Exploring the Mother City of the Eastern Slavs
Trip Start
Apr 08, 2007
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110
144
Trip End
Oct 01, 2007
Kyiv,
Ukraine
Friday, August 17, 2007
I'd like to announce my recent success. After all the hurdles and
stupid bureaucracy, I finally received my Belarusian visa! It required
two wasted trips to the embassy and over an hour standing in line in the hot sun once they were at last open for applications, but I got it. Actually, once I got into the embassy, the process was incredibly smooth and painless. The main consular staffworker helping everyone out with their applications spoke English and his frequent input on the confusing bits made everything fly by. Strangely, I had to purchase five days of Belarusian medical insurance to accompany the visa for 22 hryvnia (i.e. just over $4) - for some reason my international insurance coverage from Japan wasn't suitable. Seems more of a scam to get a little extra cash, but at least it was cheap. The visa itself was not - $90 for same day service - but I suppose the nice consolation was that I got it all done and out of the way right there and then. This way I don't have to swing back through Kyiv again to pick it up next, but can just spend my remaining days here exploring western Ukraine.
So with that taken care of, I've been able to spend the rest of my time enjoying the fascinating city that is Kyiv. Really, I wish I had
another day here, because even after two busy days of sightseeing
(minus a good two hours plus lost getting my visa on the first),
there's still a lot I haven't managed to see. The biggest disappointment is that I wasn't able to get out to Babyn Yar, site of the infamous Nazi massacres of 1941. Not that that would have been an enjoyable stop, but it seems appropriate to at least go there and pay respects to the victims. I also missed the Chernobyl Museum in Podil, which is supposed to be very moving. I guess that means I have several reasons to come back someday.
What I did manage to do is take in the lion's share of central Kyiv's
attractions, starting with St. Sophia's Monastery yesterday and then
wrapping up with a walk down Andrew's Descent to the old quarter of Podil this morning. The latter was less fascinating than I anticipated, being largely a laidback residential district marked with a few commercial office buildings and minor shopping areas. There are a number of churches here and there in the district, which was my main reason for visiting, but none were particularly spectacular. I was rather surprised to get told off for taking one single pic of a church inside the district's Florivsky Monastery - it seems the nuns there have restricted all photography. Touchy, touchy.
The most interesting sight I got out to today, however, was the
remarkable Caves Monastery complex. Unlike other church complexes, this one lies a fair bit out of the center, requiring a few stops out on the subway and then a good 15-20 minute walk. It's well worth it though, as it contains some of Kyiv's most incredible religious architecture. Likewise, it attracts a good deal of tourism, not to mention a constant stream of pilgrims visiting its sacred caves in the lower section of complex. The Upper Lavra, as it is called, requires people to pay an entrance fee and is largely a series of different museums with the odd church serving only its basic purpose as a place of worship. One of the attractions I was most interested in was the Great Belltower, which offers 360 degree views over the surrounding areas. Sadly, I walked in and found it closed for restoration.
It's the Lower Lavra where all the worshippers head though, and this area has a much more sanctified air about it. Unlike the Upper Lavra, this section is free to enter, with the only normal payment being for a candle or two to hold upon walking through the caves. I thought the whole candle thing was optional though - which I suppose it technically is - but I quickly realized after descending that it's not especially easy to see down there without one! As a result, I had to stay fairly close to the Russians (Russian-speaking Ukrainians?) that went in ahead of me, lest I get stuck in a near-pitch dark corner of the catacombs. There are, of course, candles on the interior walls, but certainly not enough to illuminate the area very well. But any notion of it being a nice cool respite from the outside heat was quickly snuffed - the ambient heat from the myriad candles passing through, not to mention the humidity of so many visitors, makes it amazingly stuffy. While it was quite interesting to see the glass-encased, cloth-covered bodies of centuries-old monks, the place was a wee bit too claustrophobic for my liking. So, once I got through one cave, I decided against diving into another.
The last place I hit today was a gigantic park dedicated to the Great Patriotic War and its many Ukrainian martyrs. The park is dominated by a jaw-droppingly huge metal statue of a woman warrior called Rodina Mat ("Mother Motherland," or more colloquially "Tin Tits"). It's almost comically Socialist-Realist, but at the same time so incredibly overpowering that it's really quite impressive. I didn't have time to take in the adjacent museum, but I was at least able to admire the several Soviet bas-reliefs of glorious soldiers defending the homeland (and numerous tanks and artillery that decorated the park).
Tonight I'm off to Chernivtsi, where I'll be spending the next couple
evenings at least. I originally planned to go to Kamyanets-Podilsky for a night or two first, but I was rather chagrined to discover that the night train was fully booked yesterday. It took a little scrambling to come up with a back-up plan, but happily the Chernivtsi train had some availability. The two cities are close enough that hitting one from the other on a daytrip should be a cinch. So from here I'm heading back southwest then eventually rounding back around north to Lviv and then Minsk.
