Travelling in 2023: Ukraine: Looking for a house to buy, again, and setting up a business

Introduction, background, and overview

2024-2-16: In progress, finally writing down my experiences in Feb. 2024, from my trip of August-October 2023 (and the trips from 2018 UA, 2019 UK, 2022 PL, 2022 UA, 2023 PL)

This trip was fantastic, I experienced a lot, had a good time making long bicycle trips, talked to lots of people about many topics, saw a lot of cool places. I will try to describe most of it, it will be a pretty long story!

The previous trip in Ukraine in 2022: After the problems I had since a fall with a bicycle in Zhytomyr in August 2022, which caused a pinched nerve in my foot which was very annoying because walking was very painful for a long time (until January 2023 I felt it), and friendship with a woman whom I had know since 2016 that ended because she couldn't deal with stress and felt it should not take more than 2 weeks to decide on buying a house, I considered what to do again. I went to Poland, Wroclaw where I bicycled again quite a bit in that area with a low-end bike which I loaned from a friend. On the last few of those rides I tested the Selle Anatomica H2 for about 50 km as well, talked about business ideas, then after a week or 2 went to Ukraine.

Bicycle stuff that I took with me

I took a lot of stuff for a bicycle that I would want to buy, which was a bicycle with Pinion gear box (the C1.12, or the P1.18 if there was one for sale) to try that out for a longer period and do in in-depth comparison with the Rohloff hub. I had seen several bicycles with C1.12 gear box offered on olx.ua while I was in NL and in PL and I hoped that I would find such a bicycle when I was in Ukraine. It was a bit of a burden to take all this stuff which meant an extra heavy bag to take with me, but in the end it all worked out, I used it all. Perhaps I could have bought some of this stuff when in Ukraine but bicycle shops are not well equipped generally and you may be able to order most of it in UA, but I wanted to be able to set up a bicycle as I wished immmediately, so I took what I thought I would want to use to upgrade a bicycle:

• frame lock (ring lock) to be mounted on the frame of a bicycle that has mount points on the frame (though there are adapters to tighten on a frame to mount such a lock on bikes without such mount points), about 1 kg?
• plug in chain for that frame lock (several kg).
• water bottle cage: King cage 'Iris', stainless steel.
• water bottle cage: Point retro cage, aluminium + leather strap which works for various diameter water bottles, thermos bottles etc.
• Trelock LS 906 dynamo powered bicycle headlamp.
• battery powered headlamp: Lumintop B01
• battery powered taillamp: Spanninga O
• bicycle phone mounts: Aluminium + simple rubber
• grips: Real cork, long + short for a rotating shifter, for a bike with Pinion C1.12 gear box which uses a rotary shifter on the handlebar, which what I was planning to buy as there seemed to be at least one for sale on olx.ua, each time I had a look when I was still in the Netherlands
• bicycle computer: Cateye Padrone (wireless, speed + cadence).
• saddle: Selle Anatomica H2, leather with cutout.
• bicycle bell: A 'tring' bell.
• a bicycle repair toolkit: leather bag (meant as a pencil case) with hex keys, patch kit, pump, chain tools and more.
• Shimano PD-EF205 pedals.

This is quite a lot and then there were the cycling clothes that I also had with me in that bag full of bicycle stuff. I had been thinking of taking panniers with me but that would have become too much to take. I should have taken them anyway and left some other stuff out of my travel bag...

I found a bike with pinion P1.18 gear box offered for sale, contacted the buyer via viber, bought it, and found after riding long trips with it I wanted a shorter stem and a zero-setback seatpost. I tried to find these in Zhytomyr but couldn't find anything. In Kiev it was possible to get these but I would be going back to NL soon and there I have far more choice, so that was my plan to select stuff there and take those with me from NL on the next trip (I thought end of 2023, but due to paperwork delays and other issues this will be March April 2023).

