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.