One of the only planned events for my trip was this night at the opera.. or rather, operetta… well, actually, musical.  But it was at the Kiev National Academic Theatre of Operetta, so that’s something.  Kiev, like most cities throughout Ukraine and Europe, has formal, grand opera house, and while it would have been cool to see something there, it just didn’t quite work out.

But there are many venues in Kiev, including a children’s theater, a theater of modern dramatic arts and several symphony halls.  Truth be told, though, there tends to be a lot of overlap between them all — the opera house had musical performance, the children’s theater had things for adults, and modern plays showed up everywhere.  It seemed, though, that the Operetta House did have a significant number of offerings of lighter fare — they recently did “Kiss Me, Kate!” (Цілуй мене, Кет!, featuring the music of Коул Портер – Cole Porter).

The show for our night was “My Fair Lady,” of which I knew the story and most of the songs, although I did get the DVD before my trip so it would all be fresh in my mind.  I definitely needed things to be fresh, because the musical was being performed in Ukrainian.  I scarcely know any Russian and make no claims at all about knowing Ukrainian (which is a different language), but I still had a really good time.  It had good actors with good energy (especially the guy playing Henry Higgins), so I had no trouble following along.  I think I even got some of the humor.

Sadly, I don’t have any photos of the performance itself — cameras were not allowed to be used during the performance, naturally.  (They do have a few photos on their site, should you be interested.)  Most of my photos are of that part of Kiev, the theater building and my companion, Viktoria.  She, like me, isn’t wild about being in photos, but this was a special occasion, so she was asking me to take photos of her.

There are fewer captions on these photos, because between my notes above and my posting during the trip, I think I said most everything.  But you may still want to flip through them all, because I think there are a few good comments there.

A Night at the Operetta 

Another couple days, another couple dozen pictures. This day in Kiev — the 4th or 12th or 182nd, I’m not sure at this point — was another big picture day, so I’ve split it into two galleries. First up is a visit to St. Michael’s Church, followed by a little bit of wandering around the Maidan Square part of town.

St. Michael’s is probably the third most prominent church in Kiev, tourist-wise, behind the Kiev-Pechersk Lavra and St. Sophia Cathedral. St. Michael’s didn’t feel quite as much of a tourist location as those others, though; there definitely weren’t as many people wandering around when we were there. It is also a school/seminary and there were several art students on the grounds when we were there, so it really had a different feel. If you’re in Kiev, want to see a very traditional Ukrainian church and don’t feel like fighting the crowds, you should definitely check out St. Michaels. (And it was only about 10 minutes walk from the apartment — really easy to get to.)

After that, it was a little stroll through a nearby park, a circle around the Monument to Prince Volodymyr (I couldn’t remember the name of this when I was writing the photo captions), and then down to Maidan Square. Along the way we happened on to a Polish Catholic church — not that Polish Catholic is different from Roman Catholic; it just happened to be a Polish speaking parish. (Historically, Poland had a huge influence on Ukraine, including control of some of the territory in the past. There remains a bit of lingering antagonism between the two countries.) This church turned out to be a kind of important church — Pope John Paul II said Mass there when he visited Ukraine. A Polish pope saying Mass at a Polish parish? — oh yeah, that’s a big deal! (There was a display in the church with the altar used by the pope.) I don’t have any photos of the inside — no picture-taking was allowed — but some of the interior architecture was interesting, and there was a definite Ukrainian or Slavic influence in the art that adored the sanctuary.

After some lunch/dinner at the apartment, it was time for “My Fair Lady” at the Operetta Theater; that will be the subject of my next post and set of photos.

St. Michael’s and environs

Again I must apologize for how long it is taking me to get these pictures up. I think I have them all sorted (next time I should use separate memory cards for each day) and most of them are resized and ready to be uploaded. I still have to tweak a couple in Photoshop, but I’m down to just a handful now.

The set for this day (which was, I think, my third day — I’m starting to lose track) I’m calling “Waves & Rails.” The big outing this day was over to the Hydropark — which, you may recall, I wasn’t totally thrilled with. But, it was right on the river, and so we spent a couple hours there. I learned a couple card games — that was quite the learning experience, but I think I got it in the end — splashed around in the water a bit, and had a pretty nice time.

Then there was a little more subway riding — you can probably drive to the Hydropark, but since there’s a Metro stop right there, why bother? — a visit to the Golden Gate monument — which, sadly, was closing for the day — and then a walk back to the apartment. All told, a very nice day.

The “Rails” part of my title for the day wasn’t just because we were riding the subway, but also because I started taking pictures of the stations. I didn’t get them all, but I tried to grab a few interesting pictures here and there. (It would take me another trip or two to get interesting photos of all the stations — assuming that there’s something interesting to see at each station.)

