"Alko-Tur"

Chernihiv, Ukraine, 27th May 2012

Our departure from Kiev was impressively close to the time we said it would be. Marina drove through the busy streets of Kiev to a metro station on the outskirts where we'd meet with her cousin and his girlfriend and would go out to Chernihiv together on some sort of mini-road-trip. Sasha and Zhenia eventually found us, climbed in and said hello. They seemed friendly although we were to have a slight (read: total) language barrier. That didn't stop them, or us, wanting to have a chat so Marina, having worked all day as a tourist guide yesterday, would spend today in the guise of interpreter.


Looking at Ukraine on a map, you would imagine that it's largely empty. It's a country which dwarfs anywhere else in Europe aside from Russia, and roads go out from Kiev in straight lines to distant towns, crossing each other occasionally but not taking you anywhere else. The reality is quite different and the roads are dotted with villages, each with its own standard-issue bus stop. Added to these are the roadside petrol stations with associated shop, one of which we stopped at. My beer-tourism mission took me straight to the fridge and I looked for something new, but Sasha had other ideas and insisted I try a brew which went by the name of Stella Artois. I already know this, I told him. The brewery is a short distance from where I grew up. He had a word with Marina and I felt that I would have to allow myself to be persuaded.


"This one is made in Ukraine !" she translated. 


I was persuaded to try it and, well, it tasted pretty much the same as the one I already knew. Still, if you don't try you don't get. And I tried.

Chernihiv's one and only "love seat". We just had to.

We bumped through the streets of Chernihiv, past the main square and a few parks, and went out the other side. Marina had decided to show us the train station, slightly out of the centre. Despite it's grand facade and the spotless hammer-and-sickle motifs on the inside, Chernihiv station isn't exactly the most lively place and the trains were headed either to Russia, to Belarus or back to Kiev. I didn't have a visa for the first two and was going to the third anyway, and my idea of buying a ticket to the next place I could see fizzed away. We got back into the car and hit the centre of town for a wander.

Train station.

One of Chernihiv's many colourful churches

Chernihiv is a pleasant little place, with colourful churches scattered around, and generally lots of stuff to do. As in Kiev, the streets were full of people just having a wander and a chat, and kids playing on trampolines and whatever other fun things were on offer. Our guides, urban and sophisticated as they were, had to remind themselves to slow down in the small town and occasionally walked off at high speed to demonstrate how they would be walking in Kiev. In this  slow pace, we wander to the river where, as anywhere the USSR used to spread to, various things were rusting away. Cranes which used to handle cargo, the "rocket", a boat which took you up-river at a speed far higher than anything we had seen in Chernihiv, and a strange, abandoned looking building who's only sign of life was a tinny loudspeaker playing some of that wonderful "cheesy but I don't care" Russian pop music. As we wandered through the cannons on display in a nearby park, the loudspeaker interrupted its broadcasting to announce something.

Old wooden house

"Ah ! There is a cruise leaving soon !" Marina translated once again. It seemed to everyone to be a good idea. Sasha was keen on getting some beer for the trip, got directions to the nearest shop from a couple of girls and bought us a round of Berdychivske beer, another one to add to the list.

Hot air balloon and old truck

"This is what we call Alko-Tur !", Marina said, and M and I, never ones to shy away from local cultural experiences, happily joined in. We bought a ticket for 20 grivnyas, although the ticket had a price of 20 kopeeks on it, and had been issued by the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic. I have no idea how many tickets were printed given that these are still in use, but I'm sure it will end up in a drawer somewhere at home and can be used to liven up dinner parties with boring conversation. The boat didn't go anywhere in particular but there was cheesy music on board, we were endlessly waved at by people lining the river banks, sunning themselves and playing volleyball, and we talked about this and that, learning and experiencing little snippets of Ukraine as we went. We also try to give back to the community and so explained to Sasha in particular that Speedos were a major fashion faux-pas where we come from, which he looked a little perplexed by. By the looks of the crowds on the riverside beaches, Speedos are as compulsory in Ukraine for men as stilettos are for women. We returned to Chernihiv having seen nothing much apart from beaches and forests, but it was a delightful little trip. Alko-Tur claimed 2 more fans.

