Travelling in 2022: Ukraine: Looking for a house to buy, experiencing rocket attacks and more

This was a trip on which I experienced a lot, the most notable of which are 1) rocket attacks, 2) I lost a friend not from the war but because of her bad behaviour such that I said goodbye.

I describe the details of what happened with this friend as this is a good example of how the real personality of people only comes out under special conditions. Usually that means from being in a situation that a person doesn't like (which gives stress which leads to loss of self-control). But also I noticed a few little comments from her that may seem unproblematic but that to me stood out immediately at the time and that are in fact a sign of disrespect which will lead to problems sooner or later. I suggest to become aware of such issues and of how to best deal with them which can be important when making new friends when moving (even just within a country), less so with friends from your youth (otherwise they wouldn't be your friend, but when you are older you are more likel to make friends with people who don't fit in with you from having more limited options esp. when travelling internationally).

I analyse her behaviour in sections with with text coloured like this which are useful to understand the difference between knowing someone in reality and mostly from internet communications (Telegram, Viber, email).

Introduction, background, and overview

Almost finished as of 2024-2-26 [ 2024-2-16: In progress. I am finally finishing writing down in Feb. 2024 the experiences from 2022 in Ukraine that I started writing down already in August 2022-October 2022. Added a few more details here and there up to 2024-3-9. ]

My plan at the end of 2021 was to sell my house and buy a house in Ukraine, then to start a business in Ukraine. The business would be about some of my ideas to produce bicycle components but I also felt it could be fun to start a business about bicycle touring besides that, to provide routes or even ride along or let someone else ride along from say Kiev to Zhytomyr then to where I have a place with space for camping or cabins, so to give tourists places to stay as a base, but not just there, possibly in cooperation with hotels or house owners to let people camp in their garden, there are many possibilities, and this could be to show what to me as a non-Ukrainian is very interesting, such as old style buildings, monuments, nature, museums, to let people try out Ukrainian food and so on.

Then a friend in Poland suggested early 2022 to buy a house in Poland. I had a look and found many interesting and very nicely built houses for much lower prices than in the Netherlands, and even lower prices than in Ukraine (that is strange). I had been looking for houses in Ukraine on olx.ua and dom.ria.com before he suggested this, and then saw very interesting houses on the polish site otodom.pl so I started considering a house in Poland as it would be much easier to move to due to being in the EU.

I will add some pictures of houses that I liked. I especially liked a bungalow style house in the east of Poland, about 100m2 area in the house IIRC, very nice style. I later saw the same type in Ukraine on a video, and one was also being built in Zhytomyr (totally not finished so impossible to get a good impression of the house in person). These are designs by architects that they sell to builders. Price about 100k EURO, really nice, but there were no proper finished pictures, they were artistic impressions. I don't recall the exact size of the plot but that wasn't something I was thinking about much at the time. It was probably around 1000m2.

On the other hand I never really felt like Poland attracted me, unlike Ukraine where I like food, culture, old style buildings, nature, the parks, music. On previous trips I noticed for example going by bus from Poland to Ukraine that everything in nature and buildings changed which in my view was boring in Poland to cool in Ukraine because of wilder nature and cooler looking houses. I don't mean expensive houses, I mean simple old houses. I just like the style of them. Then in Feb. 2022 the psychopath putin invaded Ukraine and made the issue harder. What to do?

Some delays with selling my house and preparations after that meant I came to Poland in July 2022. I bicycled a lot around Wroclaw to various cities up to 50 km away to have a look at the different areas and see if I could spot some houses that I liked from the website otodom.pl. I found that Poland is very different from Ukraine in not having much besides the train in public transport. You almost need a car there for everything when not living in a city. After a while I went to eastern Poland, and made long bike trips there. I wanted to visit a few more houses, but decided that I would return to Wroclaw, I just didn't get the 'yes' feeling in eastern Poland either. So I returned to Wroclaw and after a few days in a hostel I went to Ukraine. I had another look near Wroclaw in 2023.

In Ukraine I stayed in Kiev for a day, then a few days in Irpin where a friend showed me around, also riding with a bicycle, and showed me the damage done to buildings. While there I noticed on dom.ria.com a cool house for sale in Zhytomyr where a friend of mine lives. That is a city that I like for several reasons even though someone else who lived temporarily in Zhytomyr (who was originally from Donetsk) told me that people there are generally rude! :) Well, possibly, I don't know enough about that, but it wouldn't bother me. As I liked it there on previous trips I had been checking out houses for sale there already in 2020-2021. Once my friend had set up a date/time to visit the house I went to Zhytomyr the next morning by bus. She would accompany me visiting houses, she said that she wanted to do that as a diversion from work and she could do that for a few days a week as she worked via the internet. We visited a lot of places (plots of land, business locations) and houses, it was all interesting but the choice of what to do was made more complicated by the war: I couldn't start with my original business ideas. Who would want to do bicycle touring in a country at war? I would but not many other people. Creating bike parts would have to wait and other cooperation efforts that I had in mind weren't possible due to the people I wanted to work with not being in Ukraine any more.

In Zhytomyr I stayed at a hostel where I had stayed a few years earlier. This time there were lots of soldiers! The situation in the country with people fleeing the east of the country and soldiers needing a place to stay meant that in many cities finding an apartment to rent is hard, and hostels are often fully booked.

