Spring Chicken Kievs

Kiev, Ukraine, 28th May 2012

Marina's trust in her guests was obviously rather low. A couple of days ago, she'd bought us a street map of the city and this morning, before disappearing off to work, she'd carefully drawn lines along various streets, setting us up for  roam through the centre of Kiev, passing along streets which she had avoided on that first day in order to give us something to see today. She double checked whether we had understood everything before dropping us off at her local metro station. As we waved her off, we were confident in our orienteering skills although her mistrust was well placed - five seconds after she left, we discovered that we (or rather I) had left the map at home. We went on memory which, for once, served us rather well. We managed to change money (albeit after walking into the wrong building), encountered a huge array of "Free Yulia Tymoshenko" posters, and found a statue of Lenin which had been marked on the map which lay so uselessly on Marina's kitchen table. 

A couple of days ago it was "Fuck off Euro". Now it's "Ukraine to EU, Yanokovych to prison". Ukraine - country of constrasts.

And, as the flags will attest to, this guy still has a couple of followers too...

At this point, a man accosted me with a barrage of Russian to which I put my finger to my ear in the international language of those who fail to understand was it being said to them. "Ya ne ponimayu" I said back to him - I don't understand. One of the very few phrases in Russian I can whip up at short notice. Unfortunately this amateurishness failed to impress my new friend who laughed and explained to me that in fact, I spoke Russian very well. He then asked me if I was African before breaking into English and exclaiming "Give me Gryvnia please very good !". For his troubles and his entertainment value I slipped him a couple of coins from my back pocket and he smiled and disappeared, looking for another victim.

Our aimless wandering took us past several extremely exciting attractions such as a dead-end car park from which we could see the back end of Dynamo Kyiv's stadium and various attractive buildings. Our aimless wandering in the pleasant sunshine continued until M's stomach rang 1 o'clock and we turned our attention to finding food. We'd reached half way and, besides leaving our map at home, we could feel proud of ourselves. 


We didn't really escape from the restaurant unscathed but a few characteristic semi-errors were littered across the hour or two we spent at "Opanas", set in the middle of a delightful park. I sat down and put my bag on the floor and within half a minute, a waiter had brought a stool at very high speed and placed my bag on it. It isn't that my bag is valuable or classy and so deserves a stool (quite the contrary, in fact - it was never very impressive even new, and it now more of a net than a bag), but that placing your bag on the floor in Ukraine brings bad luck. Error number 1. At least the waiters cared for our well-being, it seemed. We ordered a bit of this and that to eat, I got a beer and M got a "fresh juice" and our friendly and enthusiastic waiter brought us some free stuff and informed us that we should call on him if we needed anything. We thanked him and M immediately noticed that her fresh juice came at a price of 10€. Error number 2. 

The mythical 10€ juice

...And a bit of tongue for me.

She then noticed a pot of sauce with her borscht and we asked our enthusiastic waiter what to do with it. Pour it in the borscht ? Dip bread in it ?


"Ah, this. First, you take bread."


He demonstrated amid a dramatic pause. This guy was obviously made for theater, not for waitering.


"After you dip, you place slowly in mouth".


In an exaggerated fashion, he continued his mime. We were both impressed.

"Put back head, close eyes....."

What would come next, we wondered ?

"NIRRRRRRVANA !!!!!" he roared.

We all had a good laugh and he went off on his way.

Kiev, city of contrasts - the above three pictures were taken from exactly the same spot

Our wander continued past the opera house, the Golden Gate (some part of the ancient city walls which, were it not Monday, would have been open as a museum) and headed towards the "Landscape walk" which I vaguely remembered from the map which still lay resting on Marina's kitchen table. I vaguely knew the direction and had no idea of its name in Russian and so I was delighted when, in the face of M's doubts, I found it at the third time of asking. In my defence, it was down a small alleyway which didn't look to have anything to do with nature until we went around a bend and it turned into a small park with more views over some part of Kiev - we were slightly disorientated by this point so I'm not sure which part of Kiev this was. The landscape walk was full of kiddies play areas, sculptures the likes of which I have never seen, people wandering and teenage girls taking pictures of each other in "come and get me if you dare, boys" poses (for solo shots) or "come and get us if you dare, boys"/ "Charlie's Angels" poses (for groups). I haven't really carried out a scientific study of photo-pose attitudes in various countries although it's noticeable here that girls especially enjoy the "come and get me" pose. Teenage guys, on the other hand, will generally stand straight, emotionless, staring into the distance. It's not that they are emotionless beings in general, much as the streets are not prowled by gangs of teenage girls purring at every eligible gentleman they come across (sadly), but the camera just seems to bring out certain reactions in people. My reaction, quite often, is to unintentionally look really stupid.

Above-mentioned bizarre statues. Pillows and small children feature in this one...

A clever optical illusion as the buildings are taken in for repairs. T attempts his "Ukrainian male" photo pose.

At this point, Marina called. She was out of work and we went to meet her and, culturally sensitive people as we are, went for sushi and shisha pipes, both of which are all the rage in Kiev these days. This was followed by the traditional middle-of-the-night-visit-to-a-24-hour-supermarket (previously pulled off with great professionalism in Yerevan, although this time we decided against borrowing a shopping trolley to bring it all home) for a general buying-stuff-for-friends-and-family adventure. We left the place with cognac, the chilli vodka we'd tried in Chernihiv, a wide variety of dried sausages and several truckloads of "with beer".

The only regret from the trip turned out to be that it was only for a long weekend. We had a great time in a lovely city and declared at Kiev airport that next time we came back, it would be to see more of the country and for a longer time. With Euro 2012 just around the corner, Ukraine will probably be put on the map and won't be a large unknown wasteland any more. Hopefully it won't be conquered by the legions of EasyJet and Ryanair weekend party animals - Kiev and Ukraine don't deserve that...

.The balcony which became the second home...