Author: Caleb

First off, the promised night shots of Kyiv following our adventure in Chernobyl earlier in the day:

After, I headed back to the hostel to get a good night’s sleep before our final day in Kyiv. In the morning we woke early and got onto the metro toward the southern end of the city to see the WWII memorial park and the Motherland Statue. We got off at the same metro station as for the Lavra and began walked down that same street.

On our guide map there is a silhouette of something that looks like the Statue of Liberty and so we were all confused until we saw this:

Then we walked to another metro station to see the Babi Yar Holocaust Memorial. We saw these along the way:

We made it to the metro and traveled to the north part to get off at Babi Yar. At our exit point metro station I finally had an experience where the language barrier really made a difference and I felt totally helpless.

The metro exited to an underground market area, like it seems to do here and we decided to walk into the store to load up on some food. I brought up the rear and was a bit behind everyone, enough for there to be a gap to allow other people to cross in between us. I turned a corner around a pillar and noticed a young woman being directed by two older men. I didn’t think of it as anything at first so I lowered my gaze, and both them and I turned to avoid each other. As I lowered my head I saw her cane and realized she was blind and then noticed that each of the men were clasping her arms tightly, one man on each side. Immediately, I looked back up and saw fear in her face. I quickly glanced at the two men’s faces as we finally passed each other and noticed subtle paranoid look in their faces. I thought, “Ask her if she needs help,” and then realized I couldn’t, as I didn’t speak Ukrainian, and I didn’t even know how to say it in Russian.” So I just stood there. And did nothing. Then I followed my friends and asked them about it, but as it was purely my intuition that interpreted the encounter, I had no proof they just let it go. Although, it still bothered me it was at this point too late to do anything. So I spent the rest of my day bothered, and embarrassed of my inaction, trying to justify what happened with “intuition is flawed.” I guess this is how people get away with stuff in front of crowds of people.

But we made it to the Holocaust memorial. I didn’t know about 30,000 Jews were killed here in WWII and buried in mass graves, underneath where this monument stands.

Then we made our way over to a cemetery across the street, unrelated to the Holocaust. A pleasant surprise walked toward us on the way.

After this we headed back to the hostel to grab our stuff, eat a quick dinner, and board our train home.

We boarded the train and as usual, I didn’t get as much sleep as I would have preferred. But we made it back and that’s what counts.

Yes, that says Chernobyl. The Chernobyl where the nuclear disaster of April 26th 1986 occurred. Actually, the power plant is located closer to the, then larger, town of Prypiat, now abandoned. At almost an hour and a half after midnight on the 26th, reactor #4 exploded. More explosions and fires sent radioactive fallout into the atmosphere and across a large geographical area: western Soviet Union, Europe, and acid rain in Ireland. According to Yuri, our guide, the radioactive cloud traveled around the earth at least twice. This disaster released four hundred times more fallout than the bomb at Hiroshima. Unfortunately, 60% of the radioactive fallout landed in Belarus. Russia, Ukraine, and Belarus are now responsible with continuing the substantial decontamination of the Chernobyl accident, as well as for health care costs.

If you wish to know more, check out the wikipedia article: chernobyl disaster, the intro of which I somewhat paraphrased. Although, our guide Yuri, says that there is no official record and story of what actually occurred that early morning in April and that we will not find the truth out for at least another 40 years. So read with a grain of salt, even though it is Wikipedia (the library of the truest truths, about most stuff).

It’s true that our group’s only motivation for going to Kyiv was to visit Chernobyl. Falling in love with Kyiv was a lucky plus. Anyway, the morning of, we woke early to meet our bus/van driver in front of Kreshatik Hotel. Just before he arrived, the rest of the tourists arrived as well: 7 more. Then we left.

Yuri isn’t really a tourguide. He studied history and joined the agency above, with the long name, to help decontaminate and study the exclusion area. He has a very long important title which I forgot. He’s head administrator of something. About 4000 people work inside the exclusion zone studying the plants and wildlife, the soil, the air, you name it. The radiation levels are constantly measured and there is continuous work dealing with the reactor area and other hazardous materials. Workers live in hostels in Chernobyl and may only stay inside the exclusion zone 14-16 days at a time. Then they must spend an equal amount of time outside the zone. Yuri likes it because he leads 2 lives, one with his family where he is full-time father, and when he needs his alone time he comes here for 2 weeks. I was amazed at how much work is being done to clean up.

After we got a mini history of the Chernobyl disaster, the radiation levels, what is being done to clean it up, etc… we set off on our tour.

And this is wear playing video games proves to be educational, and safe:

Anyone recognize this scene? If you have played Call of Duty: Modern Warfare you should recognize this. As the player, you snipe the Serbian Prime Minister from a high up floor in that hotel. The minister is holding out in a building to the right of this photo. Got to hand it to Infinity Ward to recreate this town in their game to very small details, according to a Chris who has played the scene before. So if you’ve played that game, you’ve already seen Prypiat. Without any radiation, or at least less than me.

And the famous photo spot:

Then we went some 100m to explore the school. We were given 20 minutes to go wherever we wanted. Naturally, we tried to go as deep into the school as we could.

Next we left to see a little of Chernobyl and the boatyard.

