"A journey towards optimism" ( my travel to Kiev, Ukraine, 20.03.2011) Day 2
Day 2
I wake up without alarm clock. After i fell once asleep , my sleep was deep and restorative. Natasha and Misha will pick us up at 11 o'clock, to show us the city! We are hungry and i am surprised how good sleeping for us is, thats because today i am not so affraid of radioactive food anymore. Contrariwise, i really enjoy my bread and cucumber. We pack everything together what we need for our day and walk already down to smoke. While walking a bit along the road, we even find a bank to change our euros into grivnas. I am surprised that the bank is open on sunday. I change 300 euros and get back around 3300 grivnas, so much money. I feel rich and we both have problems to get it into our wallet. Later we make stupid photos, pretending to be rich. It's crazy that they even have papermoney for 5 grivnas , 5 grivnas are not even 50 cents.
Natasha and Misha are still not there, so we go to a phonecell and call them. And again , it's so cheap! They tell us that they will be here in 10 minutes, there is so much traffic , so the bus has trouble to pass it. This is pretty normal in Kiev at the rush hours. We wait and finally we see them walking towards us. First time we meet Misha( Natashas boyfriend). He is so small and skinny but seems very sweet and shy, maybe thats also because he can not speak english so good. But within this week, he will talk more and more and also better english!
So we start walking , first on a big hill where you have this amazing overview of Kiev, its beautyful even on a rainy and grey day. We see the river diepner off course, a lot of industrial areas , therefore also a lot of smoking chimneys , i love smoking chimneys.
The view over Kiev, standing on the rainbow-monument-hill
On the hill itself is standing a huge typical soviet statue , a few old but sweet carousels , still i wouldn't dare to go in there , they dont look very safe. And last but not least, there is standing the huge iron rainbow which glows in rainbow colours in the night , its a monument for the friendship of the nations. We walk down the hill again and we talk a lot about everything , i have to think how cool it would be to drive down the hill with the bakbrommer but must be also scary because they drive like crazy here. In this streets are a lot of restaurants or bistros located, the houses look beautyful here, also a lot of abandoned houses we notice but it looks hard to come in there, but my attention is going to the massive amount of papers who hang on walls, doors, trafficlights and just everywhere. It's the ukrainian way of advertisement, very funny!
Slips of paper EVERYWHERE!
We pass the university which looks pretty good and renovated. Misha needs to buy cigarettes and we enter the backyard from the univesity where also a church is standing. Here we come in contact with our first streetdogs. In Kiev you have a lot of them but they all seem pretty happy and healthy actually, it seems like they have a free and nice life here but who knows how they are in the winter, probaly then it will be really hard and cold. But maybe in the winter they sit the whole day inside because they even squat empty houses and dare the people who want to enter those squats. You will have a barking concert. The two dogs in the backyard are still pretty young and they are happy to see us. i wanna make a photo of them and go on my knees, before i can see , i already fall down, the one dog is so excited and jumps on me! After cuddeling with the dogs we go further into the backyard , outside of the church is standing a cross, old people pray here, it is funny because the dogs just run and jump here like crazy , barking from excitement. The prayers dont really care, they more look at us! Misha is coming back and we say good bye to the dogs and walk further.
Babul`ka i subaki, old woman and the first streetdogs we see in Kiev
We pass by the concert building for the philharmonics where you can visit concerts, even from the outside we hear classical music, big speakers are mounted high on the wall. We go further to the chernobyl museum, unfortanetly it is closed on sundays but in front of the museum, are standing old army and ambulance vehicles who drove in chernobyl when the accident happened, i wonder if they are not contaminated? They look cool and renovated, again i would like to have such old car or bus.
Radioactive cars?
