The Wild East

"Let them in, idiot, they have money!"

Thursday
Got to Kiev around 8am. The outskirts seemed to go on forever, but the population is 2.6m (it was the third biggest city in the USSR).
Thankfully there was a café in which me and Taylor could get our bearings, have a snack and decide on the plan of action.
The problems in Kiev are:

• (1) Very little budget accommodation exists. Few backpackers/budget tourists means no market. There are no hostels, for example.
• (2) The accommodation is scattered all over the city.
• (3) Foreigner pricing exists, so we would have to pay more, and
• (4) some hotels (if you can find them) are closed to foreigners because they are very poor quality, and an embarrassment.

We had to try about 5 places, and things began to look expensive, but we found somewhere. Our home was the Hotel Holoseevskaya. Cheap ($10 each), but 5 miles from the city centre.
Kiev (Kiyiv Ukrainian) is a really beautiful city. The mother of all slavic cities. There was a huge amount of wealth here, brand-new Mercedes, designer suits, Jeeps, $10 000 watches for the new Russian/Ukrainian elite (who were the communists in the USSR, but now are the business community). The metro was pretty special. You pay 5p for a Zheton (token) which you put into the entrance. This then breaks the laser beam for a few seconds, allowing you to walk through without triggering an alarm.
Why they didn’t just have barriers I don’t know. Maybe this systems employs more people because every turn-style needs to be watched by the police.
Exactly the same system is used in the St Petersburg metro (Aug ‘03) and Minsk (Apr ‘03). The interior of the stations are spotless, and made of marble. I can see why before 1991 foreign visitors were shown all these achievements and were lead to believe the Soviet Union was doing well economically.

There are a lot of police/OMON(armed riot police) in the centre of town, and there were a lot of Russian tourists. Visited GUM, saw my first Statue of Lenin. In western Ukraine they were all ripped down. In Kiev, Mr Lenin looks rather ridiculous, directly opposite McDonalds.
There are the usual “McLenin” T-shirts being sold. I’d have bought one but they were a bit overpriced.

There are a lot of fine restaurants in Kiev (if you have the money). Sadly, 95% of the population (including me and Taylor) don’t, and so we had to eat in fast-food places. Mr Snack was my favourite. He does some rather tasty Shashlik (kebab) and you can drink beer there (which isn’t possible at Uncle Ronnies).

Highlights
The Afghan War museum, the Chernobyl museum, the St Sofia Orthodox Cathedral complex, complete with underground tunnels and passageways, the metro, the architecture, the cleanliness of everywhere, the lack of backpackers (sorry but I do get a bit irritated in Prague when you hear loud American/British/German voices talking about they are in Eastern Europe. Pirated CDs and computer games everywhere ($2).

Lowlights
Dangers- I don’t think there are any unusual dangers. The eastern bank of the river seems a bit risky. We went round a park there, absolutely full of drunks (but sometimes Vilnius is like that too). The average price of restaurants. Foreigner pricing.

Mafia bars- On our first night we decided to relax in a normal-looking bar near our hotel. We suspected that something was wrong when security (we’ll call him Viktor) tried to stop us from entering.
Rif-raff like us weren’t allowed in. We were about to be roughly shown the door but suddenly Viktor realized we were English and he had to use his microphone to await instructions from the management.
The reply came back almost immediately “Let them in, idiot, they have money!” We were given an apology for the earlier ‘misunderstanding’ and shown to a table.

Me and Taylor were still a bit nervous, especially when we were handed a menu with no prices inside. We decided on our reliable friend, Lvivskaya. But only imported beers were available, more bad news. We settled on a Mexican Corona each.
This was delivered with a slice of lemon on a silver tray by a waiter in a matching bow-tie and waistcoat. Me and Mark looked at each other and wondered how much this was all going to cost, and what would happen if we didn’t have enough money. I assume Viktor would resolve the situation in an uncomplicated fashion, and we would see how efficient Ukrainian hospitals are.

Then another waiter strode over towards us and grinned. He explained there would be a show for us later. We looked puzzled. The grin became secretive, “Girls” he whispered “Naked”, the grin broadened.
We agreed to check it out later to keep him happy. We discreetly observed our drinking companions. There was nobody short of money, some people were eating and everyone was expensively dressed.
There was a family on the next table playing pool. I don’t think I’ve ever seen people so inept.
I had to stop myself from laughing when the son put the ball on the floor for about the fifth time, and uncle pocketed the white ball 3 times in a row. Laughing would probably get us in serious trouble though.

The bill came. We braced ourselves. The damage was £2 for each beer. Not too bad, but still about 6 times the normal price. We left before the management decided they didn’t like us, and Viktor was sent over to ‘deal with us’.

Back to Main Page