Day 5: Rodina Mat and Kiev Plage

Last night after having a hot dog for dinner (uh, nutritious? I was trying to keep on budget) I was making my way back to the hotel when I heard some music in the park outside the metro station. I just intended to check it out for a second since it was getting late, but it was actually really good! It was a Jewish group playing what I assume was a rocked-up version of traditional music (with drums and electric guitars and keyboards) and there were dancers who were getting people up from the crowd to join in. To be honest, folk music can be... painful... but this was a lot of fun and there was a really spontaneous and joyous atmosphere. Then I saw this shirtless guy waving his arm around in the middle of the circle. At first I thought that he was just doing the "dancing in the ring" type thing, but when a couple of guys came in and grabbed him and pulled him out of there, I realised that what he was actually doing was a Nazi salute. I was really shocked and it was hard not to let that suck the fun out of the whole event. I have to credit the dancers, they just kept on going - I think I would have faltered. Perhaps, sadly, they're used to it. I suppose it's just one guy out of a crowd of about 100, but it still made me wonder how widespread anti-semitism and neo-Nazism might be here. What prompts someone to want to get in the middle of people who are just singing and dancing and having fun and do that?

Well, today I headed out to an I suppose related site, the main WWII museum and memorial. The museum is in the base of a giant stainless steel statue of The Motherland defending Kiev from her enemies. I decided I wanted to go all the way up the statue, 91 metres up in the shield. It was more than half my notional daily budget, but hey, how often do you get to go 91 metres up a giant Ukrainian woman? There is such a thing as being too budget-conscious after all... After much confusion when they made me sit in the lobby for 20 minutes and periodically came and spoke Russian/Ukranian to me, a group of 3 of us was constituted to go up with a guide. I didn't quite realise from the bottom what a mission it was going to be! There was a lift up the first bit, but then there was a lot of climbing up a mix of vertical and 45 degree ladders, hooked on to a safety line - much more full-on than expected! The view from the top was worth it though, first from a viewing platform on her hand, and then through a sort of porthole on the top of the shield, which gave 365 views across Kiev, luckily on a lovely day. The other 2 were Russians, and they were really nice and translated for me, which helped especially for the bits that were trying to save me from falling down the statue to my death... The whole thing took about an hour, and I didn't feel at all like the guide was hurrying us along, even though you could only have one group up there at a time.

I love Kiev... and Hugh Laurie?

Nothing says a happy marriage like a couple of tanks

Statues outside the war museum

Me with one of the statues outside the war museum

Me with the Lavra churches in the background

The Rodina Mat statue

Me and Rodina Mat


Eep, we have to climb up there?


View of the lavra churches from Rodina Mat






Views of Kiev from the statue






Views of Kiev with the statue's sword

Me popping up out of the shield

Me with the sword behind me, bit dark unfortunately

After a quick look around the museum on the way out, I decided to go to an island in the middle of the Dnieper to try and get some photos with the Rodina Mat in it. I knew that there was a 'hydropark' on the island - basically a combination of a funfair and a water park, but my guidebook failed to tell me that there were beaches! Real, proper beaches, Paris Plage can kiss Kiev's arse ;) Dirty beaches, and I was shocked to see people swimming in the river, which MUST be polluted - the Dnieper goes all the way up to the reservoir around Chernobyl and Pripyat, after all - but beaches nonetheless. Getting a bit of beach time was one of the goals of my holiday, and obviously I had banked on Odessa for that, seeing as everywhere else I'm going is landlocked, but here I was lying on a beach in Kiev. Awesome!

View of one of the beaches

Not too many tidy Kiwis on the beaches of Ukraine

View of Rodina Mat and the Lavra churches from the beach


View of the lavra belltower from the beach

At one point, I went off to buy some water. One of the glories of Kiev and Eastern Europe in general is that you're usually never more than about 20 metres away from another kiosk selling you stuff, but of course I managed to wander into a hut occupied by 3 tramps and a lot of empty bottles everywhere. I said "um, do you have water?" and one of the tramps said, "vodka? yeah" (Voda is water, Vodka is little water) so I said "no, water" and he picked up a big 10-litre container for me to drink out of. Normally in these sorts of awkward situations I'll do pretty much anything to avoid causing offence, but a girl has to draw the line somewhere, and drinking tramp water is as good a place as any. So I made my awkward escape... It was kind of nice of them to offer me water though.

