Eastern Europe
Steve and I were in Galway for a week or so before we headed out again. Steve worked a few more days and I dropped my CV off to some recruitment agencies, in the hope of having a job to walk into when I got back to Galway. Kind of important that, as I’d be in some trouble if I couldn’t find work to support this travelling habit I’ve developed.
So it was the 13th of December that my Brother and I caught the bus to Dublin, and then a 3 hour flight onto Prague. It was our plan to land in Prague and then to find out where the good skiing was in Slovakia. Good, cheap skiing in the Tatra Mountains between Poland and Slovakia was what we’d heard so far. But our first mission upon landing was to find our way from the airport to the hostel I’d booked in the centre of Prague.
Finding your way ‘round a new city where everyone speaks English, like London for example, is hard enough. Finding your way around a foreign city where everyone speaks a foreign language is another skill again. But some things are pretty consistent, subway systems have nice, easy to follow, primary colour diagrams and as long as you can count you can make your way to where you’re supposed to be pretty easily. So that’s what we did, we made our way on a bus from the airport to the subway and then through to the centre of town. It took us about ten minutes of walking around cobble-stoned streets to find the hostel where we were staying, a nice wee place recently remodelled. It was actually one of the nicer hostels I’ve stayed in so far.
It was well dark by now, so Steve and I claimed our beds and headed out to find some dinner. We ate at a Czech place just round the corner and enjoyed a few of the local beers, Pilsner Urquell being not a bad drop and at 40kr a glass (about 2 euro and I forget how many nz dollars) not too hard on the pocket either. We then wandered down to the old city square, which was full to chocka with Christmas markets, stalls, stages and nativities and even a huge xmas tree. It certainly was something to see, and beats the pants off any Christmas scene I’ve experienced in NZ. The crowds were something else too, people of all ages wandering round just for the sake of wandering around and having a look at the markets. No-one was any hurry to get to a movie or bar, families and young folk alike seemed content to just walk around and enjoy things. Maybe that’s what this culture thing people talk about Europe having is about. Anyway, Steve and I were in a hurry to find a bar and ended up in a place two stories underground drinking cheap Czech beer, along with the 50 odd mm of head that comes with beer in Czech, and listening to old dance singles.
Charles Square, Prague
Charles Square, Prague
The next day I was up earlyish to meet Abby at the train station. Abby is a kiwi girl I met in New Zealand at the beginning of last year and it was the first we’d seen each other in about 9 months. She’d been working in Germany all that time, but seeing as we seemed to get on pretty well the last time we were together she organised to catch up with me in Prague. Besides, Abby was keen to have a look around Prague as well.
After she was installed in her room, Abby and I went for a wander around the city with Steve third-wheeling along with us. We had planned to just have a quick look around and then do a proper tour the next day with a tour guide and everything, but they make European cities really small so we pretty much had a good look around everywhere. We walked down through the old section of town, across Charles Bridge and up the steep cobbled streets to Prague castle, where we were lucky enough to catch the changing of the guards. The next day we did do a walking tour which pretty much went the same way we’d already gone, although the tour guide did have a bit more knowledge about things, like pointing out bullet holes in museum pillars and the like.
Charles Bridge, looking up to Prague Castle
Charles Bridge, as seen from another of the many bridges across the Vltava River
Abby and I had a fair bit to talk about, so we had to leave Steve to his own devices occasionally. Not that it did him any harm, as he soon found a Canadian girl to keep him company. Ashly was her name and, due to common interests like hunting squirrels, they hit it off fine.
Steve and Ashly in Wenceslas Square
We spent about four days in Prague, and all too soon it was time to figure out what to do next. A few enquiries about ski-fields put our plans out a bit, turned out it was going to be a late ski season and apart from a few fields in France things looked fairly grim. But no worries, as Steve and I quickly came up with an alternate plan. We’d visit Chernobyl instead.
The girls weren’t coming with us though. Abby left for Munich the day before we left Prague and Ashly was staying on in Prague for a few days before flying over to Birmingham. Ironically, that meant I got to third-wheel Steve and Ashly for a day. So, it was just Steve and I that left on a train for Krakow, Poland on the 18th. It wasn’t the last we were to see of the girls though.
Our plan to get to Chernobyl was to go via Poland as it’s kind of on the way. That, and Steve wanted to tick off one more country before he headed back to NZ. We arrived in Krakow at about 6 pm in the evening and wandered around a bit trying to find a backpackers. It took us a good hour or two to find a place, on the other side of the city centre to the train station. It turned out that there were a lot of backpackers closer, and a couple that looked pretty good right in the centre square, but we missed those in our haste.
The main square in Krakow, Poland …
…and the Christmas markets there.