In front of the museum a couple is standing , wondering if the museum is open or not. It turns out that they are dutch. Faye is talking to them about Kiev, they recommend us the monastry lavra. We will go there tomorrow anyway. It's time to go on and still, i am not really used to how different everything looks here. The pavements and streets with big holes and how the roots of the trees take back the streets. We arrive at the big market, indoor and outdoor market. It's unbelievable, i never saw something like that. Already at the beginning of the market, is one old man standing at the corner on the street and selling his 5 chickens who just lay on the ground. In general a lot of old people are selling wares here. Natasha is telling us later that this is because old people who cant work anymore ,dont get much money from the state, maybe around 20 euros a month, which is of course not enough, so they sell their chickens , vegtebales and other food on markets.
The outside market
We are in middle of the happening. The market seems really chummy. The sellers outside are just standing or sitting above their food which is laying on the ground , they talk with the other sellers or with the customers. There is one really high and big eggwagon with millions of eggs in there , it looks so funny and it must be such a mess if the car who drives the wagon has an accident. Also kind of kiosks are outside , there they sell mostly electricity/household stuff and clothes. Lots of people are selling dried mushrooms , they hang on a string and i would love to buy some of those but off course i am too affraid of radiation. It's time to enter the market hall. It's amazing how much stands here are, we walk in from the first floor, here they sell a lot of traditional clothes and also fur. A little bit further we can look down on all the marketstands. It is incredible huge. Down there, food and a lot of meat gets sold. Inside the people have stands, so they dont have to put the wares on the ground. Awesome, to see everything from above.
Inside market, i am standing on a kind of balcony from which you have an
incredible overview
Off course we wanna go down now. I would love to make photos but i dont dare, maybe the people dont like it, when i get a bit used to here and when i notice that they are actually all pretty friendly , i finally try to make unhidden some photos.
A photo i made when i was still affraid to take photos, i had the camera
hanging around my neck and wasn't actually watching through the camera,
so it was a surprise what will come out.
Once down , i recognize how much meat gets sold here and especially what kind of meat. Pigpaws, pigheads, grease, rabbits with still fur on the legs, etc, etc. They kind of slaughter here also, we see those round wooden blocks with axes sticking in there. Herewith they chop the meat small. In fact, one man is just trying to axe a pighead in 2 parts. Faye wants to make a photo of this man and while being busy with her camera, a piece of the pighead is flying on her face, very nice for a vegetarian. She also wants to make a photo of a women behind all her meat , the woman really likes it and is posing like a model for Faye. Sweet!
Meat, meat, meat
We walk to this stand where a woman has all kinds of pickled vegtebales. It looks delicious and i wanna buy som pickled cucumber and cabage. It is very friendly here, before you buy something, you always can taste. I am happy with my food and we walk slowly out of the market hall. At the exit, a grandma is trying to sell her few herbs and also a legless guy is begging on a chair for money.
A stand with delicious pickled vegtebales
On our way to an abandoned house which Misha and Natasha wants to show us , i see the first time the Kiev tram. It is beautyful, so red, old and crappy. It's amazing that this trams still drive.
When we arrive at the empty house , we notice that streetdogs squatted that building. Just when we look through the window they go crazy and bark at us. So we decide its maybe better if we dont go in there. But of course our friends know another house where we can climb on the roof. To come on there we have to climb a ladder, Faye is really affraid but she is making it up there, so am i. The attic looks like crap, everywhere boulder and rubbish on the ground, you barely can walk and the heating pipes just hang on a wire in the air and look like they would crack any minute. We get out on the roof through the window, it is so high, we have to be carefully because its slibbery from the rain. I shoot some photos which is not so easy , trying to hold balance. We sit , smoke and joke around and after half an hour it's time to go down again, Faye is so happy to be on safe ground again.
Faye is climbing the ladder extremely scared The attic with lots of boulder One of our views from the roof
Now its time for a coffee and something small to eat. While we search for some coffee house, we find a backyard which Natasha and Misha want to show us. It's a mess back there and it's hard to believe that people are still living here. Almost the whole ground is filled with trashbags, between all those rubbish a lot of cats are searching for food. They are so sweet and again look pretty healthy. In front of the house where still people live , a woman and a man are talking with each other, smoking a cigarette and drinking beers. It is 12 o'clock noon! One house in the backyard is empty but when we want to enter, we decide to go fast out , it is full of human excrements. After keeping tabs on the cats, we fast leave this dirty backyard.
