Fun in Kiev

I got to tag along with the UNDP Moldova delegation to the UN’s “Corporate Social Responsibility and the Media” conference held in Kiev, Ukraine, last week, and was lucky to have enough free time there to get a taste of the city. I’ll summarize my personal highlights of the past few days in this post, and tell you all more about the actual content of the conference later this week. First things first. :)

Transdniestria
They say they’re an independent country. The rest of the world (Moldova included), says they’re just a region of Moldova. This causes a number of major complications for both nations/regions, and a few interesting situations for travelers. For instance: when you pass from the rest of Moldova to Transdniestria, Moldova won’t concede you’re leaving the country…but when you pass from Trasnsdniestria to Ukraine, the Transdniestrian border patrol won’t concede you’re even in Moldova…so driving from Moldova to Ukraine and back, you never officially leave or re-enter Moldova. (Interesting for tourists, potentially lucrative for arms traders and other shady characters….) I didn’t pass through any Transdniestrian cities, so the only noticeable differences between the half-hour drive across the region and the rest of my journey were thirty minutes of slightly bumpier roads and significantly ickier bathrooms alongside. I wanted to snap some pix at the border but was told by my vanmates that being seen doing so could have very negative repercussions for me. To get a flavor of the experience, just imagine having your passport checked by a stern Angelina Jolie lookalike in camo fatigues and a beret in the middle of expansive sunflower fields.

“The National Museum of the History of the Great Patriotic War of 1941-1945 Years”
Former Soviet States don’t talk about “WWII” – they instead call it the “Great Patriotic War” and focus only on the Axis-USSR portions. Kiev’s museum on the subject is probably the coolest museum I’ve ever visited…and I say this despite the fact that it was all in Russian so I only understood about 0.1% of the signage. History museums are getting so beautiful these days, and this one surpassed the also-really-cool Hong Kong History Museum on my list of personal faves because of its stunning presentation of WWII artifacts. Below see part of the photo tribute to fallen Ukrainian soldiers (honored as “Heroes of the Soviet Union”), and the entryway’s summary of the entire museum: a fallen, broken German eagle.

Kiev Statues
Kiev definitely doesn’t forget Soviet times, and the city’s statues don’t let you forget, either. The “Mother Motherland” statue overlooking the river in the middle of the city is very large, very silver, and very intense – holding a sword and a shield adorned with the coat of arms of the Soviet Union, she rises 100m over the city and is 1.5 times taller than the Statue of Liberty. Really, don’t mess with this chick. Also, the Lenin statue here is in the middle of the city, unlike the one hidden in the depths of a park in Chisinau, and brightly-painted tanks make an urban playground for small children.

Pechersk Lavra
One of Ukraine’s four UNESCO World Heritage Sites, this Orthodox Christian monastery includes churches, belltowers, and an amazing 1000-year-old system of narrow underground corridors and chapels. I roamed the tourist-accessible portion of these “caves” – but only after buying a (required) scarf to respectfully cover my hair and a small candle to light my way. All in all, I don’t know which creeped me out more: (a) the numerous glass boxes containing priests’ mummies wrapped in ornately-colored cloths, or (b) the fact I found the monks to be so young and good-looking. Chill, girl – they’re monks.

General Kiev culture
Though none of these are exactly newsworthy on their own, all the little things I did in Kiev really made me love the city. I walked through parks, admired the architecture, sipped tea in sidewalk cafes (where everyone else seemed to be on free wi-fi), went to a great little art gallery opening, shopped up a storm, took convenient public transportation (including visiting the “world’s deepest metro station” 102m underground), and enjoyed the sunny (though occasionally rainshowery) weather. Nice place!

I’ll leave you with a few closing pictures: general scenery, architecture, and me partaking in some Georgian wine (and hats) with a fellow conference attendee, a reporter for the Georgian (the country, not the state) publication Financial.

Oh, and I don't know why this last one cracked me up so much, but check out the sign for the Mexican restaurant where we ate one night: "Tequila House" written in Cyrillic. :)