Details of my trip

Wroclaw to Kiev

I took the train to Przemysl (PL) where I had a bit more than an hour for the train to Kiev. In that time I met a friend (well, I guess now former friend as later she wanted to impose her will on me as to how I deal with people and with whom to be friends), who showed me around the centre of Przemysl.

I took the train from Przemysl (PL) to Kiev (UA) which is much nicer and faster than the awful delay for customs at the border when going by bus.

In Kiev

I stayed in Kiev for a while at the same place where I stayed last time for just 1 day, this time I stayed a lot longer, discussed buying houses and business ideas/issues with a friend.

I looked into renting a storage space which I discussed already months earlier with a friend from Kiev. I settled on something general rather than bike only storage. I tried Sunbox on the east bank (cheaper, farther from the centre) where I didn't see anyone, so then I went to one of their locations on the west bank where I rented a 1m^3 storage facility. Payment was an issue but I had been looking into opening a bank account. I managed that with privatbank where it was not a problem though I can't get payments from other UA accounts sent to my account. The bank account can be topped up with bills in a machine or via for example my Revolut bank account (which acts as a debit/credit card).

I put some of my stuff into the storage facility, then I could either go to Kremenchuk or to Chernivtsi, as in Kremenchuk (well, near it, about 10 km) there was a house I wanted to visit which I thought could be perfect for my business ideas and for myself to live and to Chernivtsi because someone on olx.ua offered a Stevens P18 bike which has a P1.18 gearbox. The price was good so I was really interested, the realtor would be away for a week or so, so I would go to Chernivtsi first. I contacted the guy selling the bike on Viber and told him when I would be at the train station.

Chernivtsi

I took the train from Kiev and arrived the next morning in Chernivtsi (south western Ukraine). I met the seller of the bike very early (about 7 in the morning) at the station immediately after arriving there, made a test ride and checked the serial numbers of the bike for possibly having been stolen in databases on the internet for the Netherlands and Germany. It wasn't stolen, good. I couldn't take out enough money from the bankomats close to the station so the next morning we would go to an area with more banks.

So next to the guest house, I had reserved a space in 'Gostevaya komnata' (literally 'guest room') but the morning I arrived they sent a message that they were full. So I had another look and found the 'Navigator' guest house on booking.com where I reserved a room. Walking to the 'Navigator' was very tiring as I had to walk uphill a lot on fairly steep roads and I had with me not just my travel stuff in my rolling suitcase + back pack, but also the heavy bag with bicycle equipment. When I came to the guest house I was rather early, but they accommodated to that, thank you! This was a really big house, with bathrooms on each floor. It was hot so taking a shower was the first thing to do.

The next morning we had to try at a few banks then finally we got that sorted out and I bought the Stevens P18 bike. I bicycled to the guest house and started putting on my equipment.

I made quite a few longish trips by bicycle in Chernivtsi, 30 km or so each day, which took a lot of time because of the very bad roads, steep hills, and from exploring the city. One such trip was to find bicycle shops that had good size panniers to put in all the stuff I took with me. I had taken too much in clothes, as usual...

At the guest house where I stayed I had interesting talks with the owner. He runs it with his wife and daughter, but he wanted to sell it as he has a son in London (UK) and in Riga I think it was and he wanted to retire. Business was still fine he said, but obviously not as much as before the war with Russia, when people from all over the world would come to Chernivtsi (which lies not far from the border with Romania).

I had a hard time talking to people in Russian, it didn't seem to be Ukrainian either. I thought it might be the influence from Romania, similar to the influence in music that I experienced several years earlier when I was in Ivano-Frankivsk. The music that I heard on one day when there were festivities going on sounded a bit like gypsy/romanian music. I talked about the language issue in October in Lviv with a lawyer who said that it was a dialect that they speak there. Aha... Btw., I talked with the seller of the bicycle in English/German/Russian.

I loved the breakfast at the guest house. For example oatmeal with grapes, very tasty.