I’m not sure now how we knew, but we’d found out somewhere that we needed to get a visa for Ukraine (note that it’s not THE Ukraine anymore, apparently). This was a bit of a circus and involved three 10km treks to the Consulate and back. First time, we got the forms and found out we had to provide details of where we were staying in the Ukraine. No problems, except we had no idea where we were going to stay so it was back to an internet cafe to book a couple of nights and get Steve some passport photos. Second time, we gave the Consulate our forms and got a bank deposit slip to take down to a bank, conveniently located about 3 km away, to pay for the visas. Finally, we gave the stamped deposit slip to the Consulate and got told our visas would be ready at 2 in the afternoon on that day. So, actually it was four trips to the Ukraine Consulate, but when we turned up at the desk for the fourth time we were given back our passports and they had a very nice Ukraine visa stuck in them. All in all, it took us three days to get our visas.
Not that we wasted our down time. One night we had a few drinks in the local bars where they serve a beer called “Strong Lager”. We should have guessed that the beer was named literally, but it wasn’t until Steve and I had downed two or three and were starting, surprisingly for large kiwi males, to feel a bit tipsy that we discovered it’s an 8% beer and not only strong in name. It became our beer of choice in Krakow.
We also had a look around the city. Krakow isn’t as striking as Prague, but there is still a fair bit to see. Wawel Castel is well worth a look, the chapel there is possibly the most hotch-potch building in Europe and mixes up at least 4 centuries of architecture. The armoury there is also well worth a look. They don’t let you take photos of that, but they’ve got at least 1000 years of swords, armour and guns to look at.
Steve on the Vistula river, Poland.
And Steve on a Polish street.
Wawel Castle. There’s Baroque, Renaissance and Gothic architecture there somewhere.
On the evening of the 21st we caught a train out of Krakow. We were in a standard cabin until the Polish border and then changed to a sleeper cabin through to Kiev. The reason for changing trains wasn’t just that a bit of sleep on a 16 hour train ride would be nice, but also that Ukraine and Russia run their trains on different gauge (wheel size) so they either change trains or change the wheels on the train. It was about 1am when we changed trains, and about 3 am before we’d cleared Polish and Ukraine customs and could go to sleep.
Our train to the border…
…and our sleeper cabin through to Kiev. Looks exactly like what I’d imagine the Trans-Siberian is like.
When we woke up we were deep in Ukraine. Well, we still had a good 5-6 hours to go to Kiev, but we were a long way from the Polish border too. The view out the window certainly confirmed that we’d entered the old soviet bloc, the little peasant shacks in the villages we passed, the farmer’s moving turnips around with horse and cart and the station place name signs with way too many triangles and backwards letters in them to make me feel comfortable.
The view out the back of the train.
Quaint little peasant villages
We pulled into Kiev Central train station at about two in the afternoon and left the station on the wrong side of the tracks. We found out later we could have taken the metro into town (on the other side of the tracks) for 0.20 UHR, but instead we took a taxi for about 60UHR. It’s still only about a 10 euro taxi, but that’s a major rip off in Kiev. And just to make sure we got value for money, the taxi driver dropped us off at the Kiev Hotel, rather than the Kiev Hostel. They are a good half an hour apart if you knew where you were going, but Steve and I didn’t have a clue.
That was when we had our first navigational difficulties. Luckily, we did have a map with us as I’d borrowed Abby’s Europe Guide Book. The only problem is that we had no idea where we were on the map, and couldn’t compare the road signs we saw to any street names in the guide book as the road signs are full of triangles and backwards letters as well (it’s called the Cyrillic alphabet I later found out, after St Cyril, the guy who invented it). So, we had to ask someone where we were. That didn’t help a lot though as no one speaks English in Kiev and it took us about three goes before we’d any idea at all and even then Steve and I weren’t exactly in agreement. Did I mention it was dark by now? Sure, it was only 5pm, but it’s as dark as midnight at 5pm up here in winter.
We headed up the hill that Steve was “certain” was the right way. I wasn’t so sure, but he was right and before long we came across a great big monastery which proved that we were at last on the right track. Before long, we were on the street for the hostel and knew for sure where we were. It took us a good four hours to get from the train station to our hostel, a trip that took less than 30 minutes and cost at least 100 times less on our more informed return.
St Michaels, on our first night in Kiev.
A word about hostels or backpackers in Kiev, there aren’t any at the moment. The place we were staying in was one of the first and hasn’t even made its way into Lonely Planet yet. And it’s not quite a backpackers either, more a low budget motel with no kitchen or tv room. Still, we’d somewhere to base.