I visited a lot of houses, some that I liked, some suggested by my friend, others by a friend of her and yet others by realtors. I was shown houses that were not finished yet which was interesting but due to not yet having a long term visa, this would be problematic as I would want to be there to finish it.

The situation with houses is very different from in the Netherlands. You can find many very cheap but very old houses from soviet times or before, or newly built houses that are fantastic but often more expensive than I would want, especially given the risks involved. This along with the situation of houses in cities often being less cool means it is difficult to find what I really like. I did find a few, but more on that later, probably after I bought a house.

After about 2 weeks my friend became annoyed because I didn't choose a house to buy yet, so within 2 weeks. WTF? I told this to various people in Ukraine, everyone thought it was crazy, it is not something normal there, to quickly make such big decisions.

It was a waste of time to stay there further, I wanted to get away from the whole situation.

I went to Cherkassy to see if I would get the feel of possibly wanting to live there. I didn't also because I found nothing of interest for sale... I explored the city a bit more, such as a park that I hadn't visited before.

Then to Kharkov: Kharkov is always cool, buildings, statues, museums, areas close to it. But I didn't see nice houses on olx.ua and dom.ria.com that are affordable. What you can find is a lot of ridiculously big and very expensive houses, otherwise low priced but old houses that need renovation! Here I experienced the effects of one attack on a power station (which the russians did to cover for their withdrawal from that area) that caused power outage for a day.

Then to Zaporizhya. Here I experienced rocket attacks at night, with unbelievably loud bangs, then the next morning I saw the devastation...

From Zaporizhya I took the train to Lviv. In Lviv there were power outages and I only just managed to buy a ticket to take a bus to Amsterdam.

Right, now to the details:

2022: From Poland to Ukraine

Getting to Ukraine was easy, I took the train from Wroclaw to Przemysl (ticket bought online), then a Ukrainian train from Przemysl to Kiev (ticket bought online). There was a delay for the train to Przemysl due to some wagons not appearing on time at the Wroclaw station (a couple told me this later, they were going to a place in eastern Poland, I could talk to them in German or Russian). A 2 hour delay in fact... So I thought I would miss the train from Przemysl to Kiev and bought another ticket for a later train (thanks to mobile internet). I later returned that (which means you get half refunded) when I was in the first train. Customs checking was fast (Much better than when going by bus in which case it takes hours). There was no need really to take out covid (chinese flue) insurance, which I did take out anyway as it was officially needed, but nobody checked...

Arriving in Kiev

I arrived late in the evening, ca. 22:05 which was exactly on time according to the schedule. I wondered: how was this possible? The train left an hour late so what was going on? Some issue with how the time zones are used by the UA railways? In any case, there was a curfew, you have to be inside before 23:00. This is normally fine, unlike the inane curfew in NL in 2020 where you had to be home before 21:00. I never made it home before that time :)

I thought it would be no problem to walk to the hostel that I selected. However, I had forgotten about the hills in Kiev! It was heavy going with a backpack + heavy bag on wheels, pulling that up various hills and walking ca. 3 km. I should perhaps have taken a taxi, but I normally do everything by walking there unless there is no other way. I didn't take public transport much on all my trips in Ukraine as I simply prefer to walk. I made it there just before 23:00.

The next day, Saturday, I met a friend from Irpin, whom I met years ago in Lvov.

We had something to eat, went to a Kyivstar shop so I could buy a new phone card, and went to see the destroyed Russian military vehicles on display. Note that years ago outside the museum that is under Rodina Mat statue, there were already many vehicles displayed, that showed that Russia was involved with providing weapons to the criminal separatists... He offered to let me stay in his flat in Irpin already today. We did some shopping, then took my stuff from my hostel and we went by bus to Irpin. I think it was this day that an air-raid alarm went off when we were just exiting a metro station. He asked if I felt scared, and I said: "No, we have the same type of air raid alert every first Monday of the month in the Netherlands" (supposedly for testing equipment, which is just insane).

Trip to Irpin, and in Irpin

On the way to Irpin, by bus, I noticed blockades and guard posts, as I had seen long ago on the way by bus to Mariupol in 2016.

My friend pointed out various burnt out and damaged buildings from the attacks at the start of the war. My friend lives in an apartment in newly built buildings, and I saw damage there everywhere here too. Not heavy damage, but windows damaged or completely broken, damaged roads, damage to the sides of the building from all the fragments that artillery shells cause when they hit bricks, roads, etc. I would later see much more such as a house with a damaged roof, then looking more closely I saw damage to the walls around the garden, then damage to the road where a shell hit which obviously caused all the impacts on these walls and the roof. The effect of 1 shell was that almost the entire roof on that house has to be replaced, there were stickers everywhere on the roof, to denote and presumably also temporarily close holes in the metal tile roof.

