chernihiv (чернигив)

Our second trip outside Kyiv! Cloe and I had originally thought we’d be going to Chernihiv in mid October, but those plans changed, and we ended up doing the trip in early November. Travel plans are always changing, neither one of us really cared. We were just excited to see another place in Ukraine.  This trip was with our friend Violetta.  We used to work with Violetta, but the school didn’t treat her well at all, and still expected her to give everything, so she quit.  We miss having her at school.  Anywho, she found out the information we needed on transportation, cloe and I were in charge of figuring out what to see when we were in the city. 

Our day started with an early wakeup, too early we thought.  Who wants to wake up at 0600 on a Sunday morning? Not us.  But that’s when we had to wake up in order to leave the flat by 0700, in order to meet Violetta at the subway station at 0800.  We basically rode the subway across the entire city to get to Violetta.  She found the correct marshutka (which is basically a minibus) to get us to Chernihiv, and we climbed aboard.  There is no set schedule of departure times, the marshrutka leaves when it is full.  Fortunately, we didn’t have to wait long.  Only about 30 minutes.  The ride was easy, only 2 hours, and quite smooth.

The marshrutka dropped us off in what appeared to be the center of the city.  Lonely planet doesn’t have a city map for it’s entry on Chernihiv, so I’d printed something from google maps.  The first thing we did was duck into a cafeteria so cloe could get some coffee.  While there we figured out where we were on the map, and cloe asked someone how to get to the place we wanted to start our walking tour.  It turned out not to be far away. 

It is called red square…before arriving, I’m not sure exactly what we expected, but I guess I thought there would be something more defined…something more majestic…instead, it was just a wide open huge traffic circle…I can see how it would be used as a gathering place for citizens of the town, especially when those sorts of gatherings happened regularly during soviet days…but it was boring…I’m not sure where the name came from, as we didn’t see any red…perhaps from the way the colour is associated with communism? I don’t know…cloe and I had fun running through the pigeons, and making them all take flight…one local lady told us something, though I’m not sure what…it seemed as though we weren’t supposed to be running around? Hmmm…

We kept walking, into the middle sidewalk of a park…I think violetta mentioned the walk of heroes, something like that? There were statues (busts) of various soviet/Ukrainian heroes along each side of where we were walking…needless to say, I didn’t know any of them…neither did cloe…in the middle of these was a memorial to Chernobyl, which had (and continues to have) a big impact on this country…after then end of this park, we crossed the street and were able to see our first church in the city…it was white, and orthodox…we peeked inside, a service was going on; so we didn’t stay long…plus, I didn’t have a scarf with which to cover my head, so I felt a bit uncomfortable…by now, I should know to bring a scarf everywhere I go…I ought to just keep a scarf in my purse, just in cases…that way I’d have it handy, in case I want to explore a church anywhere in this country…they don’t seem to be as particular about making women wear skirts…the local women all wear skirts, but it isn’t such a big deal if tourists are not doing so…I don’t know how anyone wears a skirt in this weather!

From there we could see several other churches, and since lonely planet hadn’t given us a map, we figured we would check out one of them, then try to figure out the rest of the walking tour lonely planet suggested…that first church wasn’t anything I hadn’t seen before, but I still enjoy looking around…I think a service had just finished, as there were quite a few people coming out of the church…from there we opted to follow the street signs directing us toward a monastery and caves…both were mentioned in the guidebook, the caves in particular being a place we really wanted to see…

We got to the caves, these are somewhat like the caves I saw with cousin bryn in Kyiv…in that, they’re not really caves…merely tunnels hewn out of the rock under the church, and off those tunnels were little rooms in which monks meditated and were sometimes buried…since the weather conditions in chernihiv are different from Kyiv (it’s generally drier and warmer in Kyiv) so there were no mummies in chernihiv…the caves in chernihiv are different in that tourists/pilgrims are able to explore the entire area, not just 2 main hallways…

We came out of the caves/tunnels/whateva you want to call them, and headed to another church on a hill…I think it was part of the same complex, but I’m not entirely sure…this church had a bell tower, which you could climb for the whopping fee of 25cents…before climbing the tower, we went in the church, and got to watch most of a traditional Ukrainian wedding…the bride looked to be a few months along, I don’t think that’s very traditional…the bridesmaid was wearing a very short dress…for at least 10 minutes of the ceremony, the bridesmaid and groomsman held crowns over the heads of the bride and groom…that had to hurt after a few minutes! As we were leaving the church, we saw another wedding party waiting in the back…I wonder how many people get married there each weekend?

Climbing the bell tower was fun…and very very windy…we were able to see quite a ways, and take a few photos…on the way back down we noticed some of the priests (they looked young) ringing the bells…cloe wanted to take a photo, but we missed that opportunity…argh…

After asking a few people which direction we needed to go (and getting different answers from each of them) we hopped on a tram back to the center of town…I was keen to walk, violetta wanted to ride, and I don’t think cloe cared one way or the other…it wasn’t a long ride, and in searching for a particular restaurant for lunch we ended up walking quite a bit anywho…oh well…the restaurant seemed to be more about dessert, so we had that, and tea, then went out walking again…the dessert was a slice of apple tort, and a slice of pear torte…yum! The walking included more churches, another park, and 12 cannons…each cannon was different, I’m presuming they were used in different time periods?

After seeing all that, we’d seen everything there is to see in chernihiv…so we walked back to the center of town, looking for real food…and we found it…after a cheap, quick meal from a cafeteria, we found the spot to catch the bus back to Kyiv…it left around 1700, we arrived back around 1900, and cloe and I were home an hour later…a great day trip