Only a few of the trashbags in the dirty
backyard
We find some coffee house which looks like every other coffee house in the netherlands. I order a coffee and a apple strudel. Yummie and vegan. Our legs finally can rest, our mouthes not, we talk a lot and write down swearwords in all kinds of lanuages, we have lots of fun with this vulgare language. When the waitress wants to clean our table , Faye is giving her a hand but the waitress is saying in russian "i can do that alone" It is kind of unfriendly to help in restaurants and cafes, Natasha explains us.
In the coffee house
We go further. Natasha and Misha wanna show us more abandoned houses. And it is not so difficult to find some, since Kiev has heaps of them. But this one we find now is really, really dirty, people put their trashbags into the houses, so you barely can walk and see if the floor under our feet is safe. Again we decide not to go in there and walk and walk further, passing by another empty house, with a calender on the door from 1986 , the year the accident in Chernobyl happened, as we move on, we see some pigeons, eating a big hill off meat, dead rats and so much more, for us unusual things. Natasha tells us that she wants to go with us to some abandoned bridge, she says that the bridge leads to an industrial area where only poor workers live, so the criminality and use of drugs is very high and because of that, the city councel decided to cut off the bridge, so the inhabitants from this isle wont come into the city anymore. I cant believe what i am hearing and ask how the people get food, Natasha says that they can fish there. I really believe her story, by then i didnt know that Natasha loves to tell bullshit. She starts laughing and we find out about Natashas funny and entertaining lies. But it is true that the bridge is not in use anymore. It's so weired, the bridge is just cutted off on the highest point and you can look down on the street and water. I enjoy being up here, the view is amazing but it is cold and windy, i guess, a lot of people go here to hang out and drink alcohol. I notice a lot of glass and bottles laying on the concrete. At the left side, far away, we see a big boat but not in the water , it is still under construction but for at least 20 years already , it is one big piece of rust. i guess it will be never finished. As we walk on , i feel my legs getting a bit tired.
The cutted-off-criminal-island-bridge
Off the bridge, on the road again, we meet some friends of Natashsa and Misha. A guy with a black, oldschool hat, he is immediatly talking to us and tells me that he studied one year in Hildesheim/Germany. So he speaks quiet good german but i am not used to speak german anymore and fall back into english again. He is also speaking about some weired kind of life roll game, you build a team and then you drive in a car around to places and solve tasks. It sounded like fun and once i would like to try it out. The other friend is a blonde, shy girl, i guess . She is wearing a poncho! While talking we pass by a street which looks extremly clean and renovated, nobody actually lives in this street because its too expensive. We walk and the palaces of houses are really all empty , at one corner they even have a movieshooting, with huge, huge spotlights.
I am getting extremly tired and hungry, walking up the hill is not making it better. But this street is so sweet, there is no concrete , only really big and small stones in the earth, in front of us, up the hill is a small church with the so typical round, golden roofs. But the coolest, people also sell paintings and all kinds of art on this so sweet street, some stuff i really like , everything is very colourfull. Even in the mud at the side of the street are standing fences with paintings hanging on them. As higher we get , more and more touriststands come, selling army cloth, gasmasks, madroschkas, other dolls who have no faces, even old analog cameras!
Art hanging on fences at a really sweet street
We are almost at our hostel but first we need to buy a simcard for Faye , so she can call home . We find an small stand with only simcards, in front of the metro entrance. Those simcard stands you can see a lot in Kiev. Everybody is discussing now, with the standowner which sim card is the best , Faye and me understand nothing and we just wanna go sit on the bed. But it is also funny how everybody is talking about this stupid sim card for so long already. Finally we are at our hostel and agree with Natasha that we will talk later to her. Maybe we want to visit Misha in his studio, who already went there earlier. As we sit on the bed, we feel actually pretty done for today and just wanna chill. So we just eat and have to fart a lot(probably our stomachs have to get used to the new food) , looking at our photos, mine are all overlighted. Nooo ! Again i have trouble to fall asleep but once asleep, i sleep like a stone!