Unpacking my stuff at my friend's apartment I didn't see my RX100 camera. I had put it in my backpack with the neck strap near the top of the stuff in it, and it looks like either it fell out (the backpack has a lid, not a zipper) or someone took it out while we were in the metro. Bummer, but as it was acting up now and then I figured to just buy a new camera and use the phone in the mean time. However, a good camera on a neck strap is quite a bit easier to use and has far better image quality than a mobile phone so I did miss the RX100. [ 2024-2-18: And it is extremely annoying that the phone is not safe from touching when making a video. In Poland in 2023 I even had the camera quit recording when the phone wanted to connect to a 'hotspot' (my tablet). WTF? ]

[ After this trip I bought a Fujifilm X-S10 to use for beam shots of bike lights and pocket lights, and perhaps I could use it for travelling though I think a smaller/lighter camera would be better. Perhaps I will go for a Canon G7X mkIII for travelling.
Update 2024-2-18: I sold the X-S10 and bought an action camera, the DJI Osmo action 4. I think this will be useful in general though I now don't have a proper camera to make beam shots from bicycle lamps... Perhaps the DJI action 4 is good enough for that, for now. I'm still thinking about what else to get, perhaps still the Canon G7X mkIII or a RX100 V? Problem with the Sony cameras is that they have a too cool white balance (which you can't easily fix in auto white balance mode) ]

To Bucha, where the russians started on a large scale to commit war crimes

There was nothing really visible to indicate what had happened there, it was an interesting bicycle ride, but not much more than that.

Zhytomyr, meeting a friend, visiting houses for sale, looking at business locations

After Irpin I went to Zhytomyr the day the realtor for a house I wanted to visit near there suggested we could have a look. Early in the morning I went by bus to Zhytomyr, then walked directly to my friend who lives there. I met her in 2016 and we had kept in contact over the years via Viber, discussing various topics. My friend was not impressed by this realtor for the way she interacted with her but also that she wouldn't be going along with us to visit the house.

My friend made some food for me, very tasty sirniki (dough with cheese and sour cream). I left most of my stuff at my friend's apartment when we went to walk to where the owner would pick us up. The route he took was a bit strange but we later figured that he tried to avoid military check points, as he mentioned he has 2 brothers who were in the army, and he has a business to run... (the military recruiters could possibly force him to go to the army which would likely be problematic for his business to make money and thus also for his family).

That route was a lot longer than we expected. The house was supposed to be in Zhytomyr (or very close) but it turned out to be 25 km from Zhytomyr. I suppose this realtor was trying to get more interest this way, but it was annoying as it meant I had to think more about this aspect but also I got to like the house and only after that had to think about the distance. I don't think I would have considered this house if I knew beforehand it was so far from the city. This issue of distance to a big city was something that I didn't consider at first at the time. I was just searching for houses in or very near the city, but it is of course an important selection criterion in any country and here too: Do I want a house ca. 25 km away from a bigger city? The issue is not just about cycling distance (as I am not interested in cars), but even for when you use a car regularly this is different in that you need the resources of bigger cities for anything like building materials or even anything more than simple groceries. [ Note that there isn't the same network of shops as in the Netherlands, in towns and cities in Ukraine. This was already clear to some degree but I experienced it later on my next trip in 2023 related to something that seems trivial for the Netherlands, namely to try to obtain some bicycle parts such as a panniers, a shorter stem and a zero-setback seat post for the 2nd hand bicycle that I had bought in Chernivtsi. You can't find much... Only some big shops in Kiev had what I wanted (probably in Kharkov you would be able to find such parts too, see my visit to a bike shop in Kharkov in 2018 which was equipped well). ]

There is also the weighing of the price in this regard as houses in a city are more expensive, whereas farther away you find nicer and often more modern houses but these are often aimed at people using cars. I'm not really (or rather: really not) interested in cars, so I would like something up to ca. 10 km from a bigger city as that is a distance to cycle that to me never gets boring, and that distance is one that means I get to where I want to be fairly quickly.

I really liked this first house that I visited, with 2.5 hectares of land, a smaller house (for guests, or to let) and a bath house, but there are downsides: 25 km away from Zhytomyr, old style heating, a military training ground nearby so you can hear shooting on some days. When exactly, how often? I don't know. On the first day I visited it there was shooting but I didn't notice it. My friend noticed it and mentioned it at the end, I was surprised, I suppose I was thinking too much about the whole situation of the house, location etc. Also I had lived close to an airport so I was used to certain noise which may have been why I didn't notice it, but for long term the experience ofbshooting sounds is different of course from aircraft noise. It didn't annoy me the first day, but would it annoy me when living there? I don't know. My friend didn't like this house for some reason, I suppose it was due in part to being on a largely empty piece of land and that there is a military training ground nearby.

After touring the house, guest house and the rest of the plot, the owner dropped us off in the centre of the village from where we took a bus back to Zhytomyr. At the end of the day we went to the hostel along with a friend of her who would later drive us to a few places.

I had been at this hostel before, a few years ago. It was interesting how the demeanor changed of the lady working there once I told this. I think she was a bit standoff-ish at first because they let go my reservation for a room to someone else. That was no problem for me. I talked with some soldiers there. One was rather negative about Ukraine, it almost felt like he was a russian trying to negatively influence the attitude of other soldiers! He was also talking a lot with swear words such as you can hear lowly educated russian soldiers say such as 'blyat'.

My friend asked one of her friends for a bicycle to loan. She could only spare her son's bicycle which was a bit too small but it would do, I thought. Before that I wanted to rent a bicycle but we couldn't find any place that rented bicycles, and I didn't see any bicycle in shops that I liked enough to buy (new or 2nd hand).

