Moscow Hotel Simferopol

Final Ukrainian Bits and Questions<br><br>Sunday November 1, 2009<br><br>Yalta to Simferopol<br><br> Gosh, I missed Halloween. Hadn't even thought about it much until I saw my Face book page yesterday and realized I have skipped another great American Holiday. And I&#8217;ll miss Thanksgiving too but I will be in Australia for that holiday and with my husband so we&#8217;ll celebrate on our own.<br><br> I think Yalta was my favorite ...

Cave Cities<br><br>Wednesday October 28, 2009<br><br> <br><br> I was picked up promptly by my guide and driver this morning. I slept on the train very well but I'm still tired. My guide is a chatty fellow and while he is Ukrainian and Crimean, he is more Russian than anything and says everyone here speaks Russian even though they are supposed to speak Ukrainian. He also visited the U.S. this ...

So here I am, impatiently waiting for the plane in Boryspol, having slept one hour tops on the plane. Luckily the woman sitting next to me on the plane from lisbon is also going to simferopol so I have somebody to chat with.<br>Finally check in opens, we go to the boarding gate and at around 9h15 they annonce that the plane has been delayed 2 hours. The strangest thing is that you have to check out your ...

Vi ler når vi ser navnet på baren. Bar Mojito. Ikke fordi det er et spesielt dårlig navn &#8211; navnet er dårlig, men ikke dårlig nok. Vi ler fordi vi banner på at de ikke har mojito der.<br><br>For slik er Ukraina, barn. Slik er Ukraina. Ingenting fungerer som det skal, og aller minst serveringssteder. <br><br>For eksempel: La oss si du har merket deg ut en svinekotelett, ris, grønnsaker, og en øl. Ølen kommer først &#8211; ølen får de til, selv om den ikke ...

On the way to Yalta I made a stop over in - Bakhchysaray, a tatar palace and near by was a cave town Chufut-Kale - Manhup-Kale, a cave town as well - Balaklava, that is a town on the coast. I visited there a Soviet submarine base. The nuclear submarines were maintained here. It was very impressive. The submarines were ...

... then he'd probably wind up with a volcano face like Yushchenko- or worse). I saw Muslims, and Tatars. It's sad what happened to the Tatars, but I admire them for moving back to their land. It will be interesting to see the future of Crimea since so many treaties will expire in the next decade. They may decide to become an independent country. Whatever they do, I hope they do it peacefully. I am glad I visited while I had the chance.

After leaving Sevastopol we travelled back to Simferopol by train. We used this day to get to know the city, have a warm shower (as this was almost impossible in our hotel in Sevastopol) and had a dinner in a restaurant in town. The menu was in Cyryllic and the staff didt speak english so we ended up imitating a chicken and got chickenbreat with some fries and salad haha. Next day we went to the airport and boarded our Air Baltic flight to Riga!

... community itself forced many to abandon their Uzbekistan homes and resettle in the Crimea, often reduced to camping outside of the towns, unable to afford housing or find jobs. They're very much the underdogs here today. Resident Russians tend to see themas unwelcome squatters. The Tatars themselves claim Crimea as their homeland, but Yvgeny points out they have to take a number -- this part of the world has as many layers of history as its limestone cliffs, having been occupied by so ...

... in rapidfire Russian, I would just smile and nod like a holy fool. Out of Odessa we were rolling across the steppe. I watched it go by through the dirty window and after my Trans Siberian jaunt it was like meeting an old acquaintance, though alas, not a very interesting one. The steppe is a featureless track of field and farm, relieved only occasionally by a stand of trees, a low rolling hill or a small, squalid village of shacks with corrugated metal roofs ...

... den. bevor ich jedoch das gelobte land ukraine betreten durfte, musste **st noch transnistrien durchqu**t w**den. war die einzige im bus nichtmoldawisch** od** ukrainisch** staatsangeho**igkeit und wurde so von dem etwas grimmigen passkontrolleur in sein haeuschen gebeten. nach ei***** sprachv**wirrung kam ich letztlich dahint**, dass ** mein registri**ungspapi** sehen wollte. kein problem, das hatte ich dabei. dabei kann es einem transnistrischen beamten eigentlich vollkommen egal sein ...