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.
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.)
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.
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.
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.
In my first post about dining in Kiev, I mentioned that I wasn’t in that many restaurants on this trip. It’s not that I have anything against restaurants — some of my best friends eat in restaurants — but this time, since I had a kitchen (and, honestly, someone who wanted to cook for me), there was more dining in than dining out.
Of course, before you can cook at home (or in your rented apartment in a foreign country), you need to pick up a few things at the market. I’ve been to a few markets in Ukraine — a Trader Joe’s type place in Odessa, a “Safeway” in Mariupol, as well as a couple open air, farmer’s markets — but my shopping previously had been pretty limited. Mostly just water for while I was there, and candy to bring home. This time, it was real grocery shopping.
For the most part, there were no big surprises; you could find pretty much the same things there are you would in any grocery store or supermarket over here. Things were presented differently, of course — not so much refrigeration around the produce and three deli/meat counters — and if you can’t read Ukrainian or Russian, picking out the things you’d need for a nice jambalaya might be harder, but you could find your way around OK.
A few small surprises: eggs come in 10-packs, not dozens; margarine and butter (масло, pronounced “masla”) come in “slabs,” not sticks; you could buy fish in almost any condition, from live to jerky; the only turkey I found was in a tin, as a specialty product, right next to duck and rabbit in a tin. Can you believe that? Eggs in 10-packs? Crazy!
So the shopping list included potatoes, tomatoes, cucumbers and cabbage (for salad; I generally prefer lettuce, but the leaf lettuce the store had didn’t look that good); eggs, butter and yogurt; chicken thighs and sausages (which tasted a lot like hot dog meat); a couple packages of frozen pelmini (because it’s just easier than making from scratch); a loaf of bread, cookies, mini creme-filled pastries of some kind, and a chocolate bar (with almonds); pasta (macaroni), and rice. I also grabbed some black pepper, because just putting salt on everything is bleh… but it seems that is what most people do. The price for all this was about 200 UAH, or about $25.
One thing we forgot was mayonnaise (майонез, pronounced “mayonnaise”), but there was a little Kwik-E-Mart across the street from the apartment which, amid all the beer and wine, also had a couple packages of mayonnaise. And “package” is right — apparently it doesn’t come in a jar (glass or plastic). Here’s a picture:
Packages of mayonnaise; usually there’s some indication on the cover of what type of oil was used (sunflower seemed the most common).
(The yogurt came in a plastic bag, not the tub that we’re so used to, so packaging is a tad different overseas.) Mayonnaise in hand, we now had the bulk of what we needed for the week.
So what did we eat? Well, simpler fare, and a lot of it. Left to my own devices, my meals usually consist of a couple granola bars for breakfast, a rather full lunch from a nearby food cart (quite often Indian food), and then whatever’s left over from lunch or something similar to a sandwich for dinner. Most Ukrainians don’t have the luxury of the more sedentary life I have, so meals are probably a bit larger in order to keep one’s strength up (and, more than likely, have the energy to endure those hot summer days and freezing winter nights).
A salad of cabbage, tomatoes and cucumbers (with mayonnaise to bind and salt to season) was present at most of the means, including breakfast. You’d be surprised how long one head of cabbage can last. In addition to the salad, breakfast also included the sausage, sometimes an egg, a package of pelmini (which is boiled and served with butter), reheated macaroni and/or other leftovers.
Half of the chicken thighs went toward some chicken soup, with rice and potatoes, which was actually very nice. (My companion, Viktoria, had an upset stomach for part of the time in Kiev, so she wanted some soup to help settle things down.) This made for a lot of soup, so that was a feature of several lunches and dinners. (The chicken was used to flavor the soup, but was then reheated for breakfast.) The other chicken was pan fried and part of a couple dinners.
Bread was there for most of the meals, of course, and the cookies and pastries often went with a cup of tea or coffee as part of breakfast or a little nosh after an evening walk. One of the more curious dessert things was to take a square of the chocolate and melt it onto a cookie, or when those ran out, a slice of bread. The bread/chocolate thing sounds a bit odd — and it was — but it still tasted quite good.