By bicycle we went to look at houses in some areas in the city where building was going on. I made a mistake a few days later: I wanted to ride up a curb, it wasn't too high, but as the bike wasn't perfect for me esp. in saddle height being a bit too low (seat post was too short, I couldn't get it high enough), I didn't do it properly and fell. I thought: "Oh, that was a nice roll, no injury". I didn't feel pain, there was no bleeding, however the next day (or the day after that, not sure) I had a problem with walking, I felt a strong pain in my left foot. There were no signs of internal injury, no discolouration, so it could not be a real injury. I tried massaging but that didn't seem to help. It was a pinched nerve, it must have shifted in the fall. This meant visiting a lot of the houses such as in Perlyavka, Ivankiv, Lishchyn, etc. was a painful matter. [ It took a long time, about 5 months, for this issue to disappear ]

In the hostel I talked to various soldiers now and then. One of them told me he had been a parachute brigade but he had some issue with an ear drum that got pierced from an accident and now he was an instructor. With another who was higher educated and spoke English I talked about recruiting for army, how that works, for example about the guy who showed us the first house I visited, who took a non-direct route to avoid going through a checkpoint.

We met her friend from whom I loaned the bicycle a few times. There was something weird in that my friend didn't want to invite her over at her apartment. In fact she wanted nobody over as it's pretty small and her couch is one that is converted to a bed so it felt more personal. Well, why not drape some cloth over the couch during the day so it doesn't feel as if someone intrudes your personal space?

One place where we met was for example a sort of cafe where we had something to drink and she gave some of the Dutch cookies that I took with me for my friend and some of the chocolate I took with me for her to her friend and her son. She later told me that she didn't like her son, as she said that he always wanted to be right. He was probably about 13, then you get these types of issues. In any case, what does it matter? It's not a real problem, she doesn't need to argue with him. This is more about her personality, wanting to impress her will onto others (which obviously clashes with a boy who wants to be right all the time!) and that became a problem later for me.

There were a few realtors we dealt with, one of whom I liked, a woman, enthusiastic and a good seller as I remarked to my friend, another was a couple and I didn't get such a feeling. They were showing for example an empty plot that I thought was quite pricey for Ukraine. They owned that land and wanted to sell it... Later in 2023 I contacted the 2nd realtor again via Viber who made a response such that my feeling was correct, I would not do business with that guy in case I would want to buy a house in that area. See my travel report of 2023 for more on this.

Other houses we visited were in:

• Perlyavka (ca. 10 km from Zhytomyr), Denishi (a village that I had visited in 2017, ca. 17 km from Zhytomyr), Nova Rudnya (ca. 25 km from Zhytomyr). These are all on the same road westwards from Zhytomyr, quite a nice road, not too busy, quite good road surface, very green.
  Perlyavka: The house we visited I had seen a year or so ago already on dom.ria.com, which has a big piece of land close to the river, with a separate bath house that needed to be finished but also the house itself would need renovation, insulation etc. It is an old style house, with old style heating. I like the appearance of the house but I would prefer something ready to be used. My friend said that in Perlyavka there is the same issue of noise from a military training area, as it lies across the river that lies on the other side of that military training area...
  Denishi: This was an unfinished house that we visited after first going to Nova Rudnya. The house was very nice, with big garden (about 5000m2?), with trees with fruits such as apples, and a cold storage facility underground for that fruit. The realtor (the good one) was at one point walking in the garden said 'yolki palki', which is the name of a hotel where I had stayed twice in Kremenchuk, first time in 2013. I had got a weird comment about this name from someone years ago, so I asked and normally "yolki-palki" is a sort of swear-expression! The house was very well built with the best materials in tiles, double glazing in the roof, with a very interesting insulation from glass-based material on the outside, these come in the shape of bricks that are cemented to the stone building then covered with stucco. I picked up one of these bricks and it weighed very little, and my hand started feeling hot, i.e. the heat from my hand didn't radiate away. Very cool. I wasn't sure about this house as there needed to be a lot done still, windows, doors, floors, stucco, heating system. Another issue is the distance, perhaps just a bit too far from the city Zhytomyr.
  Nova Rudnya: The house here lies close to the river, there is a place with wooden construction where you can relax or jump into the river if you want to cool down on a hot day. It is an old style house that had been partially updated, the upper floor was not yet ready. I didn't find it appealing because of what still needed to be done, the stated heating costs were a bit high I thought for a not so big house, and that it was 25 km away from the city (Zhytomyr).
  
  
• Kamyanka, about 10 km north from Zhytomyr. This house was a single storey house which looked fairly nice from the outside, the inside didn't appeal and I felt it would be better with a bit more land. The seller also had a sort of restaurant complex for sale with cabins and rooms, outside garden etc. Just next to the house. The realtor and my friend suggested it as a business though I wasn't really thinking of buying a restaurant or anything similar. My friend had already suggested opening a restaurant of fast food place (but if I would do that, then I would do it with unusual food) in Zhytomyr, and I had considered it, but a restaurant complex? I told her that though it is an interesting idea, and the price was good, that this is not really my type of thing. Perhaps I could buy it and perhaps hire people to run the business, but that would mean needing to have someone I would trust to help with this. This would also be problematic in the sense of needing to be there for a long period for renovations and starting the business, which I couldn't do yet due to not yet having a long term visa.
  I think it was on this trip that at a checkpoint we were stopped, a military guy wanted to see documents such as passports and he said "Oh, the Netherlands!" as if it is something very unusual. I suppose it is, both in an being an area not common for tourists but also in that not many foreigners will visit Ukraine at a time of war. This region is not really a place where tourists come in any case: The tourist areas in Ukraine are esp. Kiev, Odessa, Lviv, and possibly Kharkov.
  
