Ukraine 2017: Kyiv (Kiev)

[iguana]

I visited Ukraine for five days in December with Emily and Tim, with a two-day tour of the Chernobyl Exclusion Zone booked in the middle. I'll write up Chernobyl next but first here's what we got up to in Kyiv!

Arrival

We arrived at Borispol Airport after a decent enough flight, though getting past security at Heathrow had an additional step for people en-route to Ukraine and some other countries: before being allowed past the boarding pass scanners, we had to have our passports manually checked. We changed our money at Arrivals, since we'd not found anywhere in Britain that would sell us hryvnia, and found the SkyBus, which was a 20- or 30-seater minibus that took our ₴15 (40p) each, and 50 minutes later we were dropped off at Kyiv railway station.

We had trouble finding the Metro station that would take us to our hotel since at this point we hadn't met a single person who spoke English -- at some point this stopped being something I should consider for a foreign holiday, and I feel rather guilty for not having picked up some basic Ukrainian beforehand (or at least learning the Cyrillic alphabet, which I improved at over the holiday). The Metro station is quite a distance, left out of the far end of the station, and we missed it a few times because it didn't have the M logo above it.

Food was easy, even for us tricksy vegetarians. We asked at our hotel (the excellent Sunflower B&B) after checking in and the host chuckled that of course there's plenty of vegetarian options everywhere. She was right -- and eating in Ukraine was pretty straightforward; since the prices are so cheap there we could basically walk into anywhere we liked and still get a meal, dessert and (non-alchoholic) drinks for under £15 each.

And now for some public transport geekery

Arsenalna station is the deepest metro station in the world at 105m deep, almost twice London's deepest (Hampsted at 58m)

While Universytet has "one of the longest escalators (87 meters long)" (thanks for the lack of citation on that though, Wikitravel)

Each journey costs ₴5 (15p) and for our money we got a small plastic token that operates the turnstiles at the entrance. Most of the locals had a contactless card and it looks from Wikipedia like the tokens are being phased out soon, which is a shame because they had a fairground feel to them!

War Museum

On the first morning we visited the Great Patriotic War Museum, which has a colourful tank right outside.

Inside the museum was normal war museum stuff; the Great Patriotic War is the Soviet name for the Second World War.

Also outside was a collection of tanks, all lined up and great for photos, especially because the Motherland Monument could be seen from there.

There were more military vehicles on display further away from the museum, which we originally thought were part of the museum.

However, then we saw the sign in front of it, stating it was acquired in early 2015:

"This item is material evidence of crimes committed by pro-Russian militant groups supported by the Armed Forces of Russian Federation on the territory of Ukraine."

... lest we forget that tensions in the country are quite high at the moment.

Sightseeing

The various Orthodox Churches around town were all very colourfully painted.

We also spent a good amount of time in the Kyiv Pechersk Lavra, a large monastery, but I don't have any photos of it because there was an additional photography fee for entry. In the Lavra were some hand-dug caves used for storing what looked like mummified old clergymen, and we also climbed the belltower there which offered good views of the city.

The site also hosted the microminiatures museum, which was thoroughly fascinating with things like a chess set on a pinhead, and a carved rose flower inserted into a hollowed out human hair, all viewable through microscopes.

We visited Babi Yar park, a war memorial upon Babi Yar ravine where the largest mass shooting of Jews during World War II happened. The ravine itself was quite difficult to find until a local woman guessed why we were there and lead us there, talking in Ukrainian. The pathway suddenly emerged upon the ravine, which was huge. Someone had recently thrown some ashes down the slope. It was all rather affecting.

Back in the city main, we attempted to see the House with Gargoyles but the police had cordoned it off, apparently for quite some time having looked at Tripadvisor, and wouldn't tell us why. We also visited the Chernobyl Museum.

There was also a frog with too many noses at Mariyinsky Park park.

Oh okay one there too then

Departure

Not much else to add, except for the passport control at the airport. Before getting the exit stamp on our passport it was important to the security guards to give you a long, long hard stare. We didn't crack under the pressure so got to go home!

Comments

[squirmelia]

Looking forward to reading about Chernobyl!

[squirmelia]

Re-reading your Ukraine entries now as I am thinking of going with friends in September. They are saying they are going to try to organise a 2 day trip into the zone, so was wondering how much other time I would need to see Kiev. How long would you suggest?

[iguana]

Oh cool! I think three days in Kiev was enough for what we got up to -- there wasn't anything we missed out on, as far as I can remember. An extra day might have been useful since one of those days was Monday, when a lot of the museums and attractions are closed, and so we had to switch to a non-optimal plan. But unless you find something we didn't, Chernobyl is the main thing to do there!