The next morning we went for a wander. It was now our mission to find a tourism company called CAM that did tours to Chernobyl, but on the way we called past St Sophia’s monastery and had a look in there. It’s been around since the 1200’s and was pretty impressive, onion-domed towers gilded with a good 70 kg’s of gold and that sort of thing. Just as impressive is St Michael’s monastery about 500m opposite, which was torn down by the soviets and has been painstakingly rebuilt in the last ten years. If I had only seen them I would have assumed they were both medieval, which kind of put a squash on my long-held belief that no-one has the skill to build such places anymore. I guess it’s more the motivation that’s lacking where I come from.
St Sophia’s
St Michael’s, looking back from St Sophia’s
On our journey to the tourist company I also managed to pick up a tourist guide book with a Cyrillic city map in the back. That’s the trick to getting around these Eastern cities. You need two maps, one in Cyrillic to compare to the road signs and one in English so you can pronounce them. Alternatively, I suppose you could learn Russian/Ukraine.
Looking down a hole in the road. They were installing new sewer piping and were digging the tunnel for the pipe … by hand.
We made it to the tourist company, but were stopped dead by what we were told there. The consultant we talked to told us that there was LOTS of paperwork to complete before we could enter the military-controlled zone around Chernobyl, about three days worth, and none of the offices were open around Christmas. Living in our tourist travel bubble, we’d forgotten what day it was (the 22nd of December). Even offering to pay “express” prices wasn’t any good as there just wasn’t going to be anyone to do the paperwork. So, that’s the lesson we learnt, if you want to visit the site of the world’s worst nuclear disaster, Christmas isn’t a good time.
Unfortunately we were only planning to stay in Kiev until the 25th, as Steve had decided he was going to fly back to the UK to spend more time with Ashly, and I was going to meet Abby in Berlin. So we didn’t get to Chernobyl this time, which is a right pity because the websites make it look so good. They even give you a Geiger counter for the tour! A bit of a let down, I’ll get there at some stage though.
It turned out that Kiev itself was well worth coming to see though. We had a good look around the city centre on our second day in town and visited the Palace buildings, the Russian/Ukraine unification arch and Independence Square, which is the big square in the middle of town and is really impressive. We ended up eating at an authentic Irish pub called O’Briens and drank a few pints of Guinness at authentic Irish prices.
On our third day we set off to have a look at the big statue down the river called “Defence of the Motherland”. It’s one impressive statue, about 100m tall standing on a hill overlooking the Dnieper. It’s really crazy walking up to the statue, you walk through a man-made tunnel lined with soviet era statues of buff men and women and all the time there’s military opera playing in the background. You emerge from the tunnel and this huge statue is in front of you, a woman holding up a sword and a shield.
Walking track leading up to the ‘Defense of the Motherland” statue.
The statue herself (and me for perspective).
Underneath the statue is the Patriot Museum, which tells the story of the German invasion of Russia in the second world war and then the Russian counter attack. If I was any sort of history buff, I wouldn’t miss seeing this museum. What struck me most was, firstly, how much of an impact the Russians had on the war. It’s been downplayed a lot in the west, but the area that the Russians pushed the Germans off was just as large as the Western Allies, if not larger. I guess the western downplay is much the result of the whole cold war thing.
The second thing was some very sombre Nazi displays on the floor of the museum. There was one display window on the floor that was full with Nazi crosses, the ones they used to wear round their necks. There was about 4-500 of them all arranged in a cross pattern and you got the distinct impression they were the real thing. Another one was a pyramid of German helmets, they might as well of just stacked up skulls like the Mongols used to do. It certainly contrasts to the Western Museums, which are really dry and historical, this place is most easily described as an emotive Museum. Sure, the history is there but I walked away from it thinking that I wouldn’t want to be in an Army attacking the Ukrainians.
A statue of a Ukraine soldier lauding it over the smashed Nazi eagle in front of him. This was the only photo I managed to sneak in the museum.
There was also a small display case with several Samurai swords and a Japanese flag. That one puzzles the hell out of me, as I’ve no idea on what front the Ukrainians were fighting the Japanese.
After leaving the big statue we wandered down to yet another monastery. We were getting a bit used to these sort of things by now, so we flicked through pretty quick and walked back to Independence Square, where we found ourselves in the middle of a Christmas festival. There was a big Christmas tree, a stage and even a fair impressive fireworks display. It was huge too, would have easily been a good 10 to 20 000 people there.
Independence Square, with fireworks.
We wandered around for a bit after that until we found ourselves in a small underground bar drinking beer again. It was a local bar, and we were soon chatting to three Ukranians who spoke passable English. Not really sure what we talked about, but as the night progressed we got to have a look at the M16 they were carrying (yeah, that’s right, an M16 automatic rifle, in the middle of a bar), Steve got pressed into a few impromptu arm wrestling competitions and I smoked a couple of cigars with a Russian pilot who definitely decided that if it had come to it, he definitely would not have liked to have shot me down, if I had been a pilot as well. And I agreed with what he was saying.
