Ukraine

Our Apartment Building In Kiev was on the LP walking tour

We arrived in Kiev rather late and its airport was also a bit of a ways from the center; still, for $15 we got a good ride with a nice English speaking gentleman who was moonlighting for some extra money. Imagine our surprise when our landlord turned out to be an American guy from SF! He made a killing in the IT biz, married a Ukrainian, moved to Kiev, got bored and started buying and rehabbing real estate, doing everything with a Western slant, so the place was simply fantastic and the sort of nice place you might expect to find in the US. Our backs got a whole lot better in Jay’s bed!

Kiev Was a Fun Walking City

After checking in, I hit the streets and WOW!….they felt like NYC. So much energy at 10PM on a Wednesday night and the first sounds I heard were of a band playing Psycho Killer at full blast at a sidewalk cafe. Along the way good street musicians were busking, including a 12 yo kid whose tone on the tenor made me wish I could ever play that well. I immediately began to think that three nights and two days in Kiev was not at all enough.

The first day we took a self-guided walking tour and saw most of the major sites. We’re pretty churched out and museumed out, so just enjoyed the nice architecture, Victory Square where the locals organized resistance against Putin trying to bring the country back into Russia, and some lovely views along the high bank above the river. Really a great walking town with lots of pubs.

Our Favorite Restaurant in Kiev, Mu Safir

On our final full day, we took the almost obligatory tour of Chernobyl. Having been in the nuclear power industry and having been in Europe at the time of the disaster in 1986, it was particularly interesting. The guide was a great, gentle person who gave a great tour while also chatting about how tough life was in Ukraine and how tourists tend to only see the good in their few days or weeks in the country; I guess that would be us. Nice to get a different perspective. The trip out to the 30km zone took about two hours by minibus; we were issued radiation measurement devices to put around our necks and a few people rented geiger counters…..sure enough, when those counters were placed near the ground, the numbers increased and in certain areas, increased dramatically. However, it was made clear that any exposure was way less than a chest x-ray and even less than a two hour plane flight. There are fools who have wandered out into the forested areas or otherwise got off the allowed tourist route who have received higher exposure. A few of these fools snuck in and documented their journeys on YouTube. Speaking of digital documentation, the guide was quick to point out the Hollywoodization of the recent Emmy-winning HBO series. At one point, we were shown an old hospital where the uniforms of the first responders were stored in the basement; this is considered one of the most radioactive buildings in the area, yet some idiot in our group asked if it was OK to go downstairs and look at the basement. The guide’s response: “Are you crazy?”. The tour included visits inside the 10km zone, indeed right up to the reactor (which has, of course, been enclosed) and the cooling towers. We also got to visit the abandoned town where most of the workers lived. Truly eery, since it looked much the same as when people were evacuated in 1986. I remember both Moscow and many European leaders downplaying the event in 1986; then we got to Italy and all produce had been pulled off the shelves. Ooops!

We went to an amazing Tatar/Crimean restaurant for dinner. Terrific food, good wine and a dirt cheap place full of locals. TripAdvisor had it rated the #1 restaurant in town, so there were some tourists.

We had a late afternoon flight the next day and had planned to wander about, but I got food poisoning and spent the day throwing up. Not blaming the great restaurant since Sharon and I (as usual) shared a bunch of dishes and she had no problems. Fortunately recovered enough to fly

to Chisinau, Moldova.