  
• To the east, about 25 km from Zhytomyr: Ivankiv. We went with her friend in his car and picked up the realtor. On the way there the realtor pointed to a place where a Dutchman had a business, was growing something (walnuts? I don't recall, I am not that interested in seeing/knowing about Dutchmen, as I came to Ukraine for other things, and then I don't pay much attention to related information. [ Several years earlier I was in Odessa and I saw a guy with a bag made from old PTT post post bags which are a type of bag you can only buy in NL which means that he was almost certainly a Dutchman, but I didn't approach him, didn't talk to him, because I wasn't interested in any other Dutchmen ]). It was a log cabin style house, with a guesthouse + garage + underground storage for apples etc., about 10000m2 land, with trees with apples etc. The garden ends close to the river Guyiva. It was another hot day and I felt that the house was too hot inside which meant insulation was not that great. Then there was the issue of distance, about 25 km again from Zhytomyr which is not optimal. [ I rode close to here by bicycle in 2023, forgot to have another look just for fun, but in any case, riding between Ivankiv and Zhytomyr by bicycle is not much fun because of the bad road and the amount of traffic on that road. ] My friend's friend said this was a dream house for him, and it was nice, definitely for the price.
  
  
• To the east, about 20 km from Zhytomyr: Lishchyn. A house lying very close to the river Guyiva (a few km away lies Ivankiv, also on the river but at Lischyn the river is a lot wider) with a large plot of land, quite nice location, not that expensive, but the house is far too big, which together with being fairly old and not well insulated means heating costs are high. We went there by car without a realtor but once there my friend called the realtor to see if visiting inside was possible. The owners were a couple, and the man said the house wasn't for sale, he didn't want to sell :) In terms of space and costs this house was far too big and too expensive in heating.
  
  
• Within Zhytomyr we had a look at houses in the suburb Dovzhik.
  
  
• We bicycled within Zhytomyr to various places to look at houses, mostly that were not finished and many didn't have proper roads yet. What I didn't like is the fairly small plots with all these houses.
  
  
• Also in Zhytomyr but with a realtor, we visited a log style cabin with very little land, shared garden with the owner who used this 2nd house as rental for people who want to stay for example for the sauna. Very nice house, also has a subterranean storage space outside for say apples, and it was possible to buy the garden along side it with trees with apples, but didn't appeal to me because of the small plot of land.
  
  
• Another house we visited with the good realtor was a log cabin style house which was painted gray, also with not much land, but it lies next to the forest. It needed finishing of the upstairs floor but it is very modern in e.g. the heating system. Downside: Not much land at all just like the previous log cabin style house.
• We had a look in the village Levkiv which the lady at the hostel had suggested and later my friend's friend suggested as well. The area seemed nice, and I didn't see anything interesting for me for sale on olx.ua nor dom.ria.com, although if I had seen a house that really appealed to me I could of course have asked if they might consider selling.
  
  

About the first house: The seller immediately said that he already had a possible buyer and that I only had about a bit less than 2 weeks to make a decision. I hate being under pressure to make decisions! We asked for a bit longer, which the seller allowed, but when that 2nd decision day came, I decided that I could not say yes, not yet in any case. I needed more time than 2-3 weeks or so to weigh all options, also because my friend suggested business ideas and the realtors had made various suggestions too about business locations but also about houses, finished, unfinished, even empty plots of land on which I could have a house built (a log cabin style house could be built relatively quickly). These were all ideas that I hadn't considered before, which means spending time thinking about that instead of restricting myself to what makes most sense.

I had been looking for further information on obtaining a long term visa. One option is to invest $100,000 and I called a lawyer in Lviv about this. She recommended against buying the house because of concerns of for example the Zaporizhya power plant, which was often attacked by the moronic russians. She also didn't think investing the money at this time was a good idea, due to various concerns about banks, the economy, the government. I would later call her again in 2023, and visit her and she and a friend helped me set up a LLC in Lviv. For more on this see the 2023 report.

My friend made some suggestions for a business and from what she said I thought that she would be interested in one of those ideas, so I gave her the option to set up a a business with me, where I put in all the money, we rent business space and see how it goes. She said it was a great opportunity (you bet your ass it was! Who is going to share a business with you where you just need to be doing the work to set up things and work with me and where you don't need to invest any money yourself? Nobody except I, that is who), but she would have to think about it.

So I could not make a decision yet about house 1 and I thought this meant it would be sold to someone else (who, the seller said, needed to gather a bit more money but would have it soon). But I also didn't have a "yes" feeling about any of the other houses I visited... And it was not yet clear what the best option for a business would be.

