| [ email | About W.H.Scholten | Travelling » Ukraine 2018, Kharkov | Украина 2018 | ] |
Experiences in Ukraine, from ?? December to ?? December 2018.
I went to Ukraine to meet a friend, help her with some issues in her life. I wrote down a lot of it here: A group that aims for 'ecological/sustainable living', Kharkov, 2016-2018, showing (again) that idealists are often anti-social which includes a lot of what happened on this trip in 2018 in Kharkov (I didn't go to other cities), and some of what happened in 2016, 2017 and after 2018.
That page tells you almost everything but I will add a few things here that we did besides that:
I went by aeroplane directly to Kharkov, my friend picked me up there with a taxi and we went to the hostel where I booked a place. Hostels are the most interesting to talk to people and here I had some interesting experiences, as usual. [ The only hostel I didn't like was the capsule hostel in Lviv, which is where you don't feel like interacting with others because you are separate. More on that in my report of my 2023 trip to Ukraine. ]
One guy for example was a student of architecture but he didn't speak much English or Russian, so how did that work? I didn't get to talk about much deeper things because of the language issue and at the time I didn't use instant translation on phone/tablet.
My friend had prepared some food so when I got at the hostel in the evening I didn't need to go buy any food.
It was about -12 C with snow the whole time I was there, to me that was a nice temperature. I was wearing mostly thin flannel trousers which were perfect, I don't need thick/warm trousers unless there is also a strong wind.
Some of the things we did:
1. We went to the parents of someone I knew via my bicycle website whom I had met on a previous trip and who let me stay in his apartment for a few days. I gave them some Droste chocolate and we talked about life in Ukraine vs. Netherlands, issues in NL such as immigrants whining about customs, street names and names for schools and so on (if they don't like it in NL, then they should fook off!). They had travelled quite a bit to other countries and my friend said she wanted that for her parents. But they probably got the money from their son who makes enough money from programming to let them do that. Wages in Ukraine for normal jobs (that are not paid via some company from outside Ukraine) are usually low... And in any case, travelling is not needed to have meaning in your life. I only like to travel in the UK and Ukraine which are both interesting.
My friend wanted to show me things in Kharkov that are related to bicycling, as that a lot of aspects of cycling is of course what I dealt with on my website and for work. For me that was not that important as I wanted to to come Kharkov to: 1) help her, 2) have a talk with people about life in western Europe vs. Ukraine, and 3) I wanted to go visit e-bike makers Delfast bikes in Kiev.
But she just did things that she wanted to do, which was what she thought I would want even after I told her that to me that wasn't important! I would rather see/do things that are interesting and different, related to Ukrainian culture/customs. This issue of not listening and not realising what was really important was apparent and the reason for that is partly related to repressing emotions caused by her mother, as I later realised (see about this also the page about the group that wanted to do ecological/sustainable growing of food).
2. We went to see a bike shop to see what they have and they were fairly well equipped [----- store/address to be added, need to look it up -----]. I was curious whether they had tyres with spikes in stock, and yes, they had them (I think from Schwalbe).
3. We also walked to various parts of the city on 2 days and visited various places that she thought would be of interest to me, one of which was a place which sold bicycles but also kept bicycles in storage for people who wanted to ride now and then (there are various such facilities in Ukraine, in Kiev too. Recently I saw a web page where the reason for renting storage for a bicycle was stated to be that there is no bicycle season from November to April. Hmmm, I bought Schwalbe Marathon winter tyres recently which has spikes because I want to ride with ice and snow in Ukraine...). We talked for about an hour with the guy who owns the facility, about cycling in Ukraine, his business, storing bicycles etc. He showed us the bicycles he had himself and those that were for sale. Interestingly he had a Cannondale with Rohloff hub and I asked if he liked it but no, he felt it was heavy going. Weird, the Rohloff is very efficient but perhaps this is related more to other factors, such as riding position which for me strongly affects how I feel the bike to be, good for fast riding or not. When you feel good you do more effort, when you feel the bike is slow for some reason, such as riding position not being as you want it, then you do less effort which then confirms your view that the bike is slow... I don't think he meant only in winter, as then a change to a thinner oil could make a difference.
4. We went to an orphanage to deliver fruit, tasty stuff such as cookies and chocolate for children there.
5. We went to the history museum, which has an artillery gun and tank outside (WW1?) [ ------ I will add the name of the museum later ------ ] and decided to visit all floors. This meant a very large stack of tickets/receipts to indicate each section/floor. We just gave the people from the museum the tickets and let them sort it out in each section :) It was quite interesting such as various types of local clothing with patterns such as vishivankas, but maybe more on this later when I sorted out some pictures to include here.
6. We further went to a shop to experience a chinese tea ceremony.
7. We went to some shops to buy hiking shoes for my friend (see also the experiences she had had with the group that wanted to do ecological/sustainable growing of food) and finally we found a shop with the ramp that you need to test (simulate) how well the shoes fit when walking up and down a hill, i.e. your feet should not slide forward or backward in the shoes. This was a Jack Wolfskin store.
8. We went to buy a present for her mother whose birthday was in the period I was there.
9. We bought a present for her mother.
10. We searched for a place where they sold ushankas, the fur (or fake fur) hat with sides that keep your ears warm. I really like the hat that I bought, it has been very useful in NL for rain, keeps my head dry, I've used it a lot each winter in NL.
Finally I wanted to have a talk with people interested in discussing life in NL vs Ukraine, and my friend was supposed to have organised it. But nothing happened, see also that page above, so after getting tired of the anti-social behaviour of her mother, I ordered a plane ticket back to NL, went to the airport and left Kharkov/Ukraine. I wanted to visit Delfast bikes in Kiev but I wasn't in the mood any more from all the nonsense I experienced with my 'friend' and her anti-social mother.
Last modified: 2024-2-25