The owner showed me around the house. It is very large, which was useful when his children still lived there I suppose. 4 floors including the basement floor level where there is a sauna and cool storage. Each of floor 1-3 has a bathroom. He had built it himself long ago... He was thinking of selling it for 70,000 dollars which seemed not much. This was not something I considered however because 1) for me the house was too big, 2) I would rather have a larger plot/garden and 3) I prefer other areas in Ukraine. He insisted on putting my bicycle in a spare room at night, even though I said I think it would be safe with the gate.

He grew grapes in the garden and made whine from it (a shame in my view as I don't like alcoholic drinks :) ).

I stayed a few days to prepare for the trip I wanted to make. I was thinking of either going to Kremenchuk or to Kiev, but the first step would be to go to Kamyanets-podilsky. I had talked to a guy on the train to Chernivtsi the evening before arriving, who said riding to Kremenchuk would be much nicer. I should have done this but I thought the realtor would be back soon and cut the trip short. More on that later.

The main thing missing from the bike was panniers. I went looking to buy some and at the same time explored the city. Bicycle shops in Ukraine are nowhere near as well equipped as those in the Netherlands, but I found 1 big pannier (about 20 litres) at 1 shop and a smaller one (10 litres or so) at another shop, which looked to be good enough.

I sent what I would not use of the equipment on this bike and a few other things to a friend in Kiev: The Ergon grips, saddle, pedals, bottle cage and some other small stuff.

The roads in Chernivtsi were something else than I experienced before! A lot of cobblestone roads, thank god for the front suspension, roads with big gravel rocks, roads with really big pebbles, some bad asphalt and a few roads with good asphalt.

I didn't get the feeling of wanting to live there, but it was definitely interesting.

There was quite a bit of building going on, same as the previous year in Zhytomyr by the way, where new apartment buildings were being built, and they were being finished here (in contrast to some buildings that you can see here and there in various parts of Ukraine that seem to stay in an unfinished state for ages). Apartments are selling, but houses not so much. It seems not many people want take a risk buying something expensive, and I think the market for houses esp. outside a city, is already relatively small. Of the houses that I visited or that I thought about visiting in 2022, almost all of them were still for sale in 2023, some with a lower price. One realtor told us in Zhytomyr that she sold this or that house, perhaps that is true, but it seems to me that only those people who have so much money that they can buy very expensive houses (more than say 200,000 euro, and going up to far more than that, which not that many people in UA can afford), buy what they want, the lower priced houses are not selling or barely.

[ Btw. I asked someone working in a hotel in Krememchuk whether she would want to live in a house say 10 km form the city and she preferred an apartment in the city. It seems big houses are often an extra for those who can afford it and living in the city is preferred. This makes sense in some way but for me 10 km is 30 minutes slow riding by bicycle, 20 minutes fast riding, which means I consider that nothing at all and it is an excellent exertion to keep in shape. ]

There is a large park along a river that I only visited just before leaving Chernivtsi, I should have spent more time here but that is for another time if I ever return there.

More to come, in progress.

Trip Chernivtsi to Synkiv

After leaving the guest house it was already a chore to get out of Chernivtsi because of the bad roads and they were often hilly bad roads!

After that I had to decide which direction to take, and I selected a road which seemed shorter, and I later realised this was the right or the wrong one depending on the goal: To get there quickly it was the wrong road, to experience western southern Ukraine and a lot of rural areas it was the right road/direction. At about the halfway point the first day I considered changing my route to the highway route but plodded on on the slow roads. This was in retrospect definitely the best option to experience life there, rather than spending a day on highways (I used ear plugs but still riding there is not comfortable and with ear plugs still noisy).

I had wanted to go to Kamyanets in 1 day, but due to all the bad roads this just wasn't possible. Osmand stated for example at some point 1 hour to go to my destination and I said "no way, that will be 2 or 2.5 hours".