On 23 August in the evening I took the bicycle back to my friend's friend, as she would be leaving Ukraine. To where? My friend said: "Nobody knows yet, not even she" :) But from what she said to me likely to the UK. She wanted to leave because of fearing putler's presents for Ukraine's independence day of 24 August 2022. I think she and many others use the situation to easily travel in various EU countries with some benefits such as free or reduced price travel that various countries offered. After handing over the bike I gave her something for her trip, then walked back to the hostel. I wasn't sure whether I would make it back in time for curfew so I wanted to take a bus and encountered the rudest idiots I had ever seen, both the driver and passengers. It wasn't clear what the problem was: After I got on the bus they started getting agitated and shouting. Weird. This is possibly the rudeness of people in Zhytomyr that someone I knew from Donetsk who had lived in Zhytomyr for a while, talked about.

Some time later I asked my friend if she could find an apartment to rent for 2 months. This turned out to be difficult as most apartments were quickly rented due to soldiers needing places, and people leaving eastern parts of Ukraine. Further an issue was that she doesn't like making phone calls (which I understand, I don't like it either), but that and her attitude meant that she didn't call some people at all, and then those apartments were gone..

Getting an apartment would be for me to stay in Zhytomyr for a longer time and during that time continue with business idea preparations and thinking about houses, possibly visiting more of them, until I decide what to do further, or until I find another house that I really like as the 1st house that I visited which I really liked but which had been, I thought, sold. I somewhat regretted not buying it. She suggested various apartments, I suggested some myself. She never called the realtors about my suggestions because she felt they were not good enough. Hey, it is my choice! I chose for example on the basis of which floor an apartment is located so that I can take a bicycle easily into the apartment with at most 1 flight of stairs. This means I wanted 1st floor or 2nd at most. She said she doesn't like to call people on the phone (realtors), which I also don't like (I prefer email, or messages via Telegram/Viber) so I understood her, but the issue is that this situation that she didn't like to be in, made her controlling and impatient nature come out. People's real personalities come out under stress such as in situations that they don't like, though there are some other cases such as this case of a woman from Yalta, whose real views on Ukraine came out after the Russian takeover in 2014 which was not a situation of stress but a situation of feeling she no longer had to hide her true views.

I somewhat regretted not buying the house which from the style and where it was located almost next to a forest, but my friend mentioned that the sale was not finalised, only promised by the potential buyer, so perhaps there was the option after all. Hmm, so perhaps I should ask the seller? I was thinking about it, distance not so good, price good, house itself good, close to military training area not so good, no internet and old style heating (electric and wood burning) not so good but I could have that updated and it would still be a good price, but I would need to look into heating systems. Hmm. Should I do it? I felt a bit pressured I suppose and told my friend that I wanted to buy the house (which I really did want, though I still had concerns), so could she ask the seller if it was still possible? She did that only after another day, after some pushing to contact him. So on th e one hand she suggests the house could still be for sale, that buyer may not buy it, but when was that she didn't want to contact him to ask for possibilities such as perhaps to wait for the date of their agreement to pass to be sure. The next day a relative asked me, and so reminded me, about me about what I told her was a possible issue with this house, whether I had checked further on the issue of noise from the military training ground. Well, no, as it was still hard to walk. But this made me decide to go there the next morning, before going through with this decision to buy that house. So early the next morning I went there by bus to see what I would hear and to ask some people living in the town there about it. When I arrived I first went to a shop where I bought some snacks and asked the shop keeper about this issue. It was a bit rainy and cold (it had been hot and sunny the first time), and there was shooting noise all the time (hand guns, not tanks or something like that). I called a friend to get a different view and he said that it may not be a good idea. The whole situation didn't appeal to me. Perhaps if it had been warm and sunny I would have gone through with it and bought this house. The 2022 autumn in Ukraine was not very sunny/warm at all, unusual for Ukraine. which was disappointing for the rest of the trip (esp. in Cherkassy and Kharkov, in Zaporizhya it was more sunny, and some days fairly warm (bit not hot)).

So I decided not to buy the house after all (+ bath house + small secondary house that I felt could be useful for my idea of offering bicycle touring trips).

I went to pick up some of my things that were still in her apartment and she wanted to take me to a place for example with tasty halva and targun, which we did, but I should have just declined and said goodbye forever to her there and then. I sent a package with some tea that I had bought while in Kiev and Zhythomyr back to NL early morning of the next Monday, after which I left by bus for Kiev, then from there to Cherkassy.

Cherkassy

After that I went to Cherkassy. It had been rainy and cold the last few days in Zhytomyr and here it was barely better.

I didn't see any interesting houses for sale near the city, so I used this time to walk around, think about what to do regarding houses, business ideas etc.

Here I had a run-in with the military for photographing a bus station. I didn't know it was not allowed and I didn't know it was not operational.

The first time I went to this bus station at the edge of the city, to have a look at what buses I could take to other cities, to then decide where to go next, it was closed. I thought I was just was too late I think after 19:00, which can happen as in many places bus stations close early. That day 2 guys walked to the bus station and asked me whether the bus station was open. I said it was closed, and that there were only buses at the front (these were only local buses that I had seen arrive/leave there).