Waves & Rails 

This is a little depressing — I’m still not quite half way through all my pictures. 187 down, 289 to go (or therebouts). This set marks the end of my second full day.

As mentioned, rain was coming in and chased us home from St. Sophia’s. The storm, though, only lasted an hour or two, and once it was over, the sun came back out and it was rather pleasant. For the afternoon/evening, we decided to go the other direction — away from the city center and toward the “old city,” the “lower city,” aka, Podil.

I’m not sure where Podil officially starts, but I consider it starting at the base of the hill you come down from the upper city. (By the way, here’s a really good read about the street where my apartment was, Andriyivskyy [“Andrew’s”] Descent.) I’m sure a native would be able to describe the unique character of Podil (and the other areas of Kiev), but to me they all looked kind of the same. Still, there are a few things that stand out with Podil — there’s a university (National University of Kyiv-Mohyla Academy); a couple parks/plazas, including one with a rather unusual fountain; a very shop- and restaurant-lined street that stretched from the Poshtova Metro station to the Kontractova station (2 minutes by subway or a 20 minute walk). It had a little of the feel of a college town, so maybe that would be its claim to fame. (It’s also an historic neighborhood, if that counts for anything.)

Kontractova became our primary Metro station, which meant walking up and down Andrew’s Descent several times; I believe that I likened this street to Lombard Street in San Francisco (you know, the really winding one). It wasn’t quite that bad, but after a long day walking the streets of Kiev, that last climb to the apartment was sometimes a killer. (This is probably how I strained my ankle too.)

There was a really cool thing during this exploration of Podil. There’s a convent there (in probably the safest place possible — right across the street from a police/military barracks), and we just happened to be viewing the chapel during vespers (or similar). There was a lot of chanting, of course, but every now and then was a sung response. Those were amazing — wonderful little snippets in two- or three-part harmony. It was a great way to wrap up the day.

Podil

The second full day in Kiev was marked with some more “local” excursions. The day started off with a trip across the street (literally) to see St. Andrew’s Church. It’s one of the older churches in Kiev, and the namesake of the street where the apartment was. As I mentioned in my comments for the day’s post, despite the ornateness of this Baroque era church, this seemed like one of the more “accessible” sites we visited.

After St. Andrew’s, we wandered over toward the city center in order to see the St. Sophia Cathedral complex. I had originally thought that all the street vendors of Saturday and Sunday were more of a weekend and/or Kiev Days thing; nope. They are always there, day in and day out. Some have formal stands or kiosks, but a lot of people just set up a card table, lay out their wares and start selling. This isn’t the case everywhere in Kiev, but since this was more of a tourist area, it only made sense. (I can’t imagine doing that for a living; some of the days were pretty hot, but people would be out there the entire day, often not packing up until 7 or 8 pm.)

Honestly, after seeing the Lavra, visiting St. Sophia was a bit superfluous. It was different, still amazing, and not nearly as large as the Lavra complex. I think if we had actually gone into the cathedral it would have been something a bit more special; I’ve seen some photos and the inside does look amazing. Plus I’m pretty sure I was wearing pants that day. Even so, I don’t think cameras were allowed in the cathedral, so even if I’d gone in, I wouldn’t have been able to share it. Oh well. (We did visit the House of the Metropolitan, which was interesting enough — and also required a separate admission.)

So here are the first batch of photos for the second day. There was a rain storm about halfway through the day, so it was easy to separate things. At least we were closer to the apartment when the rains came this time; on the day before, we had just left the Lavra and were walking along the street when the winds came up and the rain quickly followed. This time we had a little more warning, didn’t have as far to go, and I had my umbrella handy.

St. Andrews and St. Sophia 

As promised, here are the last photos from the first day in Kiev. (I know — this is all from one day.) These are from the Kiev-Pechersk Lavra — a “lavra” is a monastery complex. This is definitely a complex — I don’t know how many buildings there are, but there are a lot — and despite periodic rebuilding and updates, parts are very old. There is some stone rubble in the main plaza area from one of the original buildings, and it was dated to (I believe) around 1100. (That’s less than 100 years from the recognized founding of Kiev.)

This is also one of the main tourist draws for the city. The domes of the main cathedral have been photographed thousands of times, and can be seen from several miles away, depending on your vantage point. Most of the buildings required a separate admission fee, unless you bought the package ticket when you came in. (We didn’t, but that’s OK.) Despite being a big tourist destination, it really didn’t seem that crowded. Of course, we were there on the last day of Kiev Days, so maybe some of the people were attending other activities downtown.