A set of photos from a Ukraine bar. Steve with beer…
Matt with beer…
Steve with M16. The dark haired guy on the right at the bar challenged Steve to an arm wrestle later in the evening and then got shirty when he lost.
Steve at about when we decided it was time to go home.
We had quite a slow start on our fourth day in Kiev. We were going to find the Chernobyl Museum, which we did, but it was Sunday and so was closed. We did find a neat little street with heaps of stalls selling enough craft-type stuff to outfit an Auckland suburb. I didn’t buy anything at all, but Steve bought a Ruski hat with authentic fox tail. This was our last day, so we also tried to buy some food for our train trip to Berlin the next day. We ended up with some bread, meat and cheese, and some beer as well, so that went alright.
Steve with hat. And another church in the background, it’s hard to take a photo without one getting in the shot …
The next day was Christmas day, and it was snowing. Our plan for the day was to get to the train station and then board the train for the 23 hour trip to Berlin. We descended into the bowels of the Metro system for the last time and made it to the train station and onto the train with no hassles at all. Kind of boring when you consider the effort it took us to get into the city. The train ride itself was pretty boring as well, we ate our food, drank our beer and at the appropriate time got out the beds and slept for a while.
The elevator to the Metro. Apparently built extra-deep to stop the lines being damaged by nuclear attack.
A nuclear power station on our way out of Ukraine. Not Chernobyl though.
Well, the Ukrainian border crossing was a bit interesting. On this train we were going all the way through to Berlin, so at the border the train stopped to change all the wheels over. This is kind of good fun, the whole train is lifted up and they wheel all the Soviet-guaged wheels out, bogeys and all, and wheel the Western wheels in. What wasn’t fun is that before this happened, the Ukraine border guards came through and took our passports. Then the train went up along the tracks to the wheel changing station, and then back to the border station along a different track. After at least an hour we got our passports back, but not before we’d started to think they’d forgotten them or something.
But, no real drama and Boxing day saw us getting into Berlin. Well, almost into Berlin as the ticket office in Kiev had only booked us through to a very minor station on the outskirts. Our train went all the way through to Central, just our tickets didn’t. But this was only a minor delay and we soon got into town and had a look around. The only thing on Steve’s list was Checkpoint Charlie, and we soon found this and got the required photo. We met Abby in the afternoon, she’d come up from Munich in the morning, and got our accommodation sorted. Steve stayed right close to the train station as the very next day he caught a plane across to Dublin where he met up with Ashly, the chick he met in Prague.
Checkpoint Charlie, Berlin.
That left Abby and I in Berlin. We had two days there and looked at a fair bit, but not quite enough to do the city justice. It’s got a lot of good Museums, but we only managed to get to the Parthagon, where they’ve got an amazing collection of Mesopotamian, Greek and Roman stuff. They’ve got the remains of the Ashtar gate, on of the old gates of Babylon, which I was well impressed by. We also stood in a queue of Germans for an hour while it snowed so we could have a quick look in the German parliament building. They’ve got this dome on the top where you can get really good views of the city, at lest you can when it’s not snowing.
Abby, in Berlin. I forget what the buildings are.
The ancient gates of Babylon. Very cool.
Berlin City Hall, with the TV tower disappearing into the snow.
From there Abby and I took the plane to Munich. Abby’s been working as a live-in Aupair (which is kind of like a full-time babysitter but isn’t really a nanny, I don’t know for sure how to describe the job but I think that’s pretty close) so I stayed there through New Years. I did go to a really cool hunting museum, and I ventured out to the site of the Munich Olympics as well, but mostly Abby and I spent a fair bit of time together without actually doing a hell of a lot. Wasn’t too bad really though, after spending three weeks on the go it was good to chill out for a while.
A couple of swans in lake Starnberg, Munich.
A hunting museum. Pretty cool, eh Dad?
Munich Central train station.
So, on the 3rd of January I started back across to Ireland. I went via Prague, as that’s where my original ticket was booked out of. That meant one more train ride, but it was no hassle at all after the mega train trip from Kiev. And so, one train, two subways, a plane and a 3 hour bus ride later I was back in Galway, walking the 30 minutes from the bus station in town to my flat because I’d forgotten to get off at my stop on the way in.
The next day I found out that my earlier work with recruitment had paid off, and I turned up to work the day after. Luckily it was a Friday, as I reckon working a full 9-5 week after not really doing much would have damn near killed me. And that’s about me for the next month or two. There’s a few things in the wings, but for now I’m head down, butt up until I’ve got a bit of cash in the bank. I’ll write down the next plans as soon as I’m suitably inspired.