Naturally, I asked if this was normal fare for most Ukrainians, and apparently it is. I did get the sense we had a little more meat and a little less vegetables than is common, but it probably wasn’t that far off.
I will note that it was very strange to have someone else do the cooking. Honestly, I’m used to doing things myself, and between practical experience and Saturday afternoon cooking shows, I’d say I have a certain style and process when it comes to preparing things in the kitchen. This meant, of course, that I was utterly useless when trying to help. Apparently, it is possible to chop cabbage the wrong way, even if the end result looks exactly the same. (Also, I personally would have put the salt on the tomatoes, let them drain a bit, and then added them to the salad. But since I also really don’t eat tomatoes, who is going to listen to me?)
I also caused a bit of a kerfuffle (I love that word) when I insisted on cleaning up the kitchen after a meal. That’s how it was growing up: if you cooked, you didn’t have to clean, and vice versa. However, as I was told repeated, women are expected to take care of the house. I tried to get into the whole equality thing (“Well, what if the man and woman both work; is the woman still expected to do all the housework?”), but some notions just haven’t quite taken off over there (“Yes”). So for part of the week I was trapped in “The Donna Reed Show,” or possibly “Father Knows Best,” but other than a few times of feeling totally out of place in the kitchen, things weren’t too bad. And the food wasn’t bad either.
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.
As promised, I’m going to give a little run down of the meals during my time in Kiev. I usually sample two or three native dishes during my trips, and while that is definitely true this time, there was also the added wrinkle of some “home cooking” which has gotta count for something too.
The trip started with a some Italian food, Ukrainian style. (It almost started with Georgian — the country, not the state — but we got there too late and the kitchen wasn’t making their signature dish anymore.) The Da Vinci Fish House was kind of an odd choice, as neither I nor my companion are big on fish, but it was getting late and the options were running low. Pizza is pretty much the same there as here, although I’ve yet to see anyone do deep dish, or even a thicker chewy crust. Not that I really mind; just observing. I’ve had pizza, in one form or another, on all my trips. That night’s pizza was sausage, prosciutto, mushrooms and onion, and it was pretty nice.
Two interesting things for that night. First, this was the first restaurant I’ve been to in Ukraine that took credit cards. This kind of makes sense; on my first trip (to Odessa) I wasn’t hitting the restaurants all that much (and when I did I was paying cash, because that’s what the guidebook said I should do), and Mariupol, the subject of last year’s trip, is not nearly as cosmopolitan as Kiev. Credit cards are still gaining ground in Ukraine, but it only makes sense that a major tourist draw like Kiev would be leading the way. The other thing was hot chocolate. Have you ever wanted sit down a drink a warm cup of Hershey’s chocolate syrup? Yeah, me neither, but that is apparently about what passes for hot chocolate. I didn’t partake, but my companion had a nice cup of melted candy bar after the pizza. I asked if that was normal (for hot chocolate) and was told that it was. For anyone who complains that Swiss Miss is just too thin, be aware that the other end of the spectrum exists too. (Let me reiterate that I didn’t try the hot chocolate myself, but it was definitely thicker, and could very well have been more than just a melted candy bar.)
Day two featured an Old World delicacy known as a “Big Mac.” Yes indeedy, it was lunch at McDonald’s. I know the person I was with is not a fan of Mickey D’s (and I’m constantly teasing her about that), so I’m not sure if we were there as a way to ease me into Ukrainian food, or she just didn’t “get” all the teasing. I’m not a huge fan of McDonald’s either; I’m just amazed that the food tastes the same no matter which country you are in. Also, McDonald’s remains the only place I’ve been to in Ukraine where they put ice in the drinks.