After about 3-4 hours, I called it a day, although not before catching my new sandals in the uneven wooden boardwalk and doing a massive trip which wrenched the toe strap on my sandal almost all the way off :( Back at the hostel now blogging (obviously) ahead of my train trip tonight. Will blow the budget taking a taxi to the train station because I would need to change trains on the metro and there's like 5 minutes up and down stairs and tunnels to do it. Planning to leave PLENTY of time to get there for 22.15. I hope it goes well!

Day 4: Mission aborted and St. Sophia

I'm putting up 4 posts at once because I've been writing them daily and waiting to get online to post them. Turns out that the hostel has free wifi, no issues, but I've just been too tired to go and ask for the code every time I've gotten back to my rooms, so I'm only just getting around to it. So if you have a lot of time on your hands, congratulations, I've filled it!

Today I went and asked the receptionist for advice on how to get out to Chernihiv, the medieval town I mentioned in yesterday's blog entry. She clearly didn't really know and suggested about 5 different places all over the city where I might be able to get the bus. When I asked the obvious question of which was best, she looked on the internet and then said there was one bus from the central bus station at 8.40 am (it was already like 8.20) and there might be others, she didn't know. So yeah, that was helpful... It took me about an hour and a half to get out to the central bus station and find where I was supposed to go in a spaghetti-junction style intersection. There were no signs right around where it was supposed to be, and I had the frustrating feeling of finally being sure I was in the right spot but utterly unable to find the station. At long last, I saw a van with a sign in the window saying 'Odessa' and figured out that all the plain white, unmarked campervan-looking things actually constituted the central bus station of Kiev.


Welcome to Kiev Central!

I asked a driver if there was a bus to Chernihiv and he told me to go to some other station, way out on the end of one of the metro lines. By this stage, it was only about 10 o'clock and I was already tired and frustrated and I couldn't stand the idea of trawling around trying to find another bus station on the off-chance that there would even be a bus leaving any time soon, and then go through a 6-hour round trip plus sightseeing.

So I took the metro back to the centre and just sat on a bench in the sunshine in Independence Square until my back stopped aching and I was feeling a bit more in sorts. I then headed up to St Sophia Cathedral, which turned out to be really fantastic, so it's a good thing that my trip didn't happen or maybe I wouldn't have seen it. It's all the more special for being an authentic 11th-century building, not a reconstruction, and there are lots of amazing 11th C frescoes and mosaics surviving inside. They've done a really good job with the restoration, with some parts overpainted and others left original, so that you can see how the frescoes would look new, but also see the original, faded works. The church was established by Prince Vladimir, who converted Kievan Rus to Christianity, and finished by his son Yaroslav, whose tomb is in the cathedral. The Byzantine influence is very clear - Vladimir married a Byzantine princess, Anna (prompting his conversion) and one of his daughters ended up Queen of France. I was eavesdropping on an English-speaking tour guide and she said that the Soviets were all ready to blow the place up, but a party of French delegates persuaded them not to, on the pain of losing diplomatic relations with France, since they regarded the cathedral as part of French heritage as well. That kind of sounds like a made-up story, but a nice one anyway.

Statue of a hetman (Cossack leader) in St Sophia Square. NB If any of you are moved to start calling me Hetman Gwan, I'll allow it. I'll even graciously respond with my best HWAH! As in "war, what is it good for, HWAH, absolutely nothing"


St Sophia's Cathedral


The belltower of St Sophia's


Yours truly with the belltower in the background. It's wonky because I did a self-timed shot on a slanty wall


View from the belltower over Sophia Square, with St Mikhayil Monastery in the background


Secret squirrel (i.e. verboten) picture of the interior of St Sophia's

After that, I walked down Andriyivsky Uzviz, which supposedly follows the route St Andrew, one of the apostles, took from the banks of the Dneipr up the hill where he stuck a cross in the ground and prophesised that a great city would rise up. These days, it is a windy, very unevenly cobbled street lined with people selling paintings, wood-carvings, embroideries etc. to tourists. I actually wanted to buy some nice coasters for my flat, but for once in the history of tourist tat, there weren't any on any of the dozens of stalls I looked at! I didn't buy anything, although at some stage I'll probably get a couple of magnets as well, since my new behemoth of a fridge is magnet-free.

View of Andriyivsky Uziv


St Andrei's Church at the top of A. Uziv, built by the famous (in Russian architectural history terms) architect Rastrelli

I finished off the afternoon by getting a haircut - only about 10 euros, and any opportunity to have a haircut without having to chat to the hairdresser is fine by me - and then by trying and failing to find the Chernobyl museum. This was another occasion of going round and round in circles where it should have been according to the map. I am getting very over being lost and not being able to find anything even when I'm sure I'm in the right place, I won't be entirely sorry to go to some smaller cities.