I wake up without alarm clock. After i fell once asleep , my sleep was deep and restorative. Natasha and Misha will pick us up at 11 o'clock, to show us the city! We are hungry and i am surprised how good sleeping for us is, thats because today i am not so affraid of radioactive food anymore. Contrariwise, i really enjoy my bread and cucumber. We pack everything together what we need for our day and walk already down to smoke. While walking a bit along the road, we even find a bank to change our euros into grivnas. I am surprised that the bank is open on sunday. I change 300 euros and get back around 3300 grivnas, so much money. I feel rich and we both have problems to get it into our wallet. Later we make stupid photos, pretending to be rich. It's crazy that they even have papermoney for 5 grivnas , 5 grivnas are not even 50 cents.
Natasha and Misha are still not there, so we go to a phonecell and call them. And again , it's so cheap! They tell us that they will be here in 10 minutes, there is so much traffic , so the bus has trouble to pass it. This is pretty normal in Kiev at the rush hours. We wait and finally we see them walking towards us. First time we meet Misha( Natashas boyfriend). He is so small and skinny but seems very sweet and shy, maybe thats also because he can not speak english so good. But within this week, he will talk more and more and also better english!
So we start walking , first on a big hill where you have this amazing overview of Kiev, its beautyful even on a rainy and grey day. We see the river diepner off course, a lot of industrial areas , therefore also a lot of smoking chimneys , i love smoking chimneys.
The view over Kiev, standing on the rainbow-monument-hill
On the hill itself is standing a huge typical soviet statue , a few old but sweet carousels , still i wouldn't dare to go in there , they dont look very safe. And last but not least, there is standing the huge iron rainbow which glows in rainbow colours in the night , its a monument for the friendship of the nations. We walk down the hill again and we talk a lot about everything , i have to think how cool it would be to drive down the hill with the bakbrommer but must be also scary because they drive like crazy here. In this streets are a lot of restaurants or bistros located, the houses look beautyful here, also a lot of abandoned houses we notice but it looks hard to come in there, but my attention is going to the massive amount of papers who hang on walls, doors, trafficlights and just everywhere. It's the ukrainian way of advertisement, very funny!
Slips of paper EVERYWHERE!
We pass the university which looks pretty good and renovated. Misha needs to buy cigarettes and we enter the backyard from the univesity where also a church is standing. Here we come in contact with our first streetdogs. In Kiev you have a lot of them but they all seem pretty happy and healthy actually, it seems like they have a free and nice life here but who knows how they are in the winter, probaly then it will be really hard and cold. But maybe in the winter they sit the whole day inside because they even squat empty houses and dare the people who want to enter those squats. You will have a barking concert. The two dogs in the backyard are still pretty young and they are happy to see us. i wanna make a photo of them and go on my knees, before i can see , i already fall down, the one dog is so excited and jumps on me! After cuddeling with the dogs we go further into the backyard , outside of the church is standing a cross, old people pray here, it is funny because the dogs just run and jump here like crazy , barking from excitement. The prayers dont really care, they more look at us! Misha is coming back and we say good bye to the dogs and walk further.
Babul`ka i subaki, old woman and the first streetdogs we see in Kiev
We pass by the concert building for the philharmonics where you can visit concerts, even from the outside we hear classical music, big speakers are mounted high on the wall. We go further to the chernobyl museum, unfortanetly it is closed on sundays but in front of the museum, are standing old army and ambulance vehicles who drove in chernobyl when the accident happened, i wonder if they are not contaminated? They look cool and renovated, again i would like to have such old car or bus.
Radioactive cars?
In front of the museum a couple is standing , wondering if the museum is open or not. It turns out that they are dutch. Faye is talking to them about Kiev, they recommend us the monastry lavra. We will go there tomorrow anyway. It's time to go on and still, i am not really used to how different everything looks here. The pavements and streets with big holes and how the roots of the trees take back the streets. We arrive at the big market, indoor and outdoor market. It's unbelievable, i never saw something like that. Already at the beginning of the market, is one old man standing at the corner on the street and selling his 5 chickens who just lay on the ground. In general a lot of old people are selling wares here. Natasha is telling us later that this is because old people who cant work anymore ,dont get much money from the state, maybe around 20 euros a month, which is of course not enough, so they sell their chickens , vegtebales and other food on markets.