The 2nd time I went earlier before 18:00 but it was closed again. Weird, I saw some machine inside powered on, was it perhaps open at the back? So I went to the back to see why the front door was locked. Then I saw 2 military guys who told me that it wasn't allowed to be there... (one of them spoke pretty good English)

------ more on the encounter with the military to come -----

I was staying in a hostel where I stayed which was part of a normal house, but I didn't like it much, too cramped, though I had some interesting talks with people there. One guy for example after the encounter where the military came to the hostel too to check everything, people were wondering what went on. "Is everything ok", the landlady asked, "Yes everything ok" (but both in Russian). A guy and I think his girlfriend came to the kitchen, he was curious, wondered what had happened. We talked a bit about wanting to buy a house in Ukraine, I mentioned I had been in Zhytomyr and places near there. he said "Zhytomyr, Zhytomyr, Zhytomyr (with some head shaking)", then "Fuck Zhytomyr!", yes in English. The way he said it, it was for some reason quite funny, we both laughed about it :)

This was the last day that I had reserved and I don't recall exactly if they had a space for the coming days but I wanted something more comfortable so the next morning after this encounter with the military I went to a hotel near the river where I stayed 2 times before in Cherkassy: The Dnipro hotel. It is not expensive, nice breakfast. I saw some guys at the breakfast there in camouflage clothes, obviously people who were or wanted to be in volunteer units in the Ukrainian army to play soldier. Yes, that is what it is, those people are generally not interested in doing that because they see an injustice. See also my experience with these types of bozos in Zaporizhya, and note also the story that was in the news around this time of a british guy missing, later found dead, suspected to be have been murdered by another such a guy or a bunch of such guys with whom he was in a group, this is related to money that such people use/need and they likely stole the money.

Walking around I saw a bike path along the area near the river/beach, but elsewhere I saw no bike paths. From walking along the path it just ends at some point. What I also found notable is that motorists were far more in a hurry here than in Zhytomyr... Whereas in Zhytomyr I felt relaxed cycling with traffic on the main roads, here it would not be so nice, I think.

More to come.

Kharkov

I went from Cherkassy to Kharkov by marshrutka (mini bus). At the bus station I bought some snacks from a girl who sold food that her grandmother (IIRC) made. I had selected a trip that indicated the end point close to the train station, near to the room that I reserved, almost an apartment. But 2 trips were combined and the end point was now somewhere else.

On the way we went through Kremenchuk, and I was reminded of what I like there, going across the bridge that is said to be one of the most dangerous bridges in the world :) I liked the view, the beach, and then we stopped for a while at the bus station which has a cool mosaic inside. Everything reminded me about what I like in Kremenchuk, and it is why the next trip in 2023 I would go there for a longer period and travelled in that area to various other cities nearby to get a better feel for the area, not just the biggest city in that region, to think about buying a house there.

Due to the endpoint of the trip now being somewhere else, not so close to the train station probably but I wasn't quite sure, I asked the driver just after we made a stop in Kharkov, the only scheduled stop before the endpoint, if the endpoint was close to where the apartment is. He asked to look on my phone where I had the navigation selected to go to the apartment and he used my phone to stop as close as possible on the main road on the way to the end point, which meant I only had to walk a short distance to the apartment. Thank you! I have had negative experiences but most of the time people in Ukraine are very helpful. [ I will tell more about this in my report on my trip in Ukraine in 2023 where I experienced a lot of people being interested and helping out doing things for me without asking anything. ]

By the way the driver of the marshrutka was complaining about the military checkpoints around the bridge to Kremenchuk. He stated that "yes I know that it is of military significance but the front is 300 km further, they should go to there" ;-)

Kharkov was completely dark, besides traffic lights... It was a good thing I took 2 pocket lamps with me, that I could test really well. One was the FC11 that I had modified with an SST20 4000K LED and 90 degree TIR lens, the other an Emisar D4V2 with Nichia sw45k (4500K) 219Bs. The latter puts out a huge amount of light on turbo, well, briefly. It lights up a large part of a flat as I tried in Poland :) One day was rainy and there I really felt that 4500K is not good at all. In the rain it was clear, but on other dry days I made comparisons too which showed: 1. I needed a more narrow beam than I had with the wide optic in the FC11 which meant not enough light at any spot on the road, and 2. that 4500K is definitely too cool, as it was hard to see the differences in the road surface where I walked in the rain to avoid bad sections, which was especially important on a steep asphalt road from the centre back to the area of the train station, which was of varying quality.

I walked in the city centre near the historical museum, and noticed that statues are all protected with sandbags and other materials. Here and there I saw some damage to buildings, only a few buildings had a lot of damage. It wasn't too bad. It was nothing like my friend, who left Kharkov and then left Ukraine told me. She said that the city was destroyed!

I stayed in Kharkov several days, for example I went to the area where I first met my friend from Kharkov, near the Karavan supermarket at the edge of the city. I went there by bus as the subway didn't go that far any more. Btw the metro and most buses were free... The supermarket and all shops at that shopping centre were closed, there was a fence around the centre. I didn't see damage there but possibly at the rear? There was a lot of damage of various other shops and other buildings in that area near the exit of the subway (which was not operational there as I mentioned). But it still looked mostly superficial damage, I did not see any building that was turned into rubble.