Tomorrow is my last day here, not too sure what I'll do during the day yet, but I'll want to leave plenty of time to get my train! It's not till 10.15 pm though, so I'll definitely be able to do a bit more sightseeing first.

Sign in my hostel. You may ask what the eff you're meant to do with it then, but I know the Approved Eastern Block Toilet Paper Disposal Method is to put your gross, used toilet paper in a bin next to the loo. In any case, the hostel has been cunningly skirting the issue by not providing any toilet paper anyway. Oh well, at least it's not a squat toilet swimming in human waste like the loos next to Mikhailovsky Monastery...

Day 3: Kievo-Pecherska Lavra

I was Very Brave today and after taking the metro to Arsenalna station (and getting a couple of delicious mini-pastries filled with soft cheese for breakfast) I followed my guidebook's instructions and got a trolleybus to the Kievo-Pecherska Lavra, my destination for the day. Actually, it turned out to be closer than it looked on the map, so I could have probably saved myself some bravery and just walked. Luckily though, I was paying attention and managed to spot the name on the bus-stop and jump off.

The Kievo-Pecherska Lavra is known in English as the 'Caves Monastery', for the obvious reason that there is a network of underground caves, as well as above-ground churches and other buildings. The monastery traces its origins back to St Anthony of Lubech who came from Greece to live in a manmade cave here in 1051, after Prince Vladimir converted Kievan Rus to Christianity. Anthony and his followers eventually dug out a whole series of underground monastic cells and chapels etc. Nowadays they are most notable for all the dead bodies of Orthodox saints in them, which are wrapped up and covered in rich chasubles and headdresses, often with a little mummified paw or two sticking out of the wrappings. Of course, the Church claims the preservation of their bodies as a miracle, and the Soviets tried to debunk this by saying it was a natural process of mummification caused by the lack of moisture in the caves.

I suppose the Church won that round, as this is a huge pilgrimage site. Almost everyone visiting, as far as I could tell, was Orthodox – Russian and/or Ukrainian, presumably. I bought a headscarf (partly because it was really cold, partly because an allegedly 100% silk scarf for less than 3 euros seemed like a good deal, and partly to blend in) but I would have had a hard time faking it as a believer, there was way too much bowing and crossing and kissing of things going on to pull it off.


Frumpy Ernie, now 50% frumpier

It was fine though, even if I did feel a bit awkward not joining in on all that – in a spirit of respectfulness, I even tried not to go down a tunnel marked “reserved for prayer only” but a priest corralled me and sent me down there, so I could but obey ha ha! Some parts were very dark, so the beeswax taper that is apparently 'traditional' to buy came in handy. It was a bit surreal at times though. Obviously I don't want to judge other people's religion, but I was following this couple around for a bit and they seemed pretty much in a race to cross themselves, kiss the saint's coffin and murmur a prayer as quickly as possible before moving on to the next one. Perhaps just the physical contact with the relics is what matters most, so the quicker you get round the quicker you pile up your blessings... To be brutally honest, though, the constant little popping noise of kisses on coffins got on my nerves.

Snatched a photo when I had one of the rooms to myself, had to be quick so not very good but you can kind of see the coffins and icons. Without the flash it's much darker.


Another sneaky photo of an underground chapel, I think dedicated to St Theodosius, Anthony's first follower, who is buried here

When I got out of the caves, the weather had gone from cold and windy to cold and windy and pouring down, which didn't seem fair considering I'd just been underground. I was pretty tired by this stage anyway, so after getting my shoes all wet and filled with grit and being buffeted from the rain in all directions, I headed off to locate a cafe and had some lunch until the rain passed over. Then checked out some of the churches above ground. They are quite pretty, but again the disappointing thing is that everything is so new. Between the Nazis and the Soviets, a lot of stuff got blown up or just neglected to the point of falling into ruins, plus apparently there had already been various fires, Mongol hordes and earthquakes laying waste to the site since the 11^th century. The main cathedral, for example, was only rebuilt in 2000, although 'technically' it's from 1077. Its destruction was once again courtesy of our Stalinist friends abandoning Kiev to the Nazis.