So it was the 13th of December that my Brother and I caught the bus to Dublin, and then a 3 hour flight onto Prague. It was our plan to land in Prague and then to find out where the good skiing was in Slovakia. Good, cheap skiing in the Tatra Mountains between Poland and Slovakia was what we’d heard so far. But our first mission upon landing was to find our way from the airport to the hostel I’d booked in the centre of Prague.
Finding your way ‘round a new city where everyone speaks English, like London for example, is hard enough. Finding your way around a foreign city where everyone speaks a foreign language is another skill again. But some things are pretty consistent, subway systems have nice, easy to follow, primary colour diagrams and as long as you can count you can make your way to where you’re supposed to be pretty easily. So that’s what we did, we made our way on a bus from the airport to the subway and then through to the centre of town. It took us about ten minutes of walking around cobble-stoned streets to find the hostel where we were staying, a nice wee place recently remodelled. It was actually one of the nicer hostels I’ve stayed in so far.
It was well dark by now, so Steve and I claimed our beds and headed out to find some dinner. We ate at a Czech place just round the corner and enjoyed a few of the local beers, Pilsner Urquell being not a bad drop and at 40kr a glass (about 2 euro and I forget how many nz dollars) not too hard on the pocket either. We then wandered down to the old city square, which was full to chocka with Christmas markets, stalls, stages and nativities and even a huge xmas tree. It certainly was something to see, and beats the pants off any Christmas scene I’ve experienced in NZ. The crowds were something else too, people of all ages wandering round just for the sake of wandering around and having a look at the markets. No-one was any hurry to get to a movie or bar, families and young folk alike seemed content to just walk around and enjoy things. Maybe that’s what this culture thing people talk about Europe having is about. Anyway, Steve and I were in a hurry to find a bar and ended up in a place two stories underground drinking cheap Czech beer, along with the 50 odd mm of head that comes with beer in Czech, and listening to old dance singles.
Charles Square, Prague
Charles Square, Prague
The next day I was up earlyish to meet Abby at the train station. Abby is a kiwi girl I met in New Zealand at the beginning of last year and it was the first we’d seen each other in about 9 months. She’d been working in Germany all that time, but seeing as we seemed to get on pretty well the last time we were together she organised to catch up with me in Prague. Besides, Abby was keen to have a look around Prague as well.
After she was installed in her room, Abby and I went for a wander around the city with Steve third-wheeling along with us. We had planned to just have a quick look around and then do a proper tour the next day with a tour guide and everything, but they make European cities really small so we pretty much had a good look around everywhere. We walked down through the old section of town, across Charles Bridge and up the steep cobbled streets to Prague castle, where we were lucky enough to catch the changing of the guards. The next day we did do a walking tour which pretty much went the same way we’d already gone, although the tour guide did have a bit more knowledge about things, like pointing out bullet holes in museum pillars and the like.
Charles Bridge, looking up to Prague Castle
Charles Bridge, as seen from another of the many bridges across the Vltava River
Abby and I had a fair bit to talk about, so we had to leave Steve to his own devices occasionally. Not that it did him any harm, as he soon found a Canadian girl to keep him company. Ashly was her name and, due to common interests like hunting squirrels, they hit it off fine.
Steve and Ashly in Wenceslas Square
We spent about four days in Prague, and all too soon it was time to figure out what to do next. A few enquiries about ski-fields put our plans out a bit, turned out it was going to be a late ski season and apart from a few fields in France things looked fairly grim. But no worries, as Steve and I quickly came up with an alternate plan. We’d visit Chernobyl instead.
The girls weren’t coming with us though. Abby left for Munich the day before we left Prague and Ashly was staying on in Prague for a few days before flying over to Birmingham. Ironically, that meant I got to third-wheel Steve and Ashly for a day. So, it was just Steve and I that left on a train for Krakow, Poland on the 18th. It wasn’t the last we were to see of the girls though.
Our plan to get to Chernobyl was to go via Poland as it’s kind of on the way. That, and Steve wanted to tick off one more country before he headed back to NZ. We arrived in Krakow at about 6 pm in the evening and wandered around a bit trying to find a backpackers. It took us a good hour or two to find a place, on the other side of the city centre to the train station. It turned out that there were a lot of backpackers closer, and a couple that looked pretty good right in the centre square, but we missed those in our haste.
The main square in Krakow, Poland …
…and the Christmas markets there.