In a previous post I mentioned the cafeteria we visited; that was actually one of two such places. The other one was a smaller place; given its proximity to one of Kiev’s universities, I gathered that the clientele was mostly students. It was at this smaller cafeteria where I tried a couple new things for this trip. The first was a “cutlet,” which is more the description of what it looked like than what it really was. It was kind of like a stuff potato pancake, with the potato being mashed potatoes and the stuffing being cooked cabbage. It wasn’t bad, but it wasn’t my favorite either. Also on the menu was a blini, which translates as a “pancake,” but what we would actually call a crepe. The filling was apples and caramel sauce, but there were several other fillings one could order as well.
At the other cafeteria (the one I mentioned in my other post), I finally had green borscht. (In Ukrainian the word is “борщ,” which means I should be spelling it “borshch” but the spell-check doesn’t like that.) In my previous trips, I’ve had red borscht, which the one made with beets (hence the red color). Since I have enjoyed the red variety each time I had it, I was looking forward to trying the green. Unfortunately, I didn’t like it nearly as well. It’s an OK soup — it’s green because it is made with sorrel and/or spinach — but I didn’t think it was as flavorful as the red. Also, this soup isn’t served hot, like the red, which I think diminishes its appeal. Still, it was OK, and it went fine with the rest of the meal, which was rice pilaf and some kind of sausage.
Curiously, despite the fact that Ukrainians cover everything in sour cream, I don’t recall having sour cream with anything I ate. Honestly, I think that’s a first for these trips. I don’t think sour cream would have helped the borscht, but a little dab might have been nice with the potato/cabbage cutlet.
Restaurant-wise, that was it for this trip; all the other meals were made at the apartment. I’ll put that into a separate post, which will also include the trips to the grocery store.
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.
Is it possible for a place to be both drier and more humid? If both can be true, then that certainly would explain my experiences in Ukraine. At least today was a rare moment of parity as both I and my companion were being pounded similarly by the sun. (As a side note, I don’t think the Weather Channel app I’ve been using during this trip has been right more than twice.). Today was freakin’ hot. When the breeze was up, it wasn’t too bad, but the moment there was a lull… ugh. But about the day’s events…
Today, after a quick run by the market for a couple things to help stay awake tonight (the taxi to the airport comes by at 3am) and a couple comestible souvenirs, it was time to head down to the war memorial I mentioned in my last post.
I like to read up on things (when possible) before I visit them, and it seems like this museum has had an interesting history: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Museum_of_the_Great_Patriotic_War,_Kiev and http://www.warmuseum.kiev.ua/eng/history.shtml. It is interesting that something that was once so despised is now considered by most to be a symbol of national pride. It is most definitely impressive, and while it wasn’t crowded today, there did seem to be a steady stream of people.
What is a little curious is that this major visitor attraction (most text and announcements are done in Ukrainian, Russian, English and French) isn’t all that easy to get to. You’d think a place like this would warrant some metro stop — hey, the Hydropark has one — or special mass transit route, but no. As it was, we ended up coming in the back way, which sucked because you had to climb a lot of steps and it was freakin’ hot today. But I and my ankle managed to survive somehow.
That was pretty much it for the day, but then those three paragraphs took up 6 hours. Being the first of June and a Saturday, there was something going on in Maidan Plaza, but it seemed eminently missable. It was back to the apartment to use up the remaining leftovers (I will need to do a separate post on the meals I had during this trip), get things packed up and then try to catch a few zzzs before the taxi comes.
While I am always keen to maximize the time I spend at most travel locations, I kind of wish I could have scheduled in a couple extra days. This trip was during Memorial Day week, which gave an extra day that I used on the front end for getting here. But it really would have been nice not to have to be on the first flight to Amsterdam, so as to make the connection to Portland. Next time it would be great to have a midday flight to AMS, get a good nights sleep in an airport hotel, and then catch the Portland flight the next day. Yeah, that would be nice.
Well, that’s it for the live reporting of this trip. I’ll get pictures and additional filler material posted once I get back home and get settled in again.