I only cycled about 70 km this day. I left too late from the guest house because of sending a package to my friend in Kiev that morning, and finishing some preparations, at about 13:00, and got to Synkiv (some 65 km of cycling) just before 23:00. I often couldn't go faster than 12 km/h because of the bad roads, and on steep hills I went slower and going down hills I couldn't go fast either because of the bad roads... Also on steep hills I rested from time to time as it was very hot (37-38 C) and uphill there was no ride wind so I couldn't cool down enough.

Just before Synkiv: ferry to Zozulynitsi

I was looking to go to Synkiv, as there should be a hotel there, as Osmand indicated on the map. At one point I was getting to a river, just on the other side of the town/village Zozulynitsi, 5km from Synkiv, and thought I'd never make it in time before the curfew as it didn't seem to be in operation. I asked at the little shop next to it and the ferry was not closed, but would leave in 30 minutes or so. Hmm, perhaps I would make it. I had some tea at the shop, my 18650 batteries that I use with a ML-102 as power bank, and the extra power bank were almost all empty, my one phone was empty (Sony XZ), the other phone, a Samsung A52s, was still charged enough to navigate.

I talked with the people in the shop next to the ferry about travelling, the war situation and talked with the 2 guys a bit more on this while crossing the river. They had the more relaxed attitude towards language and relations, that language is just something you use and people are not bad because they are Russians or talk in Russian. Some others are fanatical about it but think about this: What if the names for the languages were swapped? Which would people then prefer? Obviously the problem is not a language as people grow up with a certain language, the problem is mentality of Russian leaders, and especially the psychopath putler.

The ferry was hand drawn, so they needed to rotate a wheel to pull it across. They were waiting for a guy who was going the other way with a car, and when he arrived at the other side we crossed the river. This was likely the last time this evening that the ferry would cross the river.

After the ferry I had to climb a lot, slowly, on very very bad winding roads, not paved or partially paved. Then riding a while through the village Zozulynitsi. When leaving that village I was already almost in Synkiv. I turned to the right, not sure if the road has a name there, further on in Synkiv it is called Tsentralnaya vultsya.

Synkiv

In Synkiv I went down a steep decline on Tsentralna vulitsya (central/main road) and near the bottom of the road I was close to the river again. I found the hotel but it looked more like a giant house and there were no lights on, and I didn't see where there was an entry, at least none with a doorbell or something like that.

So I arrived in Synkiv which is where I decided to head to a few hours earlier as on Osmand's maps I saw a hotel there.

When I got to the position where the hotel was I didn't see any lights, and not an open entrance. Just at that time a guy approached me. I asked him about the hotel, as it was dark and I didn't see an entrance, so was the entrance in another place? He thought that hotel was not a good place, and he invited me to go to his house. He had had a bit too much to drink, that was clear, so what to do? Well, I went with him and when we got to his house he offered me some food, some tea and of course some alcohol. I don't like alcohol at all but I go along in such situations a little just to show appreciation as I could sleep there, charge my batteries, phones, etc. His wife appeared who was clearly not enamoured with his state of having drunk too much, be she seemed ok with me me staying there.

The next morning I got to talk more with both of them, in Russian, which was not always easy, it seemed to me then that in this whole area there is some dialect but otherwise they use a different pronunciation that makes it difficult to understand people. [ It seems to have been a dialect from what I was told in October in Lviv. ]

They showed me some pictures, of relatives and of travels they made to western Europe, and we talked about various topics, such as, of course, life in Ukraine at the moment with a war going on.

It was another hot day and the man showed me his vegetable garden with a very simple but fairly big and effective greenhouse (walking into it felt like getting into a sauna) where they grow a lot of food.

They gave me food to take for on my trip such as some tomatoes, apples.

More to come, in progress.

Trip Synkiv to Kamyanets podilsky

Leaving Synkiv was slow going, up a steep hill, and there was a lot of descending and climbing to come yet. This lead to getting to a place where I had a fantastic view of the area, overlooking the hills. I had talked with the couple in Synkiv about routes to take, this was a good choice. I came up the hill very tired, but found a sort of camping spot with sitting area with roof. Not long after that some people came up with a car that had trouble coming up the hill, overheating, a Lada I think. I thought "Not just I have problems with all the hills, this car too".