I’m not sure now how we knew, but we’d found out somewhere that we needed to get a visa for Ukraine (note that it’s not THE Ukraine anymore, apparently). This was a bit of a circus and involved three 10km treks to the Consulate and back. First time, we got the forms and found out we had to provide details of where we were staying in the Ukraine. No problems, except we had no idea where we were going to stay so it was back to an internet cafe to book a couple of nights and get Steve some passport photos. Second time, we gave the Consulate our forms and got a bank deposit slip to take down to a bank, conveniently located about 3 km away, to pay for the visas. Finally, we gave the stamped deposit slip to the Consulate and got told our visas would be ready at 2 in the afternoon on that day. So, actually it was four trips to the Ukraine Consulate, but when we turned up at the desk for the fourth time we were given back our passports and they had a very nice Ukraine visa stuck in them. All in all, it took us three days to get our visas.
Not that we wasted our down time. One night we had a few drinks in the local bars where they serve a beer called “Strong Lager”. We should have guessed that the beer was named literally, but it wasn’t until Steve and I had downed two or three and were starting, surprisingly for large kiwi males, to feel a bit tipsy that we discovered it’s an 8% beer and not only strong in name. It became our beer of choice in Krakow.
We also had a look around the city. Krakow isn’t as striking as Prague, but there is still a fair bit to see. Wawel Castel is well worth a look, the chapel there is possibly the most hotch-potch building in Europe and mixes up at least 4 centuries of architecture. The armoury there is also well worth a look. They don’t let you take photos of that, but they’ve got at least 1000 years of swords, armour and guns to look at.
Steve on the Vistula river, Poland.
And Steve on a Polish street.
Wawel Castle. There’s Baroque, Renaissance and Gothic architecture there somewhere.
On the evening of the 21st we caught a train out of Krakow. We were in a standard cabin until the Polish border and then changed to a sleeper cabin through to Kiev. The reason for changing trains wasn’t just that a bit of sleep on a 16 hour train ride would be nice, but also that Ukraine and Russia run their trains on different gauge (wheel size) so they either change trains or change the wheels on the train. It was about 1am when we changed trains, and about 3 am before we’d cleared Polish and Ukraine customs and could go to sleep.
Our train to the border…
…and our sleeper cabin through to Kiev. Looks exactly like what I’d imagine the Trans-Siberian is like.
When we woke up we were deep in Ukraine. Well, we still had a good 5-6 hours to go to Kiev, but we were a long way from the Polish border too. The view out the window certainly confirmed that we’d entered the old soviet bloc, the little peasant shacks in the villages we passed, the farmer’s moving turnips around with horse and cart and the station place name signs with way too many triangles and backwards letters in them to make me feel comfortable.
The view out the back of the train.
Quaint little peasant villages
We pulled into Kiev Central train station at about two in the afternoon and left the station on the wrong side of the tracks. We found out later we could have taken the metro into town (on the other side of the tracks) for 0.20 UHR, but instead we took a taxi for about 60UHR. It’s still only about a 10 euro taxi, but that’s a major rip off in Kiev. And just to make sure we got value for money, the taxi driver dropped us off at the Kiev Hotel, rather than the Kiev Hostel. They are a good half an hour apart if you knew where you were going, but Steve and I didn’t have a clue.
That was when we had our first navigational difficulties. Luckily, we did have a map with us as I’d borrowed Abby’s Europe Guide Book. The only problem is that we had no idea where we were on the map, and couldn’t compare the road signs we saw to any street names in the guide book as the road signs are full of triangles and backwards letters as well (it’s called the Cyrillic alphabet I later found out, after St Cyril, the guy who invented it). So, we had to ask someone where we were. That didn’t help a lot though as no one speaks English in Kiev and it took us about three goes before we’d any idea at all and even then Steve and I weren’t exactly in agreement. Did I mention it was dark by now? Sure, it was only 5pm, but it’s as dark as midnight at 5pm up here in winter.
We headed up the hill that Steve was “certain” was the right way. I wasn’t so sure, but he was right and before long we came across a great big monastery which proved that we were at last on the right track. Before long, we were on the street for the hostel and knew for sure where we were. It took us a good four hours to get from the train station to our hostel, a trip that took less than 30 minutes and cost at least 100 times less on our more informed return.
St Michaels, on our first night in Kiev.
A word about hostels or backpackers in Kiev, there aren’t any at the moment. The place we were staying in was one of the first and hasn’t even made its way into Lonely Planet yet. And it’s not quite a backpackers either, more a low budget motel with no kitchen or tv room. Still, we’d somewhere to base.
The next morning we went for a wander. It was now our mission to find a tourism company called CAM that did tours to Chernobyl, but on the way we called past St Sophia’s monastery and had a look in there. It’s been around since the 1200’s and was pretty impressive, onion-domed towers gilded with a good 70 kg’s of gold and that sort of thing. Just as impressive is St Michael’s monastery about 500m opposite, which was torn down by the soviets and has been painstakingly rebuilt in the last ten years. If I had only seen them I would have assumed they were both medieval, which kind of put a squash on my long-held belief that no-one has the skill to build such places anymore. I guess it’s more the motivation that’s lacking where I come from.