The "Alko-Tur" gang

Generic boat & river picture

Returning to Chernihiv centre, we found a restaurant and were introduced to many Ukrainian dishes, each as tasty as the next, each round of food interspersed with a shot of chilli pepper vodka to wash the food down. Sasha had taken a spicy dish to eat and so was in a bit of trouble and so I went to pour a second round of chilli vodka. He looked alarmed and I was told that whoever poured the first shot had to pour all of the others. I can't remember why this is but it was another thing to remember. Travelling really is a minefield when it comes to behaving yourself in other countries. 

 End-note: No Ukrainians were harmed in the making of this production. Sasha did eventually recover from his excess of chilli.

 I <3 Ukraine !

M's efforts to create an "I <3 Chernihiv" picture were rather successful

We headed off back to Kiev as "Kiev Days", our excuse for coming to Ukraine of which we had seen absolutely nothing, was to finish off with a fireworks and laser display down by the river. Once again, we were fantastically unsuccessful as we got bogged down in traffic and saw a few fireworks exploding into the night sky on a distant horizon.

Fuck Off Euro

Kiev, Ukraine, 26th May 2012

"Where are you staying ?"
"With a friend."
"Where ?"
"In Obolon."
"What address ?`"
"...I don't know."

Silence.

And then my passport was decorated with a delightfully fluorescent pink stamp and I was in. M followed by giving the same vague answers and gesticulating towards me. We picked up our bags and stepped out into the Ukrainian night air to be greeted by Marina who gained worldwide notoriety by bringing beer to us last time we were at Kiev airport and who was to be our delightful host for this long weekend. Our plans to be reasonable, get up early and see as much as we can got off to a terrible start as we drank wine and caught up on Marina's balcony until 6am. But we had faced more difficult challenges and we were up (reasonably) early to begin our walking tour of Kiev.

Obolon - starting point and all round groovy suburb

It's an interesting time to visit Kiev - Euro 2012 is just around the corner, the country is going through something of a political crisis as the president has carried out the time-honoured tradition of putting his most dangerous opponent in jail, and on this particular weekend was "Kiev Day", a celebration of the anniversary of the city. With Marina as our self-professed crap guide ("I want to answer your questions but I don't know anything") we clocked up the kilometres around the city, taking in beautiful sights and the odd beer along the way. Neither of us really knew what to expect from Kiev but it was a very pleasant surprise all round as every square and street welcomed us in turn with impressive size or pleasant architecture. Another side of Kiev that I quickly learnt to like was that it's hard to look like a tourist here. Whereas, in many places, whipping your camera out to take a picture of a building or square puts you squarely and irreparably in the tourist box, any vista or landmark in Kiev is surrounded by crowds of locals taking pictures of themselves and each other. Our only stand-out feature was our distinctly antiquated camera, which paled in comparison to the monstrous SLRs dangling around Ukrainian necks in every direction.

St Michael's church

It would have looked great on the balcony but I couldn't meet the asking price

The longest queue for the "Funikuler" that Kiev had ever seen

And we finally got inside

Our walk talk us up a cable car to the top of a hill upon which was the scintillating St Michael's Church and around grand streets to Independence square, where our wanderings were interrupted by an animated-looking young guy who turned around and interrogated me.

"You speak English ??"
"Yeh"
"Yeh, or yes ?"

The question caught me out.

"Yeh and yes. I do."

It seemed that our interlocutor's English failed him at this point and he turned to Marina and passionately explained something to her.

"He says that not all Ukrainians want the Euro here"

She explained that we weren't here for Euro 2012 and he seemed pacified. However before departing, he lifted a fist triumphantly and broke back into English for our benefit.

"Fuck off Euro !!" he exclaimed, no doubt inspired by the delightful ladies at Femen. Whereas the European Championships might divide opinion in Ukraine, the actions of Femen do as well, even amongst the women they claim to struggle for. "Those bitches", Marina calls them. "They started off well but now they just protest against everything. They protest in order to protest". And our new anti-Euro friend ? "He was probably already drunk...". There we go then. Still, it seems that predictions of football fans being killed if they come to the tournament are slightly over the top...

Maidan Mezalezhnosti or, for those with cramped tongues, Independence Square

The giant ball decided not to fuck off

 It was beer o'clock and we found a little terrace in the sun when Marina scampered off and returned to the table clutching some packets of dried fish and calamari. A local tradition which you'll find on menus under the heading "With Beer", the snacks are deliciously tasty and mental notes were made to fill the bag with them and take as many home as possible. The walk continued and took us past the parliament building which bore a curious resemblance to its German equivalent in Berlin, the presidential palace which was closed for repairs, a handful of other churches, the "lovers bridge" where newlywed couples put padlocks to symbolise the strength of their love, the monument to the unknown soldier and the Ukrainian famine memorial, and a handful of parks.