The outside market
We are in middle of the happening. The market seems really chummy. The sellers outside are just standing or sitting above their food which is laying on the ground , they talk with the other sellers or with the customers. There is one really high and big eggwagon with millions of eggs in there , it looks so funny and it must be such a mess if the car who drives the wagon has an accident. Also kind of kiosks are outside , there they sell mostly electricity/household stuff and clothes. Lots of people are selling dried mushrooms , they hang on a string and i would love to buy some of those but off course i am too affraid of radiation. It's time to enter the market hall. It's amazing how much stands here are, we walk in from the first floor, here they sell a lot of traditional clothes and also fur. A little bit further we can look down on all the marketstands. It is incredible huge. Down there, food and a lot of meat gets sold. Inside the people have stands, so they dont have to put the wares on the ground. Awesome, to see everything from above.
Inside market, i am standing on a kind of balcony from which you have an
incredible overview
Off course we wanna go down now. I would love to make photos but i dont dare, maybe the people dont like it, when i get a bit used to here and when i notice that they are actually all pretty friendly , i finally try to make unhidden some photos.
A photo i made when i was still affraid to take photos, i had the camera
hanging around my neck and wasn't actually watching through the camera,
so it was a surprise what will come out.
Once down , i recognize how much meat gets sold here and especially what kind of meat. Pigpaws, pigheads, grease, rabbits with still fur on the legs, etc, etc. They kind of slaughter here also, we see those round wooden blocks with axes sticking in there. Herewith they chop the meat small. In fact, one man is just trying to axe a pighead in 2 parts. Faye wants to make a photo of this man and while being busy with her camera, a piece of the pighead is flying on her face, very nice for a vegetarian. She also wants to make a photo of a women behind all her meat , the woman really likes it and is posing like a model for Faye. Sweet!
Meat, meat, meat
We walk to this stand where a woman has all kinds of pickled vegtebales. It looks delicious and i wanna buy som pickled cucumber and cabage. It is very friendly here, before you buy something, you always can taste. I am happy with my food and we walk slowly out of the market hall. At the exit, a grandma is trying to sell her few herbs and also a legless guy is begging on a chair for money.
A stand with delicious pickled vegtebales
On our way to an abandoned house which Misha and Natasha wants to show us , i see the first time the Kiev tram. It is beautyful, so red, old and crappy. It's amazing that this trams still drive.
When we arrive at the empty house , we notice that streetdogs squatted that building. Just when we look through the window they go crazy and bark at us. So we decide its maybe better if we dont go in there. But of course our friends know another house where we can climb on the roof. To come on there we have to climb a ladder, Faye is really affraid but she is making it up there, so am i. The attic looks like crap, everywhere boulder and rubbish on the ground, you barely can walk and the heating pipes just hang on a wire in the air and look like they would crack any minute. We get out on the roof through the window, it is so high, we have to be carefully because its slibbery from the rain. I shoot some photos which is not so easy , trying to hold balance. We sit , smoke and joke around and after half an hour it's time to go down again, Faye is so happy to be on safe ground again.
Faye is climbing the ladder extremely scared The attic with lots of boulder One of our views from the roof
Now its time for a coffee and something small to eat. While we search for some coffee house, we find a backyard which Natasha and Misha want to show us. It's a mess back there and it's hard to believe that people are still living here. Almost the whole ground is filled with trashbags, between all those rubbish a lot of cats are searching for food. They are so sweet and again look pretty healthy. In front of the house where still people live , a woman and a man are talking with each other, smoking a cigarette and drinking beers. It is 12 o'clock noon! One house in the backyard is empty but when we want to enter, we decide to go fast out , it is full of human excrements. After keeping tabs on the cats, we fast leave this dirty backyard.