It’s funny, I thought I had more pictures that this… I am almost positive that there were things I took pictures of that I haven’t found yet. Maybe my camera classifies things in unexpected ways. Well, if more photos turn up, I will add another gallery to this post.

Kiev Pechersk Lavra

Sorry it is taking so long to get these pictures up. I uploaded about 800 megabytes of images from the camera cards, which works out to about 500 images. I am sorting them, cleaning them up, resizing them, loading them into galleries, and then writing captions for everything. It is definitely taking a while, but I really hope to have it all finished up (and posted) before the week is out.

The images below represent about half of my first full day in Kiev. It didn’t seem like that busy a day, but we definitely covered a lot of ground: a walk through what was essentially a street art fair, a ride on the Kiev funicular, lunch at McDonald’s, a quick subway (Metro) ride to Maidan Square for day 2 of Kiev Days, a walk through the big downtown park, and then exploring the Lavra cathedral and monastery complex. The day also ended with a bit of a rainstorm, a mad dash to a different subway station and another ride on the funicular. Of course, I left my umbrella at the apartment.

Funicular & Poshtova

Since I keep using the word ‘funicular,’ I should at least tell you what it is: it’s a tram that goes up and down the hill. But here’s a better description, courtesy of Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kiev_Funicular. Riding the funicular was one of the two things I had hoped to do while in Kiev, and I ended up doing it twice on my first day there. Perhaps I should make longer lists for future trips.

Kiev Days

This was definitely a big party for Kiev. Both nights there were fireworks, although only a little bit of them could be seen from the apartment. But streets were blocked off (including the street for my apartment), there were lots of performers and street vendors everywhere, there were races and games and competitions — everything, it seems, except a parade, but maybe they had that yesterday. Who knows? If you’re planning on hitting up Kiev Days 2014, it happens on the last weekend of May. Book your tickets now.

Downtown park

OK, I know it has a name — probably Shevchenko or some similar Ukrainian icon — but I do not recall what it is, and Google Maps is of no help in this regard. Still, given the heat of the day, it was nice to get off the pavement and spend some time around the trees and grass.

Because I have so many pictures of the Lavra, I will put those on a separate post.

Sorry about the delay; as I’ve been getting back into the right time zone, my evenings have been a little more nap-filled than I had expected. Things are better now, and I’ve been working on processing the photos I took. I’ve got a copy galleries created, and if I’m really clever, I’ll go back to the posts where they would be relevant and add links there.

Random thoughts keep popping into my head about my time in Kiev, and I’ll get to posting those plus assorted anecdotes as I remember them. But I’ll start off with a more Portland-based comment: sometime, before I die, I would really love for my bag to be the first one that comes out on the baggage carousel. My bag has never been first, or even in the top ten. I’d really like to have that experience, just once. Because of where I was on in the flight back to Portland, I was one of the first people off the plane; I think I may have been the 7th or 8th person through Immigration. But then I was waiting for my bag, and I don’t now how many dozens of people came through Immigration after me, grabbed their bag before me, and went went on their merry ways I was left to watch forlornly for my bag to appear. Oh well, maybe one day…

Anyway, here are some images from my first afternoon and evening in Kiev. I rented an apartment on this visit, and it’s always nice when the online images line up with the physical place. So far I’ve been lucky in this regard: the apartments I’ve rented on my travels have all looked like their online photos.

The Apartment

I rented a nice two-bedroom place in an historic, just-out-of-downtown area. The street name translates as “Andrew’s Descent,” and it was one of the roads that connected the “new” upper part of Kiev to the “old” lower area that was first settled. The street itself was very European, being built of picturesque irregular cobblestones. It was something of a winding street — not quite as bad as Lombard Street in San Francisco, but still having a few turns.

Andrew’s Descent is also a very touristy street. Everyday vendors would set up their booths, and there seemed to be a lot of good pedestrian traffic. During my time there, I heard lots of Russian and Ukrainian, of course, but also some English (with both American and British accents), German, Spanish and even a little Japanese.

Kiev Days, First Night

By chance, I arrived during Kiev Days, which take place during the last weekend of May. Yeah, I didn’t know either. After getting settled into the apartment, it was just a short walk over to an evening concert being held during that the first night. We didn’t stay for the whole thing; really just had a glimpse of what was going on. Nice music, but lots of opera, which isn’t really my thing. Opposite the concert area were five hot air balloons; balloons at night are very dramatic when the operator fires the engine. People could walk around them, and even from several feet away, you could feel the heat when one was being fired.

These are the pictures I took while in Berdyansk, a fishing city turned seaside resort about 90 minutes outside of Mariupol.  Click on the pictures to zoom in a bit on some images.

These pictures are also in the Mariupol set, but I’ve also set them up here for you to see.