The Assumption Cathedral

Some of the buildings now house various small national museums, which have to be paid for separately. I went into one, the Museum of Historical Treasures, which I really enjoyed. It featured essentially precious metal objects from prehistory to the 20^th century, and had some really cool stuff from the Scythians and Samartians and Kievan Rus. There were some amazing Scythian stuff that looked basically medieval, but was from the 4^th century BC. I had only ever seen quite basic animal forms and quite crude jewellery, but some of this stuff was really impressive. You could really see the Greek influence in some pieces, whilst others reminded me of Anglo-Saxon stuff. There were a couple of graves with the skeletons still adorned with rings and bracelets and headdresses, very cool. By contrast, some of the actual medieval stuff from Kievan Rus looked more primitive! It was interesting as well seeing the influence of different cultures – the Greeks, settlers from what's now Iran, the Mongols, the Huns, etc. I really liked seeing this, as I'm interested in the history of Eastern Europe and you don't often see early stuff from this part of the world in museums in Western Europe or whatever. I can now inform you that the Scythians, as far as I can see, were positively obsessed with depicting scenes of predatory animals eating their prey. Apparently, this symbolised the need for sacrifices to be made to sustain one's life-force, or something like that.

After the museum, I had had enough, having been at the site all day long from like 10 to 5 or something, so I walked back to the metro, with the rain falling off and on as it had all day. On the way I went past the monuments to the Holomodor – the Ukranian famine engineered by the Soviets – and to WWII.

I had to laugh going in to the metro, I heard the word 'control' over the speakers, and somehow leapt to the conclusion that it was a passport control, especially when I saw people showing some sort of photo ID to a policeman-looking guy. I obediently went up and showed him my passport, he shook his head and made a circle with his fingers so I thought “oh, he wants to see my immigration stamp”, showed him that and he took me and pointed to the machines where you put your metro tokens in. Ohhh, they're checking that people are paying to use the metro, d'oh! I felt like quite the dick for showing the ticket inspector my passport, ha ha! Oh well, we all do dumb things in foreign countries eh? The guy must have wondered who this nutter was showing him her passport though... At least we know that if I was living under a totalitarian, random passport-checking regime, I'd be very obliging.

Managed to find my way back to the hotel with no problems this time, feeling a bit more upbeat than yesterday when I was wondering why I couldn't just go lie on a beach like everyone else. (Although with the weather Europe's had this summer, probably not a good idea anyway.) After a bit of a rest, I went out to a Georgian restaurant I had seen while getting lost the other day. Had a really delicious chicken meatball soup with gorgeous bread, sort of like Turkish bread but really soft. And it arrived piping hot, which is my bare minimum requirement for soup. The second course wasn't as good, a sort of pork stew, it was a bit oily and quite difficult to cut the meat in the bottom of the stew pot, also packed with coriander, which was nice in the soup but I'd had enough of it by the time I had the main. It was okay though, I was getting pretty full by then so I didn't mind leaving half of it. Tried a glass of Georgian red wine as well, which was okay, but a little bit sweet. I tipped 20%, which is probably a bit much, but the waitress was nice and I was the only customer and I felt sorry for her. I find tipping confusing, especially when I still don't 100% understand the money. Pretty much on budget so far, although things are a little bit more expensive than I expected. With the tip, the meal tonight was about 17 euros, which is okay for 2 courses and wine of course, but not dirt cheap – you can definitely eat out in France for the same amount of money. But on the other hand, I had 2 courses and a soft drink at lunch today and it was less than 5 euros. I expect Lviv will be a bit cheaper, then maybe Odessa the same as here.

Tomorrow I am going to try an expedition to Chernihiv, which is a couple of hours north-east of Kiev, on about the same latitude as Chernobyl, but about 40 miles away on the other side of the Dnepr. It's a World Heritage site, known as an 'open-air museum' for its many cathedrals and monasteries from the Middle Ages.

Inside one of the churches near the caves, I forget which.


Church and belltower near the caves


Prayers by the icon


All the icons you can eat


The refectory and Chapel of Saints Anthony and Theodosius


Inside the refectory


Frescoes in the refectory


Stolypin's grave - I haven't put up a picture of the opera house where he was assassinated yet, but I will (went by it on Day 2). In case I still haven't, or you haven't read that, he was a reforming Tsarist minister who hung so many people that the noose became known as Stolypin's necktie. I didn't realise he was killed in Kiev, but there you go. Thoughts on his legacy differ wildly as to whether he may have ushered in an age of real reform or just been a repressor for the Tsars. You see these sorts of 'false dawns' all over Russian history, where people look back and think "what if so-and-so hadn't been assassinated" or whatever and wonder if the Revolution could ever have been avoided.


Inside Troitskaya Church


And again


The monument to the Holomodor famine


The Holomodor monument with the monastery belltower in the background



The war memorial


War memorial with the Holomodor monument


Best. Film. Ever?