ukraine: lutsk

susannah, marina and i got up early saturday morning so we could catch a 5.5 hour marshrutka ride to lutsk...lutsk is in the volhyn region of ukraine, in the northwest area of the country...i ate breakfast, and had some food while on the ride, but i still ended up pretty carsick, and felt awful when we got there...fortunately, susannah had a sandwich for me, and i felt better as soon as i ate...
marina had arranged the flat in which we were staying, so she called up the lady and arranged for us to meet...the lady took us to the flat, showed us around, told us where to find a supermarket...we got ourselves arranged and settled in...

we realized one of the things we wanted to see would be closed the next two days, so we tried to hurry into the historical center of town to see it before it closed...unfortunately, we weren't able to see the tunnels for two reasons...one, they are temporarily closed for renovation of some kind...and two, even if the tunnels had been open, we didn't arrive until just after closing time...oh well...
the tunnels are located right next to a huge cathedral, (called st peter and paul) which was neat to step into...plus, it was hot outside so stepping into the cool church felt good...

there is polish history in this church, so some of the signs were in polish, others were in ukrainian...(this is typical of a lot of towns and sights in the west of ukraine)
just across the street from this cathedral is the city castle...we explored as much as we could, of course...the castle walls are still standing (and have been rebuilt) but the middle area is almost completely open...there used to be a church in the middle of it, but it seems as though the church has sortof been buried, as the ground floor layer was raised...regardless of the reasons, the church entry was closed, we weren't able to peak in at all...booo...

we walked all the way around, even going into the bell museum...some of the bells were small, but there were a few bigger bells as well...not surprisingly, we weren't allowed to ring the bells...(can you imagine how much employees would hate life if visitors were allowed to ring the bells?)...
after the castle, we found a map on the street, showing different sights in the area...we followed the streets to something called st brigits monastery...according to the sign telling the history (in ukrainian and english, yahoo!) of the monastery, it has also been a convent, and a prison, and more...

it was the sight of a massacre by the nazis during WWII...it was tragic to think of how many people lost their lives there...
our next sight had us walking a little more, another church...st dominican, i think...we bumbled into a service, ooops...marina and i didn't feel comfortable staying for long during the service, but susannah was a happy camper...i'm always nervous about intruding in a church service, i don't want to disturb anyone's worship time...i did have my headscarf, so at least i was dressed appropriately...

we had dinner at a place that had rave reviews in both lonely planet and on trip advisor...a place called vitovt, right next to the castle...unfortunately, none of us thought our meals particularly amazing...oh well...maybe i wasn't thrilled because i ordered carp, which is apparently not very tasty...
walking back toward the flat, we realized we were out during sunset...we got to watch a beautiful sunset from the bridge going over the tracks at the train station...the sky was a beautiful range of pinks and reds...
on the way home from dinner, we stopped at tam tam, the huge supermarket our landlady had told us about...it was HUGE...we bought breakfast and snacks for the next day, water too...we bought too much, oh well...
this was when the fun started...we couldn't find the flat!!! eeek...it was dark, but that wouldn't normally be a big problem...we weren't able to find the correct entrance to the correctly numbered building...it is not a good feeling to not know where you are when it's dark outside...we (marina) asked a couple people who seemed to live in the buildings, but none of them knew the answer to her question...
i should point out that these apartment buildings are big, and all look the same...it's really easy to get lost and/or confused...we'd only gone in once and out once so we didn't really know...
we ended up calling the lady, who told us where to go...not surprisingly, we were really close, hee hee...due to the late arrival home, we didn't go to sleep until after midnight!
the next day we went to klevan for most of the day...
after returning from klevan, we walked back into the historical center of the city...

on the way, we saw a man selling honey, i tried three different types...i didn't taste a huge different between the three, but i did buy one of them...i'd like to think it was organic :)
there is a giant church in this area of town, and since it was a holiday weekend, there was a holiday service...(the holiday is trinity, which is religious)...there were flowers laid out on the ground in front of the church, absolutely lovely...lots of people going to church, most were dressed in their sunday best...absolutely amazing people watching time!

we had dinner at a cafe on a pedestrian street near this church...normal ukrainian food, we were all happy...this cafe listed calories on its menu, the first time i've seen that in ukraine!
on the way back to our flat, we explored more of a memorial park we'd seen the day before...there were several graves, several memorials (including the huge WWII memorial, which we expected) and the grave of someone who had died during the craziness of Maidan, in February...that particular grave was covered in flowers, both real and fake...very colourful, and tragic...

the next morning we all woke up late, and were not ready to go when the landlady showed up to take the keys from us...to be fair, she did come early, but we should've been ready...
we dropped our bags at the train station, then walked into the city center again...(by this point, we knew the quickest way to go, since we'd done this several times)...we walked further into the historical area, finding a couple more churches, one of which was evangelical baptist...susannah and i tried to explain to marina what that meant...(the normal options in ukraine are orthodox or catholic)...

we found a place called the sculptor's house...we thought it would be a museum, but it was a private house, inhabited by a sculptor...he had created sculptures all over the house, and it's outer edge...very unique looking, though not my style :)
we also saw the old synagogue, as lutsk used to have one of the largest jewish populations in europe...the synagogue building was a combination synagogue and fortress when it was built, so it still retains aspects of each...there is no longer a congregation in lutsk, so the building is now home of FC Dynamo, a football club...boooo...

from there we walked toward a big park...a BIG park...on the way, we picked up sandwiches at a small shop, with the idea of having a picnic...
the park was full of people, we kept laughing at the fashion, or photos being taken...one one side of the park was a river in which people were swimming...it didn't look great, to say the least, but it wasn't awful either...we ended up eating our sandwiches while sitting on a bench in the shade...we also used our umbrellas to block the sun...i don't think i've ever done anything like that before, but i could feel my shoulders getting tender from the sun i'd had earlier in the weekend...

after the park we walked down a street we hadn't yet seen...not much there, but we did find a plaque on a building which said a massacre had taken place there during WWII...sad...on this street was a strudel cafe, another branch of the chain i've seen in lviv and kyiv...YUM :)...i convinced susannah and marina (it didn't take much)
when we got to the train station that evening there were more mozzies waiting for us, argh...the mozzies were the only thing any of us didn't like about the city of lutsk...(or the entire region, for that matter)...the train to kyiv got us back to the city in the very early morning :)