St Sophia’s
St Michael’s, looking back from St Sophia’s
On our journey to the tourist company I also managed to pick up a tourist guide book with a Cyrillic city map in the back. That’s the trick to getting around these Eastern cities. You need two maps, one in Cyrillic to compare to the road signs and one in English so you can pronounce them. Alternatively, I suppose you could learn Russian/Ukraine.
Looking down a hole in the road. They were installing new sewer piping and were digging the tunnel for the pipe … by hand.
We made it to the tourist company, but were stopped dead by what we were told there. The consultant we talked to told us that there was LOTS of paperwork to complete before we could enter the military-controlled zone around Chernobyl, about three days worth, and none of the offices were open around Christmas. Living in our tourist travel bubble, we’d forgotten what day it was (the 22nd of December). Even offering to pay “express” prices wasn’t any good as there just wasn’t going to be anyone to do the paperwork. So, that’s the lesson we learnt, if you want to visit the site of the world’s worst nuclear disaster, Christmas isn’t a good time.
Unfortunately we were only planning to stay in Kiev until the 25th, as Steve had decided he was going to fly back to the UK to spend more time with Ashly, and I was going to meet Abby in Berlin. So we didn’t get to Chernobyl this time, which is a right pity because the websites make it look so good. They even give you a Geiger counter for the tour! A bit of a let down, I’ll get there at some stage though.
It turned out that Kiev itself was well worth coming to see though. We had a good look around the city centre on our second day in town and visited the Palace buildings, the Russian/Ukraine unification arch and Independence Square, which is the big square in the middle of town and is really impressive. We ended up eating at an authentic Irish pub called O’Briens and drank a few pints of Guinness at authentic Irish prices.
On our third day we set off to have a look at the big statue down the river called “Defence of the Motherland”. It’s one impressive statue, about 100m tall standing on a hill overlooking the Dnieper. It’s really crazy walking up to the statue, you walk through a man-made tunnel lined with soviet era statues of buff men and women and all the time there’s military opera playing in the background. You emerge from the tunnel and this huge statue is in front of you, a woman holding up a sword and a shield.
Walking track leading up to the ‘Defense of the Motherland” statue.
The statue herself (and me for perspective).
Underneath the statue is the Patriot Museum, which tells the story of the German invasion of Russia in the second world war and then the Russian counter attack. If I was any sort of history buff, I wouldn’t miss seeing this museum. What struck me most was, firstly, how much of an impact the Russians had on the war. It’s been downplayed a lot in the west, but the area that the Russians pushed the Germans off was just as large as the Western Allies, if not larger. I guess the western downplay is much the result of the whole cold war thing.
The second thing was some very sombre Nazi displays on the floor of the museum. There was one display window on the floor that was full with Nazi crosses, the ones they used to wear round their necks. There was about 4-500 of them all arranged in a cross pattern and you got the distinct impression they were the real thing. Another one was a pyramid of German helmets, they might as well of just stacked up skulls like the Mongols used to do. It certainly contrasts to the Western Museums, which are really dry and historical, this place is most easily described as an emotive Museum. Sure, the history is there but I walked away from it thinking that I wouldn’t want to be in an Army attacking the Ukrainians.
A statue of a Ukraine soldier lauding it over the smashed Nazi eagle in front of him. This was the only photo I managed to sneak in the museum.
There was also a small display case with several Samurai swords and a Japanese flag. That one puzzles the hell out of me, as I’ve no idea on what front the Ukrainians were fighting the Japanese.
After leaving the big statue we wandered down to yet another monastery. We were getting a bit used to these sort of things by now, so we flicked through pretty quick and walked back to Independence Square, where we found ourselves in the middle of a Christmas festival. There was a big Christmas tree, a stage and even a fair impressive fireworks display. It was huge too, would have easily been a good 10 to 20 000 people there.
Independence Square, with fireworks.
We wandered around for a bit after that until we found ourselves in a small underground bar drinking beer again. It was a local bar, and we were soon chatting to three Ukranians who spoke passable English. Not really sure what we talked about, but as the night progressed we got to have a look at the M16 they were carrying (yeah, that’s right, an M16 automatic rifle, in the middle of a bar), Steve got pressed into a few impromptu arm wrestling competitions and I smoked a couple of cigars with a Russian pilot who definitely decided that if it had come to it, he definitely would not have liked to have shot me down, if I had been a pilot as well. And I agreed with what he was saying.
