Kyiv

At 07:20 the transfer service (van) from Budapest to the train station in Mukachevo arrived. It is a service that makes the trip most every day. Beautiful, large 9 passenger van. Driver speaks no English and suspect only one of the 8 passengers does. The price is very reasonable. We picked up the last passenger at 08:00 and the ride, including border crossing was estimated to be under 6 hours.

The van made a number of stops dropping passengers, only 2 of us ended up in Mukachevo, but I got to see a lot of Uzhhorod and Mukachevo on the way. I will be back in warm weather for more of Uzhhorod. I met up with my aquantiance at a pizza place near the station in Mukachevo about 3pm Ukrainian time.

My aquaintance? When I planned this I didn’t feel this would be a good time to be traveling without knowledge of the language. If some situations were to come up they don’t need an American running in circles trying to find someone who speaks English to tell him where to go and what to do. So I called upon an acquaintance who is a native Ukrainian speaker and who commutes between Kyiv and Odesa every week, to take the overnight train with me. To be honest, now with the direct train available and not having to do van transfers to remote train stations, it really isn’t necessary, Even on this trip it wasnt nexessary. Very simple trip and enough that understood English to get me over the humps, but I promised him the trip to Kyiv so I kept the original plan.

In Mukachevo we had lunch and a walk around town then we settled in at the station to wait for the train. Mukachevo like every place I ended up visiting was business as usual. Stores were well stocked and people were shopping and on the streets. Unlike some news reports Ukraine is dealing with the disruption of the war and to a very substantial degree, life goes on.

The train was scheduled to depart Mukachevo at 20:17, and left on time. https://paliparan.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/03/kiev-mukachevo-train-55.jpg

Sleeping on this train was a bit like trying to sleep on a water bed in an earthquake. I got maybe 4 hours in the 11 hour trip.

Train was clean, beds comfortable, service polite, tea 25 cents. At the end of the journey everyone strips their beds and carries the linens to the dirty hamper down the hall …nice. Civilized people.

We arrived in Kyiv at 07:09 as scheduled. https://youtu.be/WD2EBruf6VQ?si=YDhkzKkcOK2HFr8i

Friends picked me up, then home with them for breakfast. Despite the war they had just moved to a new flat in the suburbs. Shiny modern new building with a park and a pool. They bought an apartment shell space then spent the last couple of years designing and building the interior. It’s beautiful.

Then i checked into the hotel. I don’t like imposing on the homes of others, so I secured an upgraded lower floor courtyard facing room, near the basement stairs, in a very nice 4-star hotel. I have stayed in the same hotel four times over the years, but better now as they just finished a renovation. Staff was great, room way too large and located as i had requested.

Hotel is in A good location for tourism as it is close to:
Independence Square, also called Maidan (square), and the site of the EuroMaidan protests in winter of 2013/2014 (do watch this: https://youtu.be/yzNxLzFfR5w?si=EE-5u3amHyZJ12Ge ). And a video of the location taken not too many months ago https://youtu.be/fMRQig_uKDE?si=wdZMMBJfdRjXtAO9 it's learning of Maidan through that documentary linked above that got me here the first time in 2016. This is i think my 5th visit since plus as many trips to Odesa and one trip to Lviv.

It’s also a short walk to St. Michael's Golden-Domed Monastery (12th through 18th century) https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/4/4e/80-391-9007_Kyiv_St.Michael%27s_Golden-Domed_Monastery_RB_18_%28cropped%29.jpg

And to the St. Saint Sophia Cathedral (12th through 17th century. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saint_Sophia_Cathedral,_Kyiv

For those of you that love to visit every great church in Europe while traveling, these two, and many others in the city and in Eastern Europe will open a whole new world for you. Use your mouse and spin around and look up and down: https://www.360cities.net/image/inteior-of-st-michaels-golden-domed-monastery-kiev-ukraine

There are also several nice restaurants in the area as well. Two of my favorites: https://tresfrancais.choiceqr.com/ and https://maps.app.goo.gl/7FLcmtz44N2sSaGr5 a little further away, but one of my favorite restaurant in any city: https://citronelle.com.ua/ I am insisting on dinner there before I leave.

Today I hung out around Maidan and visited the memorials and did a little shopping in the mall under the square.

Tonight a good dinner at a Georgian restaurant courtsey of a local aquaintance that knows i like Georgian food (no, not fried chicken and waffles), then early to bed as tomorrow will start early with Christmas church services with friends.

