Kyiv: Day 1 (9/28/19)
My two day Chernobyl and power station tour starts tomorrow which I am unutterably excited for. I think it leaked over this morning because I was filled with a jittery need for adventure and left to check out the city around 8:00. The square next to my hostel was having a Saturday fair with stalls that looked like clubs or academic groups (some even had beanbags to sit on) which would make sense seeing as there was a big, red national university of some kind nearby. So I weaved through that and made my way to St. Volodymyr’s Cathedral. Large, yellow, had to pay to take pictures inside so I just didn’t. Then on to the Golden Gate which I’m sure has some historical significance but it was all in Ukranian so I couldn’t actually figure out if there was a museum or where to enter from…oh well.
My next desitantion was the large, blue-white tower I saw towards the north, St. Sophia’s Cathedral and belltower as I found out. I wrangled my way thorugh some google translated signs and into a ticket to explore the grounds and its several buildings. The interior of St. Sophia’s was very impressive: the ground floor had a museum exhibit while the central chamber and 2nd floor showcased the ancient art, masonry, and graffiti. It was an awesome building to explore, with interconnecting passages, arched openings, and fading imagery on every surface. Very cool!
I did tour around the other buildings in the complex but they didn’t really catch my eye. Honestly, besides the cathedral what I remember most is climbing up the belltower…very,very high up the belltower. Fear of heights, shaky leg, many, many stairs, but well worth the city view! I slowly descended and then set out towards the Dnieper river and southward towards the Motherland Monument.
Passed by St. Michael’s Golden-domed Monastery which looked like it might be worth checking out if not for the impenetrable mass of people swarming inside the gate. So instead I hiked over to the Volodymyr the Great Monument and then to the Friendship of Nations Arch via a winding suspended observation bridge. There was a lot of people there, both locals and tourists, enjoying the large variety of cotton candy vendors and other scattered stalls.
The Motherland Monument was about three kilometers downriver so I walked about halfway there and stopped at the Monument to the Unknow Soldier to have some meat and cheese I picked up from a tiny store on the way. It was a moment to sit down and just chill out with a great view of eastern Kyiv across the river, as well as rest my feet from several hours of walking. The city is so huge that it takes quite a while to walk from place to place, but it was nice out so I didn’t really mind.
Recharged, I plowed through the another kilometer and finally caught sight of my destination - the 60-odd meter tall statue memorializing Ukranian losses in WWII. After exploring the monument grounds for a while I walked an hour back to my hostel past some cool wall art and though part of the downtown area. I followed the front desk’s advice and went to a restaurant called Puzata Hata for some typical Ukrainian food. It was a rather unique dining experience. For one it was set up cafeteria style where you grab a tray and select things from a line that people scoop up and serve you. It was super cheap too, but it was pretty good food, the vegetable soup was especially killer!