Getting to about 20 km from Kamyanets-podilsky, just after Iskavitsi, I had a choice of going to the left on a road towards Lastivitsi, or the the right to Zhvanets. The left road would be likely bad and small roads and as I wanted to get to Kamyanets not so late, I took the road to the right which meant I had to ride about on a busy highway, of which the road surface was nice, but with lorries passing very close and close to the city the road became extremely bad, uneven, with lumps/waves possibly from the asphalt getting moved from lorries on hot days, and lorries were still passing very close! (Coincidentally, later this trip I saw warning signs on the road from Zhytomyr to xxx, that lorries were not allowed there on hot days...) I had been using ear plugs to ride on high ways I think by this time already. I had selected a place called Sadiba Gerasomovikh, which offered camping spots some way out of the centre of the city, actually at the edge and it looked like close to forest.

Kamyanets podilsky

I came to Kamyanets fairly late again, a few hours of riding in he dark, I think about 21:30. I stayed here at Sadiba Gerasimovikh, and besides setting up my stuff in and next to the tent, I had some food. They had simple but excellent breakfast, and the owner told me a bit of the situation now with tourists, and that there are far fewer from other countries these days. He grew up in Kamyanets and built a house there, at the edge of the city. He then later bought another piece of adjacent land and on this he placed a cabin and had places for tents (and far more space left over). He actually has a few tents ready to use there so you don't need to bring your own tent (which I didn't have with me). This was fine for me.

He tried to find some right size bolts as one of the bolts of my kickstand got loose, but he didn't have the right size so he guided me to a bike shop. The ones with which the kickstand was fixed were the wrong size bolts, M5, whereas they should be M6 and they should have lock nuts rather than standard nuts. The bike shop only had some M5 bolts, that would have to do, I put some glue on the threads to prevent the nuts getting loose. I later tried for example in Khmelnitsky to find the right bolts but couldn't find them and I would only get the right bolts/nuts later on my trip, in a bike shop in Kiev.

In Kamyanets there was a display of destroyed Russia military vehicles. [ I made a video of it that I placed on youtube. ] It is interesting I thought, that these vehicles are placed here, so far from the front line, but I suppose that is exactly why they were placed there, to show the reality of what goes on elsewhere in Ukraine to the people in this area far from the areas where attacks are taking place...

I had a look around the city quite a bit by bicycle. From the camping ground it was a steep-ish down hill then uphill to the other side of the city., The 2 sides are divided by a river. There was really almost no choice to go from one side to the other, but oddly the main way I would only ride on the last day when I was going by bicycle to the train station to go to Khmelnitsky.

This way was over a big bridge and along a castle and on this road where you need to pay a toll whichi I think acts like an entrance fee, unless you are a resident. But I as a cyclist was waved along. After the bridge another steep climb, on cobble stone roads. If I ever return to Kamyanets I will have a closer look here.

Another way I took some days earlier turned out to be down a steep bad road then through a sort of valley where some information signs were posted such as about fossils that had been found that of scorpions about 2m long... This road also led along a very old wooden church and after that a very unstable bridge across the water.

I liked Kamyanets-podilsky a lot more than Chernivtsi: Bad roads but quite a few interesting places, parks, old churches, etc.

More to come, in progress.

To Khmelnitsky

I went to Khmelnitsky by train. The owner of Sadiba gerasimovikh helped me with information on whether you can take a bicycle in the train. He called the station about it and they said that it was no problem. This was a local train (electrichky or similar) and just about anything is allowed to take on such trains, a friend of mine commented :)

It was another hot day, which I love. I don't understand people having issue with the heat, unless they are fat, as fat acts as an insulation layer which means that even sweating won't cool you down enough (you are then insulated from the cooling by the fat), or if you have a medical issue such as that you can't sweat (at all, ever), which some people apparently have. The only issue I had was going up steep hills, then there is no real ride wind and sweating doesn't cool me down enough so on such rides I took a break from time to time. One time I checked and my cycling shirt was completely soaked, which means there was not enough cooling down from evaporating sweat...