I will build on this after church. But a separate topic. Communist Architecture. I bet 90% of you think of the concrete block housing that scars Eastern Europe. But before that there was Stalin Classic (lots of name for it actually). It's a very unfamiliar twist on the sort of architecture you see in a lot of preWWII Europe. Sort of overly ornsmented in bass relief but with the arches and towers and classical form you find in places like Budapest. I think it's ugly as sin, but some of the best is in Kyiv. A good study distraction. The block housing came after Stalins death.

Puttie must have decided to give his staff Christmas Eve off as no air raids in Kyiv last night. Let's see if I get as lucky tonight.

Christmas service was at a small rural church. Formerly russian orthodox, now Ukranian Orthodox. Hard to change 900 years of tradition so even though the new state holiday is 25 December, they celebrated today. Small but full, the service lasted 2 hours .... standing. Interesting was the post communion water and bread for everyone. Most touching was watching the children get communion first. If you haven't been to an orthodox service, it's a good experience.

Then home made Christmas dinner with the family. Grandpa raises gooses so the goose was fresh. He made the chicken Kyiv and the hooch too. Mom made sausage, an interesting sour cream based chopped meat salad and a jellied meat "thing". Both good. Heavy on meat because no meat in the diet the month before Christmas. Oh and mashed potatoes ... what would the world do without C. COLOMBUS). Between the hooch and several bottles of wine, spirits were high before dinner was over.

Finally a walking tour of their community ... new and modern .... and Uber back to the hotel.

Back in the city center, life as I remember it from 4 years ago. Warmed up to 6C today. Nice. My photo link is updated with the activities of the day. The modern buildings are where my hosts live. Doesn't look like Ukraine on the news.

Tomorrow a tour of a few exhibits detailing the war.

Hold......

Good luck, Mr E. Thanks for the report. I will be watching the videos. Started the train station one. You can see that the majority of the people are women, presumably because the men are all in the war in some fashion or other. Eerie. Life in wartime. Seems a contrast to the bombed out shells we see and the front line trench warfare we see. Life goes on. One wonders, how so?
This almost shocking serenity puts forth the possibility that some may even think that that war is not even a war. Unlike Gaza. Therefore being at risk of bringing the actual war to some sort of premature close to the detriment of the Ukrainian people.
I applaud the Ukrainians their ability to persevere through all this.
Looking forward to your coming reports on your journey.

A few pics https://1drv.ms/f/s!Ai7Zk-szxfTJjJVRGNMPBwWSJB79dQ.

I am going to have to keep this travel related or it will get cut. But if you want my opinion, PM me. Suffice to say life is very very normal in Kyiv. There are well designed solutions for safety as a tourist or local. I have a shelter in -3 of the hotel. But do check your insurance coverage here.

People are as sweet and kind as they have always been. You can buy imported goods at pre war prices, bars and restaurants are open. Traffic is as bad as ever. Sidewalks are full. Quite a few tourists given the circumstances. But the locals and tourists do live with a phone app that tells them when to duck and cover and the nearest shelter. Then when to come back out and continue life.

There have always been more women on the streets than men. Now more in government positions too. And do remember that the young, up to about 30 I believe are not being drafted. Long range planning says to protect that segment if you want a society after the war. Yea, they really are looking at the big picture and long haul.

I fell in love with the quality of the people here in 2016 and keep returning. Aesop said you are judged by the company you keep. So I am hoping it works for me.

Have you registered your presence in country with the American Embassy? You should; you never know how quickly things can go sideways.

Sorry, you said Embassy .... no. Just State Dept.

Sounds like a very interesting trip!

Its not a holidy or a vacation. There is a family here, with two children that to me are only second to my own family. We have been discussing and planning this for 18 months. I came in today to go to Christmas services with them tomorrow. Then I am on the train out. Also gives me a chance to see another aquaintance before I leave. Both long over due. And I guess, to be honest, what I saw, learned and experienced on my first visit 9 years ago got under my skin and it always feels good when I am back.

Hello Mr E

When I fist saw Kyiv as a title, I assumed it to be spam because I did not realize that we were even allowed to visit Kyiv or for that matter, anyone would want to,

I have looked at some of your pictures and life looks so normal. The food looks great. The cathedral is magnificent. And people are walking around .... like it is just another day.

I read a posting of someone's trip to Russia somewhere so I guess it is allowed to visit Russia if someone wants to. That poster also said something about it seeming normal.

For the longest time, we believed that my maternal grandparents were from Russia and that might be true when they came over but as it has turned out, they are from either Kyiv or Odesa Ukraine. Of course, it was Russia when they were born and raised.