This boatyard reminds me of a few scenes in Half-Life 2. On another note, Yuri says 99% of the fish are safe to eat, after we saw a couple fisherman going down to the shore. There are a few hundred people who refused to leave the exclusion zone since the disaster and have been living here since. Back to the fish: Yuri justifies this saying the radiation molecules are heavy and attached to heavy matter and so have sunk to the bottom of the river and are lodged in the sediment. So as long as we don’t catch catfish we should be fine. We didn’t press our luck.

Then we said goodbye to Yuri and got into the van to return to Kyiv.

Once in Kyiv, we spent a little time at the hostel and then got some inexpensive but delicious pizzas for a late dinner. Afterward, everyone went back to the hostel except me, because I wanted to try out the long shutter option on my camera and get some night shots. But I’m super tired right now so I’ll include them in our last day of Kyiv post, and not here.

Unfortunately, I didn’t do the Chernobyl topic justice with this post. I tried but I don’t think anything can replace the experience of being there and witnessing it. Most of these photos are on the web in some other place and form as Chernobyl is open to tourism now and it’s becoming quite popular. However, I think the main point of these tours is not to let people like me play explorer or experience a post-apocalypse world for fun, but to educate the public about what really is going on in Chernobyl. There are no two-headed fish, no weird mutant animals; there are several thousand people trying to decontaminate the area while at the same time learn as much about the radiation effects and anything else so that there would never be an intended reason to ever repeat this accident.

Unfortunately, we got a late start (around noon) because we were all out cold for the whole night and morning. But at least we felt well rested for the long day. The weather was a bit eerie with fog steadily dropping as the day progressed.

Once inside, we decided to visit the museum before entering the main cathedral. There was also a bakery and a living quarters building.

Then we entered the cathedral.

After rejoining the rest of the group they wanted to grab something to eat. Clearly, they did not visit the grocery store the previous night to buy breakfast for each morning. Muesli with yogurt and a double-decker egg & cheese sandwich (3 slices bread 2 eggs) is my daily breakfast of choice while here. Plus the banana for consumption approximately 2.5-3 hours after breakfast, and then the poppyseed bun or blackberry roll (as was the case today) for consumption approximately 2 hours after the banana. We cannot forget the small sips of water…

Anyway, going inside Мистер Снек (phonetically Mister Snack) was rewarding in itself as I saw this:

I grabbed a small sandwich and postponed my banana consumption for later, namely because the sandwich was called “Smiley” sandwich and the Smiley emoticon is some favorite symbol of Kyiv. It was mentioned a lot and we saw it on the walls of different places.

Afterward we split up and the group I was in went to the Golden Gate, which was very similar to the one in Vladimir, but it lacked a corny diorama. But the interesting history made up for it.

We learned that it was built to be the main ceremonial entrance to Kyiv in 1037, during Grand Prince Yaroslav’s rule. It also served as a fortification tower. In the 18th century, to preserve the gate from further dilapidation, it was completely covered with earth. In the 19th century it was uncovered and strengthened to preserve it as a monument.

Then we walked down what was supposedly a street that had been preserved in 19th century architecture and left alone by Soviet rule.

This was probably the most interesting thing we saw. So we cut the walk short and headed back to the metro.

The Ukrainians are really friendly. While we were double checking our map on the street level of the station a random man walked up to us and asked if we needed any help. He then gave us excellent directions to the Lavra.

In 1051 Reverend Anthony settled in this area and dug himself a cave. Foods and liquids were brought to him and he resided inside the cave for 40 years. As more people visited him he wanted more seclusion and dug himself another set of caves on the adjacent hill. Eventually, these caves grew into tunnels and served as a burial spot for priests and other religious persons for over 700 years, with Anthony being buried there first. We were allowed to go inside and see their tombs.

We descended with candles in hand, the only light inside the tunnels. The bodies were horizontal and in glass cases with clothes on and their heads covered with a cloth. Some hands were exposed and they were totally black with what could have been skin still on the skeleton. The tourist part was rather short so I suggested we venture back and walk through the “for prayers” only section. It was indeed much longer and after a while I realized it was all basically the same deal. Except in this section, people would cross themselves and bend over to kiss the cases, yuck. Apparently, some priest guided Natalie back to the main entrance saying she wasn’t allowed in the prayer section, but then Chris met up with her and together they walked back through to the exit. No one bugged me though. We sort of split up in the small maze of tunnels. I let my imagination roam free and for a few moments I had some fun walking down an empty black corridor with my candle flickering, threatening to die. But there were too many people for any real fun to be had; I wasn’t able to lose my sense of direction and engender a claustrophobic or lost feeling—not that I would want to be shoved into a pitch black box and sent on a train across Sibera or anything like that.

We then decided to walk to the upper parts of the Lavra and see how large this place was.

Anyway, the rest of the doors on the main cathedral led to one room exhibitions. We decided to enter one. It seemed to be a memorial of the priests and displayed their pictures and garments.

Tired, and all museumed out for the day, we headed back towards the main part of town.

The dinner was good and cheap. It was about half the price as the equivalent cafeteria style restaurant in Moscow. The name of the restaurant here in Kyiv is pronounced “Puhzzahta Hahta.” In Moscow, the equivalent is called Mu-Mu.

Feeling very full we walked back to the hostel to get a good night’s sleep for our exciting journey arranged for the morning.