Kyiv Mark II

Armenian Fish Market, Ukraine
Originally uploaded by rtw2007.

After a couple of days in Yalta (ЯЛТА) we were all beginning to suffer from the heat; the sheer number of (largely Russian) tourists; and hugely inflated prices, so we decided to start our long trip back to Kyiv. Before leaving the Black Sea (which may well be our last sight of the sea for a long time now) we visited Livadia Palace, where Churchill, Roosevelt and Stalin carved up Eastern Europe at one of the important conferences post World War II. The palace is full of photos from the event, showing the three big guys having a laugh and a chuckle (and, in Churchill’s case, smoking a lot of cigars). No mention is made of how unpopular the decisions taken there were (for example in the Baltic States, where the popular view seems to be that they were badly let down by old Winston and his cigars) or of the fact that Stalin later ignored the vast majority of what was agreed at the conference.

As we climbed up through the mountains, the plan was to find a spot for lunch, but the weather broke suddenly and spectacularly – we went from blazing sunshine to a tropical style monsoon. At one moment on the mountain road, all the traffic had to stop as we were being bombarded by enormous hailstones in thick mist. We made a brief stop at an Armenian dried fish market, where hundreds of dried fish of every species imaginable were being sold from stalls or from the back of clapped out old Ladas. One of the stallholders insisted on giving us three fish, but in the end we weren’t brave enough to actually eat it (mainly because we couldn’t find any fish on the dried carcass, only fins and scales).

From there it was on to the first of a series of motels that would follow an established pattern – arrive at motel; Richard takes grotty room; we all drink too much outside whilst being eaten alive by mosquitoes; we sleep in van; and Rich fails to sleep due to nightmares about cockroaches, passing trucks or dreadful wall paper. Having said that, we generally enjoyed those places, mainly because people in Ukraine have been so friendly and really keen to hear about our trip or where we come from.

To spice up the long journey back from the Crimea to Kyiv, we sought out a couple of bonus “sights” recommended by both the Lonely Planet and Bradt guides to Ukraine. The first was a safari park established on the Ukrainian Steppe by a mad German settler a long while back, populated by animals from all over the world. We arrived to find the safari shut due to the heat (?!?). The associated “zoo-park” was a bit depressing: lots of animals who clearly weren’t designed for 35 degree heat on the Steppe. The second bonus sight was allegedly (and I quote directly) “a hidden Swedish city” in southern Ukraine. The books say that the buildings are in Scandinavian style and the villagers speak Swedish. We can only assume that the authors have never visited – the village is actually a very ordinary, entirely Ukrainian village, with barely any Scandinavian buildings in sight and Swedish which was written and spoken strangely like Ukrainian. The main consolation was seeing some German tourists who were looking very bemused – they had clearly read the same thing in their guide book, driven for 20km along the same dodgy road, and were wondering how they had been taken in by the same joke.

Bar the fiasco of visiting non-existent “sights”, all was looking good as we headed north, until Michael turned the tap on in our van to do the washing up. Unfortunately, no water came out of the tap (which had been working perfectly well the night before). Checking the water levels, fuses etc etc and employing our standard tactic of turning everything off and then back on again didn’t work. Upon further exploration, it emerged that a small plastic piece of pipe has completely severed in two, so we have no connection between our fresh water tank and our tap. All very annoying, given that we are about to head into the boiling hot ‘Stans and will be heavily reliant on our water supply. So, we have spent the last few days desperately trying to arrange for a spare part to be shipped to Russia, which isn’t easy when you are in the middle of Ukraine with no email, no land line and no fixed abode for anyone to ship to. Fingers crossed it turns up in Volgograd and we can make the necessary repairs. We shall see.