around half the building? Nobody seems to know, not even the people in the museum could tell me. My guess is that it's a design to have new + old building which fits with the purpose of being a museum. The top floor was closed, due to heat... :)
On one of the days I stayed in Kharkov, I went to the station to make some more pictures and see about the train timetables. A policeman stopped me simply for walking there with a camera. Wanted to see my passport and when he saw I'm Dutch, he was not satisfied but wanted to see everything in my backpack, photos on my tablet, mentioned Kharkov 1st city of Ukraine (after Kiev), bla bla, bomb threats, bla bla, "do you have drugs?". Say what? Ah, every Dutchman uses drugs, is perhaps the view here. That they are careful is fine, I don't even mind any searching though it seems ludicrous to suspect anyone from NL. At least Ukraine has had terrorism as opposed to NL (all the recent stuff doesn't count, that's all nonsense, the real terrorists in NL were in the 1970s, the molukkers). The thing that annoyed me is actually the surly behaviour even when he saw all was fine. This was the 2nd bad experience in Kharkov. The first one was in 2013 in and just outside a church (the red-white one close to the train station) which showed a problem in that most people are not really religious, they just go through the motions. And that includes priests!
Visiting the area of Kharkov, where, as my acquaintance said, people really live (i.e. mostly in flats), it was not as cool as in the other parts of Kharkov with older buildings, and also not compared to the standard older Soviet style flats which are often not so high (say 5- stories), as in Sevastopol or Kremenchuk and in many other cities. The newer flats in Sumy, Kiev, Kharkov, Kremenchuk and other cities, are usually too high and quite ugly in style.
My view is that flats should not be allowed to be higher than the trees around them, so 4-5 stories depending on the trees. That way you always see green from large enough distance.
From the train station Zaporizhzhya 1, to the hotel/hostel. Hostels are a good way to talk to lots of different people, from students to businessmen. It had interesting conversations with students from Kharkov, a writer from Kharkov, and esp. a lawyer from Donetsk and a businessman from Cherkassy.
The road to the hostel was long and on the sides there was just one long wall/building for a large part of the way on both sides. If anything gives the feeling 'industrial' besides factories with smoking pipes, this is it... This road is quite busy, but in many places Zaporizhya is fairly quiet, apart from this road and just a few others.
The attractions of Zaporizhzhya are esp. the island Khortitsya, with the rebuilt Sitch settlement. The museum was closed, it was being updated with new display cases and exhibits.
Walking on Khortitsya's walking paths is a bit like walking on Khersones with the rocks next to the sea vs. here rock formations next to the Dnepr. It's perfect for long walks. Note that these paths are only outlined from people walking in the grass/plants, but they are indicated on Osmand's (open streetmap) map. Such displayed tracks are no guarantee that they are still there, or visible, but on Khortitsya it's in most places that I walked, as indicated by Osmand's map.
I like some of the mosaics on various buildings, and the monument of the aircraft from WW2 on Shevchenko boulevard.
The dam is also interesting to walk across. From there you have a nice view of the river, Khortitsya and the Sitch settlement.
In some places you see smoke coming from some factories. Zaporizhzhya is said to be an industrial town with pollution (though less polluted than Mariupol, apparently), but it seemed fine from what I saw. Perhaps my view would change in winter: I've been told that because of the aluminium plant (which uses the power from the hydro-electric generators), that in winter, in Zaporizhzha you get gray snow :)
I talked with the lawyer about the situation in Donetsk. He said "Life goes on, but it's hard". He also questioned why so many billions went to Greece which is in a similar situation economically and in (local) government as Ukraine. Well, Greece is for some reason in the EU and then it's just helping friends, not helping where help is needed most and where it will do most good.
He further said about what I experienced in Kharkov, that asking about drugs was a standard question, no different from someone saying "как дела" (how are you) or "привет" (hello) and in jest suggested I could have replied "сегодня нет" (not today) or "вожможне завтра" (perhaps tomorrow). ;-)
The businessman mentioned another (slightly reckless) response to "do you have drugs", which is: "Thank you, no!" (= thank you for offering, but I don't need it) ;-)
Actually, later I realised that the lawyer's suggestion on how to reply to "do you have drugs", can be interpreted in that way too. I thought he meant it about not having any, but it could also be interpreted as being about being offered drugs by the policeman...
I mentioned to the business man that I was going to Kremenchuk next and he offered to take me along as it is on the way to Cherkassy where he was going. It was a cool ride, talking about lots of things, listening to music (someone in Ukraine who knows '2raumwohnung', wow! :)), but coming to the McDonalds in Kremenchug where I got off, we noticed the rims of the car were damaged, the dangers of driving at night in Ukraine and not paying attention for a few moments to bad sections in the roads... (pictures to be added)
I stayed this time in a hotel close to the peace park. This is actually too far from the centre to properly do everything with just walking, but I did walk from there to various spots that I hadn't been to before.
My view of Kremenchuk has changed since the Lenin statue was removed. The bottom section that remains is more eroded since 2014 when it was still fine. The big red stones may be removed by people who want something as a reminder? It was huge and a reminder of what did not work in society, and because of its size and place on the big square, something iconic. There was really no need to remove it, though most people can't see it this way, I mean look at it detached from feelings of the past. It's the same with the mosaics on buildings that I find interesting and an acquaintance in Kharkov said he didn't like because he lived here during the Soviet time and hated it. The changing of names of streets has happened here too, as I couldn't find some street names on the map, though the search function in Osmand did indicate the right street/place when setting a destination, so I suppose both are included in the data, but on the map only the new names are shown.
Marshrutka from Kremenchuk to Kiev (railway station) UAH 180, about 4:20 h duration. The train left rather early, at ca. 6:23, and arriving 11:36 in Kiev, but I needed to be at the airport at ca. 17.00-18.00, so I went by marshrutka at 11.00. Next time I will take the train. Much more comfortable with a coupe, and waiting at the trainstation or airport is better than a ride in a marshrutka when it's 35 degrees...
I walked from the train station to airport Zhulyany to see more of Kiev in this area. It was nothing special, and there's not much to say about this area of Kiev as I saw it, except that traffic is busy/noisy here too, as in most of Kiev.
Last modified: CEST 2016-12-26