On one day I tried to find a quicker way to go to the other side of the city across the river and went dwon very steep and bad roads at first, then at the bottom, there was a notice that ancient scorpions were found here (as it were etched into the rock) of 2 meters long! Then a bit further an old wooden church where there is a place to relax. After that across a wobbly tiny bridge then up steep roads to the top. There was for exam,ple a gravel/pebble road with grass and with my Stevens P18 bike with Pinion P1.18 I could get this and in fact up any road so no problems. On the grass it was surprisingly worse than on the pebbles and rocks due to not having much grip (grass is pretty slippery).

So the road that I mentioned already, crossing a bridge, was to the train station and to the right just before the bridge there is a castle. This road over the river is a toll road for motorists. I'm not sure if they assume everyone to be be visiting that castle or if generally that road is used to support maintenance of that tourist spot. I did see many people waving some card, I presumed that these state that they are residents of the city and get to pass without paying, as I didn't see them pay.

More to come, in progress.

Khmelnitsky

Staying in a motel like place not far from the station, called hostel24 but it seemed to be together with a hotel. I didn't exit at Khmelnitsky, but the train went to a small station at the edge of the city which was fine and close to 'hostel24' where I reserved a room. I asked whether there is a good place to put the bicycle, which there was behind a gate. I didn't always take the bicycle on my trips in Khmelnitsky, for example to make some walks in relatively nearby parks and to get some groceries I just walked. For this the location is not optimal, being in a spot more useful to cars (I would have the same issue with some motels where I stayed just outside Zhytomyr later).

The place I rented was a small room, which was not that well insulated and got quite hot from the sun shining onto it most of the day so for this reason I didn't like it that much here.

I made some long walks in the parks, and made bike rides too through the parks and to outside the city across the 'townhouse dobovski ozero', a small lake, to an area called 'dubove dachniy massiv' (dub = oak), where there were a lot of detached houses, from old/small and somewhat dilapidated to new, big, expensive.

On one trip I saw in one of the smaller parks a showing of photos of e.g. journalists who died in the war.

After a few days I bought a ticket to Kiev for a standard train (not a local train, elektrichky) including for a bicycle. The train station in Khmelnitksy is soviet but a cool style and the seats made from wood are excvellent to relax in! I should measure them some day...

More to come, in progress.

Back to Kiev, then Kremenchuk

It turned out the ticket for the bicycle was meant for a bicycle as baggage, i.e. a folding bicycle. I thought it was for a bicycle that you would take into a railway carriage for luggage which a friend from Kiev said is how it works... However, not in this case as the lady at the ticket office whom I asked didn't know anything about it... The people on the train solved it by letting me place my bicycle on one of the unused entrance ways to the carriage.

More to come, in progress.

In Kiev

In Kiev I reserved a place at a hostel called 'Hostel railway Kiev' which is located not far from the main railway station in Kiev as the name already suggests, where I had to pay cash, so I had to go look for a bankomat. It wasn't a shared room, but my own room, for a low price but it was not a very cool place. And where could I store my bicycle? There were people asking about the bicycle, how far had I ridden, but also, what did it cost? I skirted around that question as I didn't get a good feeling about them. There was perhaps a possibility to store it in a garage but how long would it take until someone got here? That wasn't clear so after a while I asked whether I could take the bike up into the room, then I could do some maintenance for it as well. This was fine, so I did that, then went to get some groceries.

The next day I met a friend, let him test ride the bike, he seems to prefer gravel bikes, whereas I want to be able to carry plenty of luggage. Perhaps some day I will buy a gravel bike but then with front suspension, and add a rear rack and fenders and see about how well a drop bar will work for long distances. I had done this years ago, ridden 150-160km in a day on my cross bike with rear rack with panniers which was quite comfortable but after that I switched to touring bikes and used arm rests on the handle bar to ride fast in an aerodynamic position that way.