Have a continuing safe and wonderful trip.

bostonphil7, are you okay? Your post got cut short ... but you fixed it. I've never been to Kiev. Hope the situation never exists when I could visit Kiev or Odessa for that matter. Except maybe Odessa, Texas.

The only place i know of where the US government restricted visiting was/is Cuba ( I don't know the status now).

I am messing with you, and maybe someone will explain how.

Mr É has been to Kyiv (Київ) and Odesa (Одеса)

Thanks, Mr. E. Sounds like a fulfilling trip.

We always say that understanding the local culture is important. https://youtu.be/WlGdw7AW-tU?si=BEBk2KS8SpTprss8 explains it well. This is a very big deal here.

I corrected my misspellings of Kyiv and Odesa.

Finding out about these things is the purpose of travel, or at least being in better touch with the world. The other biggie is "The Ukraine" it's how you and i grew up calling it. Another no-no. It's just Ukraine for similar reasons to the spelling of the names.

Since you changed it, for the others, you wrote Kiev, not Kyiv. No biggie, it's all about discovery.

Mukachevo in the snow is lovely! (Better than no snow…. ha!)

I am so glad you finally made it! Soak it all in.

The road in Mukachevo ate my knee. Still limping. I spent a few hours walking the town. Pretty nice in places. Found a shopping mall with most of the international name brands and a farmers market with some local stuff that grows in winter but also all the imports in good quantities. Sort of doesn't reflect some of what you hear on the news on the quality of life right now. To be honest nothing looks worse than Romania. Very resilient people. I couldn't do it.

More updates above

The video on spelling is interesting as is your whole report. I found out recently that my grandfather who I always thought emigrated from Poland was actually from Ukraine. My cousin visited the town before all the conflict broke out. My grandmother is from Romania. Both were German though. Someday would like to visit where they came from but not now.

Thanks for this very interesting trip report and discussion. I especially appreciate the spelling video. I presumptuously used to think I knew the correct spelling because I went there (in the 1970s) and remember it -- not registering that what I correctly remember is the Russified Soviet spelling of the time. I also remember going swimming in the Dnipro river at a local beach right in town -- I assume you will not be doing that in January.

Have been to that beach, maybe, in the past. At the end of a long pedestrian bridge on an island?

BethFL, your family may have been from both. The border with Poland has been fluid. Lviv for instance has been in both countries, and i think the Austra-Hungarian Empire. That's why it is mostly Catholic. Before the current invasion by russia Poland and Ukraine had less than great relations because of the border wars. I think the last was between WWI and WWII. Putin's invasion scared Poland and brought the countries together.

Your German Romanian family makes sense too. The last ruling monarchy was literally imported from Germany. Prior to that tge Hungarians recruited Germans to settle tge borderlands in that part of Romania that were part of Hungary. The purpose was for defense and to this day there still exists many towns of German origin. Unfortunately most of the ethnic Germans were killed or deported by the Russians after WWII.

History in Europe is a mess. If you want to know more about Poland and Ukraine watch Snyder's history series I linked to above. You will also learn russia grew out of the 12th century principality called something like Moskovy (i dont remember the exact) when they started expanding they wanted a new name for status so they checked their history and in the 18th century decided on a name that related to their origins. Their origins which were a substantial empire founded in the 9th century called Kyvian Rus that ruled much of modern day Ukraine from Kyiv. Moscow was an outpost of that empire. Yes, Kyiv is the russian motherland. Explains in part why the want it back. It's more complicated than this. Watch the Snyder series.

That train station in Mukachevo looks so much like the one in Chernivtsi and the one in Peremysl. I suspect they were all built around the same time.

If you do make it back to Uzhhorod, there’s an excellent skansen there, the Museum of Folk Architecture and Rural Life, if you’re interested in that kind of thing.

BethFL, it all depends on where exactly and when your grandfather was born. As Mr. É mentioned, the borders in that part of the world have gone through many changes. Also regime changes. My parents in the first thirty years of their lives lived under four different regimes : Austro-Hungarian, Polish, Soviet and German. And each time they were issued new documents - I have them all, as they brought all their papers with them to Canada in 1948.

The Ukrainian genealogy group I belong to just had a presentation about German immigration to Western Ukraine in the 18th & 19th centuries. If you’re interested I can provide the link.

I second Mr. É’s recommendation of Timothy Snyder’s lecture series - he really explains the complicated history in an understandable way. Also, any of his books on that region.