Ukraine: The good, the bad and the ugly

The good:

• Soft drink: Bon buasson Targun 😉 And 'Creme soda'!
• Food: Vareniki with cottage cheese and smetana (sour cream)!
• Food: Blini (pancakes) with cottage cheese and raisins and smetana!
• various popular music, such as from Irina Bylik, Okean Elzy, Druga rika and more.
• Old style buildings from the 1900s or so, cool Italian styled.
• Nature, rolling hills, cool places such as Khortetsya (Zaporizhya) and Gagarin park in Zhitomir.
• Nature is nature, a bit more wild, not fake-manufactured as in the Netherlands.
• Many cool memorial monuments such as the jet airplane on pedestal in Ternopol, boat on pedestal in Kherson, the propeller airplane on pedestal in Zaporizhya, etc.
• The weather, not the bad Summers and soft Winters as in the Netherlands, but real Summers (hot) and real Winters (cold)!
• Some Ukrainian brands make my favourite tea. As a conductor on a train remarked, "Well, not really Ukrainian, as the tea comes from India or Sr-Lanka". Well, yes, but that's the case for all tea brands. What matters is making the combination of tea and/or the additives such as fruit flavours that make the tea... So, what I like in tea:
  1. From "Lovare": especially: 1001 nights, Lady (in 4 flavour pack)
  2. From "Curtis": esp. Mango green (everyone whom I recommended it, liked it...) and Earl grey passion. I further like Banana flambe, Mohito.
  3. From "Alokozay", which seems a new brand: I like esp. the lemon and the assortment is great for the many types of nice flavours in one package.
• People are generally more friendly, more helpful and more interested, than in NL and they are more philosophical... But there are problem areas, as I will mention below.

The bad:

• Many people throw away garbage away anywhere, far too much. Litter in nature is not cool!
• Not enough care for animals, reading some vk pages is just depressing and seeing apparently abandoned kittens (as I saw in Mariupol) is even more depressing...
• alcohol abuse issues.
• There are some issues of corruption that are not just about making a living, but business protection payments (mafia like) that I heard about. It seems everywhere there's good + bad with both good better than in NL, and bad worse than in NL: Some people want to rip you off, others are helpful and don't want anything back in return...

The ugly:

• People showing off wealth, esp. in Kiev with ridiculous cars such as range rovers, ridiculously large houses, ridiculously expensive restaurants such as: Belvedere, Monaco, Marakkesh, Knyazhy grad (Княжий град, situated at Michaelevsky square, less than a kilometre from Maidan). For the latter I might make 1 small exception: the pirozhky here were the best I ever tried, they were not baked in oil but I think steamed, with meat and egg these were so good in fact that I gave them a 10; they tasted better than anything else I ever ate in my life. I might go back there one day, just to try these again, but nothing more...

Last modified: CEST 2016-12-27