From that area I walked to where my friend lived, her parents' apartment, I wondered if there was really a lot of damage. On this walk I took a bus few times to skip some parts as I still had pain in my left foot from the pinched nerve. It took a while as walking was still painful. The pinched nerve was becoming less pinched with time but it took months to get back to normal. I saw her apartment from the outside and it and others looked to be damaged but it was hard to say how bad from the outside. In general the damage to that building and other buildings didn't look that bad. The city was definitely NOT destroyed contrary to what she had stated.

I walked quite a bit in the city, in various parts, and the city looked almost deserted when walking. It was a weird feeling, whereas it was quite busy (but not as noisy as Kiev, Odessa) on my previous trips.

While here I also looked at houses for sale, as I did in Cherkassy before for houses in Cherkasssy, but for some reason in both these areas I didn't see anything for a nice price. A lot of very expensive houses which didn't drop in price at all from before the war, which seems strange as the risk here is quite a lot higher than in other areas in Ukraine, of buildings getting hit by even stray rockets. [ Yes, 'stray' because the russians are just inept ]. In Cherkassy I didn't see anything nice, near Cherkassy also not really, A friend suggested Bila Tserkva (Belaya Tserkov), which is a city I knew from name only, and would finally visit in 2023 by bicycle. On olx.ua/dom.ria.com I had a look at houses for sale there, saw some interesting ones and I saw some fairly affordable nice new houses in the area closer to Kiev as well, but is this an area where I want to live? This is something I thought more about the next trip...

More to come.

I decided after this to go to Zaporizhya, as it is one of the cities I like most in Ukraine.

Zaporizhya

From Kharkov I went to Zaporizhya by train. I stayed in the dream hostel which I don't like much any more since the first time (2016) I stayed there. The other hostel where I also stayed before on my previous trips was fully booked quite a while ahead so after a few days there I went to a hotel lying on the river, called Reikartz.

In Zaporizhya I experienced explosions from what I think were anti-aircraft guns, each day. Car alarms were going off often because of the pressure waves...

I saw some nice houses for sale, outside Zaporizhya itself, but these were outside the budget I set for myself. All in all considering the risk the prices were too high compared to in other safer places.

I walked quite a bit and the situation was fairly limiting as you were not allowed to walk across bridges, you have to take a bus. Otherwise I would have walked to the peninsula.

I went to a hotel near the river, the Reikartz, and there I experienced the rocket attacks that took place in October. That is, the first day/evening I heard explosions at night (causing vibrating hotel windows) and saw light flashes, then the next evening/night there were again explosions and this time I went outside, saw a bright flash and then an unbelievably loud bang. The next morning I asked the lady at the reception where the impact was. She and others knew the address and showed me some posts (I think it was postings on a Telegram channel, but I don't recall exactly), and told me the address. I had a look but it was all cordoned off by the military, the impact sites were still smoldering...

This along with seeing the damage to buildings in Irpin such as 1 shell hitting the ground, then impacts of little bits all over the wall around the garden of a house and repairs on the metal tiles of the roof (that whole roof needs to be replaced) gives a little bit the feeling of what war is really like and how just 1 shell can already cause a lot of damage.

The Reikartz hotel has a nice breakfast, though the one in the Dnipro hotel in Cherkassy was better. There were few people each morning, but there were a bunch of guys in camouflage type clothing. They were mostly very muscly, probably using steroids, and obviously wanted to be part of or were part of one of the voluntary military units in Ukraine. I think it was the 2nd day that I took a chair sat with them and asked if they were there for 'repair together' or to be part of fighting units. The guy talking only say that they didn't want to talk. So, as I always do with annoying people, I just go on. I asked again. Same answer. By this time I knew everything:
- From the muscles, tattoos and the way they talked, they were lowly educated
- From the way the looked when I asked the question, at least several were clearly anti-social (often the case with lowly educated people).
- From the way they dressed they were obviously in a volunteer unit or wanted to be so
- They were so stupid that they didn't even bother to think of a cover story if they didn't want to talk about it. That is way less obvious, less attention grabbing, and it is less anti-social than their bullshit statement. Of course walking around in camouflage clothing is the stupidest thing they can do if they don't want to attract attention or talk to people!
- I knew from their accents that they were from the USA, the UK, and I think 1 from Australia (or perhaps New zealand, I can't distinguish between those accents)
By not telling me anything they actually told me everything that wasn't obvious from the start and thus there was nothing else of interest about these people.

Next time if I see such bozos again, I will again ask them, but then if they give another stupid reply I will tell them what I know about them and and tell them how stupid they are. I should have done that already this time. In case you are wondering: No, I am not afraid of such people, I am not afraid of anyone.

To Lviv, then to Amsterdam

From Zaporizhya I took the train to Lviv. In Lviv there were at that exact time when I arrived power outages. I was thinking of possibly staying a few days in Lviv, but decided to go home. I couldn't get money from the bankomats at the train station as they didn't work and the bank connection of the small bus station near the train station to buy bus tickets didn't work either. Someone pointed me to another place for another bankomat but I also couldn't get money there, so I returned to where these buses are leaving and at that time the ticket office's connection worked so I managed to buy a ticket to take a bus to Amsterdam.

2024-2-26: Most of what was of interest now written down, I will add bits here and there the coming days.

Proofreading/style corrections to follow after that.

Last modified: 2024-3-20