After this we went to the Sunbox storage facility where I rented a 1 m^3 storage space. I could fit the bike in the box where I also kept clothes, and stuff I didn't want to take with me to Chernivtsi, diagonally by taking the wheels out.

Kremenchuk

When I was in Kremenchuk waiting to be able to visit a house about 10 km from the city which is a perfect distance for cycling to/from the city (not too far that it gets boring), I happened to see the house that I almost bought in 2022 about 25 km from Zhytomyr, offered again on olx.ua (the previous year I had seen it on dom.ria.com). I thought it had been sold the previous year, but the sale apparently hadn't gone through. After visiting the house near Kremenchuk I decided to revisit this other house, and this time by bicycle by making a trip from Kiev to Zhytomyr, to see more of the area that way and really experience what it would be like to live there, rather than travelling to/from it by car/bus as in 2022.

[ Btw. the issue of distance is for me to do with getting bored. I often ride distances of 10 km and then I am where I want to be before that happens. With distances of 20-22 km I experienced riding to e.g. Leiden where I studied that routes of such distances became very very boring after riding that same route many times and so they were annoying except some times in summer when it was hot and when there was not much wind or just a little tailwind, then I could ride fast and get home in a bit more than 30 minutes. Getting bored may be related to the area for me, as that route was through areas with a lot of farmer's land, where cows graze, which I find very uninteresting. This is what you encounter a lot in NL, I cycled through most of the Province of Zuid Holland for example, and it all looks boring to me... ]

In Kremenchuk I talked to people working in the hotel and 1 guy in particular who stayed there for a longer time, about places to visit, places that were good to buy a house. So I made day trips to Kamyani potoki (twice), Gorishni plavni (used to be called: Komsomolsk) (a granite mining area), Gradizk, Omelnik. Description to come

More to come, in progress.

Day trip Kremenchuk to Gorishni plavni (used to be called: Komsomolsk)

To come.

Day trip Kremenchuk to Kamyani potoki

To come.

Day trip Kremenchuk to Gradizk

To come.

Day trip Kremenchuk to Omelnik

To come.

Kremenchuk to Kiev, then 1 day in Kiev

I went to Kiev, where I reserved a place at 'Sun city hostel' also not far from the railway station, The next day I took the bike out of storage, then to a bike shop to get proper bolts for the kickstand, about 8-10 km cycling I think it was. Everything took so long, including getting to the bike shop and getting out of the city after that, that it was getting to be the end of the afternoon so I had a look around me. I just spotted a hotel at the edge of Kiev called 'West park hotel', when cycling, looked it up on booking to see what I might expect in prices, left my bike locked outside and asked if I could book a room for a night depending on whether they had a place where I could place by bicycle. Yes, they could put my bike in the conference room the guy at the reception said, so I booked a room here for the night.

I asked about food but was told that no cooking was being done at the hotel at the moment. I suppose the war caused this because of not enough guests but I didn't ask further about this as the guy at the reception was busy with some other people.

While here I went to a supermarket in the evening and a cashier said something which wasn't clear so I said that I am a tourist, and got talking a bit. I mentioned that I'm touring Ukraine, looking for a house to buy. She asked "what about the attacks?". I said that I had experienced attacks in Kharkov and esp. Zaporizhya the previous year and that it didn't bother me. She was a bit bemused by that :)

Kiev to Fastiv

The next day I cycled to Zhytomyr via various roads that are not main roads. You may cycle on high ways in Ukraine, but that is uncomfortable and noisy, even when using ear plugs.

I didn't select a precise route nor did I select places to stay beforehand, I just made an approximate route for the direction I wanted to go and then decided later in the day where to find a place to stay, looking on say booking.com for any hotels/hostels.