Only a few of the trashbags in the dirty
backyard
We find some coffee house which looks like every other coffee house in the netherlands. I order a coffee and a apple strudel. Yummie and vegan. Our legs finally can rest, our mouthes not, we talk a lot and write down swearwords in all kinds of lanuages, we have lots of fun with this vulgare language. When the waitress wants to clean our table , Faye is giving her a hand but the waitress is saying in russian "i can do that alone" It is kind of unfriendly to help in restaurants and cafes, Natasha explains us.
In the coffee house
We go further. Natasha and Misha wanna show us more abandoned houses. And it is not so difficult to find some, since Kiev has heaps of them. But this one we find now is really, really dirty, people put their trashbags into the houses, so you barely can walk and see if the floor under our feet is safe. Again we decide not to go in there and walk and walk further, passing by another empty house, with a calender on the door from 1986 , the year the accident in Chernobyl happened, as we move on, we see some pigeons, eating a big hill off meat, dead rats and so much more, for us unusual things. Natasha tells us that she wants to go with us to some abandoned bridge, she says that the bridge leads to an industrial area where only poor workers live, so the criminality and use of drugs is very high and because of that, the city councel decided to cut off the bridge, so the inhabitants from this isle wont come into the city anymore. I cant believe what i am hearing and ask how the people get food, Natasha says that they can fish there. I really believe her story, by then i didnt know that Natasha loves to tell bullshit. She starts laughing and we find out about Natashas funny and entertaining lies. But it is true that the bridge is not in use anymore. It's so weired, the bridge is just cutted off on the highest point and you can look down on the street and water. I enjoy being up here, the view is amazing but it is cold and windy, i guess, a lot of people go here to hang out and drink alcohol. I notice a lot of glass and bottles laying on the concrete. At the left side, far away, we see a big boat but not in the water , it is still under construction but for at least 20 years already , it is one big piece of rust. i guess it will be never finished. As we walk on , i feel my legs getting a bit tired.
The cutted-off-criminal-island-bridge
Off the bridge, on the road again, we meet some friends of Natashsa and Misha. A guy with a black, oldschool hat, he is immediatly talking to us and tells me that he studied one year in Hildesheim/Germany. So he speaks quiet good german but i am not used to speak german anymore and fall back into english again. He is also speaking about some weired kind of life roll game, you build a team and then you drive in a car around to places and solve tasks. It sounded like fun and once i would like to try it out. The other friend is a blonde, shy girl, i guess . She is wearing a poncho! While talking we pass by a street which looks extremly clean and renovated, nobody actually lives in this street because its too expensive. We walk and the palaces of houses are really all empty , at one corner they even have a movieshooting, with huge, huge spotlights.
I am getting extremly tired and hungry, walking up the hill is not making it better. But this street is so sweet, there is no concrete , only really big and small stones in the earth, in front of us, up the hill is a small church with the so typical round, golden roofs. But the coolest, people also sell paintings and all kinds of art on this so sweet street, some stuff i really like , everything is very colourfull. Even in the mud at the side of the street are standing fences with paintings hanging on them. As higher we get , more and more touriststands come, selling army cloth, gasmasks, madroschkas, other dolls who have no faces, even old analog cameras!
Art hanging on fences at a really sweet street
We are almost at our hostel but first we need to buy a simcard for Faye , so she can call home . We find an small stand with only simcards, in front of the metro entrance. Those simcard stands you can see a lot in Kiev. Everybody is discussing now, with the standowner which sim card is the best , Faye and me understand nothing and we just wanna go sit on the bed. But it is also funny how everybody is talking about this stupid sim card for so long already. Finally we are at our hostel and agree with Natasha that we will talk later to her. Maybe we want to visit Misha in his studio, who already went there earlier. As we sit on the bed, we feel actually pretty done for today and just wanna chill. So we just eat and have to fart a lot(probably our stomachs have to get used to the new food) , looking at our photos, mine are all overlighted. Nooo ! Again i have trouble to fall asleep but once asleep, i sleep like a stone!