A set of photos from a Ukraine bar. Steve with beer…
Matt with beer…
Steve with M16. The dark haired guy on the right at the bar challenged Steve to an arm wrestle later in the evening and then got shirty when he lost.
Steve at about when we decided it was time to go home.
We had quite a slow start on our fourth day in Kiev. We were going to find the Chernobyl Museum, which we did, but it was Sunday and so was closed. We did find a neat little street with heaps of stalls selling enough craft-type stuff to outfit an Auckland suburb. I didn’t buy anything at all, but Steve bought a Ruski hat with authentic fox tail. This was our last day, so we also tried to buy some food for our train trip to Berlin the next day. We ended up with some bread, meat and cheese, and some beer as well, so that went alright.
Steve with hat. And another church in the background, it’s hard to take a photo without one getting in the shot …
The next day was Christmas day, and it was snowing. Our plan for the day was to get to the train station and then board the train for the 23 hour trip to Berlin. We descended into the bowels of the Metro system for the last time and made it to the train station and onto the train with no hassles at all. Kind of boring when you consider the effort it took us to get into the city. The train ride itself was pretty boring as well, we ate our food, drank our beer and at the appropriate time got out the beds and slept for a while.
The elevator to the Metro. Apparently built extra-deep to stop the lines being damaged by nuclear attack.
A nuclear power station on our way out of Ukraine. Not Chernobyl though.
Well, the Ukrainian border crossing was a bit interesting. On this train we were going all the way through to Berlin, so at the border the train stopped to change all the wheels over. This is kind of good fun, the whole train is lifted up and they wheel all the Soviet-guaged wheels out, bogeys and all, and wheel the Western wheels in. What wasn’t fun is that before this happened, the Ukraine border guards came through and took our passports. Then the train went up along the tracks to the wheel changing station, and then back to the border station along a different track. After at least an hour we got our passports back, but not before we’d started to think they’d forgotten them or something.
But, no real drama and Boxing day saw us getting into Berlin. Well, almost into Berlin as the ticket office in Kiev had only booked us through to a very minor station on the outskirts. Our train went all the way through to Central, just our tickets didn’t. But this was only a minor delay and we soon got into town and had a look around. The only thing on Steve’s list was Checkpoint Charlie, and we soon found this and got the required photo. We met Abby in the afternoon, she’d come up from Munich in the morning, and got our accommodation sorted. Steve stayed right close to the train station as the very next day he caught a plane across to Dublin where he met up with Ashly, the chick he met in Prague.
Checkpoint Charlie, Berlin.
That left Abby and I in Berlin. We had two days there and looked at a fair bit, but not quite enough to do the city justice. It’s got a lot of good Museums, but we only managed to get to the Parthagon, where they’ve got an amazing collection of Mesopotamian, Greek and Roman stuff. They’ve got the remains of the Ashtar gate, on of the old gates of Babylon, which I was well impressed by. We also stood in a queue of Germans for an hour while it snowed so we could have a quick look in the German parliament building. They’ve got this dome on the top where you can get really good views of the city, at lest you can when it’s not snowing.
Abby, in Berlin. I forget what the buildings are.
The ancient gates of Babylon. Very cool.
Berlin City Hall, with the TV tower disappearing into the snow.
From there Abby and I took the plane to Munich. Abby’s been working as a live-in Aupair (which is kind of like a full-time babysitter but isn’t really a nanny, I don’t know for sure how to describe the job but I think that’s pretty close) so I stayed there through New Years. I did go to a really cool hunting museum, and I ventured out to the site of the Munich Olympics as well, but mostly Abby and I spent a fair bit of time together without actually doing a hell of a lot. Wasn’t too bad really though, after spending three weeks on the go it was good to chill out for a while.
A couple of swans in lake Starnberg, Munich.
A hunting museum. Pretty cool, eh Dad?
Munich Central train station.
So, on the 3rd of January I started back across to Ireland. I went via Prague, as that’s where my original ticket was booked out of. That meant one more train ride, but it was no hassle at all after the mega train trip from Kiev. And so, one train, two subways, a plane and a 3 hour bus ride later I was back in Galway, walking the 30 minutes from the bus station in town to my flat because I’d forgotten to get off at my stop on the way in.
The next day I found out that my earlier work with recruitment had paid off, and I turned up to work the day after. Luckily it was a Friday, as I reckon working a full 9-5 week after not really doing much would have damn near killed me. And that’s about me for the next month or two. There’s a few things in the wings, but for now I’m head down, butt up until I’ve got a bit of cash in the bank. I’ll write down the next plans as soon as I’m suitably inspired.
Labels: Prague Krakow Kiev Ukraine train
posted by matt at 2:11 PM