The lovers bridge

Last stop was the World War II (or, as it is known here, the Great Patriotic War) memorial park. This green space to commemorate the fighters and victims of the war was peppered with old tanks and aircraft, statues and the impressively large and imposing statue of Mother Ukraine. She looked suspiciously manly, and with the hammer and sickle on her sheild, her face turned to Moscow and her back to Western Europe, she left us in no doubt who was boss.

The eagle eyed with spot normal sized people below Mother Ukraine's feet...

"What's that ?" asked M, pointing to a large concrete disc up on a hill.
"That's the eternal flame", answered Marina

She must have noticed our wondering why there was no flame at the eternal flame.

"The gas prices went up..." she smiled. Another symbol on the difficult relations between Ukraine and mother Russia, despite the imposing stare dished out by the huge statue next to us. "They have the gas, we have the pipes". Hopefully an agreement will come soon, to prevent more guides having to explain why the eternal flame is no longer eternal.

 "Our beer makes you slim" promises the poster. Which could go some way to explaining the glaring lack of fat people on the streets of Kiev

 "With beer"

As the sun went down on another beer and more delicious "With Beer" snacks, we headed back to Marina's to take part in another great cultural event, the Eurovision Song Contest. After such a great day, would a victory for the outrageous Russian babushkas be too much to ask ? Sadly, the answer was yes.

Stop ! Feu Rouge

Amsterdam, Netherlands, 25th May 2012

I've been through Amsterdam many times due to KLM frequently offering the only reasonably-priced flights from Geneva to anywhere else but, aside from one evening's venturing into town a while back, I've never actually been into the city for a good look around. This was to change on one bright and sunny day. A 10 hour layover turned into an 8 hour layover because of a delayed flight but M and I, adventurers extraordinaire, finally made it to Amsterdam's Central Station and headed off vaguely south in an attempt to find an Indonesian restaurant to start the day with.

Albert Cuypstraat Market

As per usual, we found a market, more bars and restaurants than you could shake a stick at and pretty much everything else aside from the Indonesian restaurant we were hunting for and settled for a sandwich and a beer while engaging in the most touristy of procrastinatory activities, "people watching". Whereas the conclusions that can be drawn from such an activity are not always very enlightening (e.g. hotpants are in fashion this year and an incredible amount of people in Amsterdam own bicycles) it's an easy activity to carry out, a generally accepted travel practise (for some reason) and also fun (especially when hotpants are in fashion). It's also a way to get out all of the passive aggressive tension built up from sitting right in front of a screaming baby for the entire flight over ("how can a bicycle survive when it's sat on by a guy that fat ??").

The "as many bicycles as possible" picture which could, admittedly, have been better

The after was spent doing normal sunny-day-in-Amsterdam things such as wandering around, wishing I hadn't worn a long sleeved black t-shirt, having a beer on a terrace and trying to take pictures with as many bicycles in as possible. We finished off the tour with a visit to the red light district.

Generic Amsterdam Street Scene #823774923426748

Generic Amsterdam Canal Picture #58934904535/867

I am by no means experienced in red light districts (in fact this is the first one I have been to, having narrowly avoided wandering into one in Morocco by mistake) but Amsterdam's is rather a curious one by virtue of the people one may find there. And here I am not talking about the working ladies (which I would presume can be found in all red light districts) but the non-workers wandering around. Couples and curious wanderers of all ages can be found here, sampling a beer in the pleasant terrace bars dotted around and inspecting the strip clubs while being enticed in by the greeters at the door. It's all quite brazen - I heard one woman being offered "seeing three cocks for twenty Euros" and an older couple being assured that "there is real fucking in here" - but it's as close to what one might call a family atmosphere as you could imagine. The working ladies come out into the street and chat with each other and prospective clients and you almost forget (but not completely, of course) that they're standing around in minimal lingerie. Hen and stag parties complete the carnival atmosphere. In another one of the curiosities of travel, being offered "real fucking in here" is more of a cultural experience rather than the seedy night-time escapade that you'd never tell your work colleagues about if you visited a red light district in any other city in the world.

Amsterdam's liberal attitude even extends to bicycle parking

 And with my mind full of such philosophical thoughts, we headed back to the airport and boarded the plan to Kiev.