ukraine: glibivka

easter is a national holiday in ukraine...the holiday is sunday, and everyone gets monday off as well...to celebrate easter, ukraine follows the orthodox calendar (for those in the west who are catholic, i don't know how it works, or maybe they celebrate easter according to the catholic calendar, then get another easter a few weeks later?)...most years this means we get a day off a few weeks after 'western' easter...this year, western easter and orthodox easter fell on the same day...i don't know how often that happens, but it probably isn't very often...it was a bit odd for me to see facebook posts of friends about easter and it matched up with 'my' holiday weekend...

i'd made plans a few weeks ago to travel with a couple girlfriends, we bought train tickets...our original plan was to go east, to dnipropetrovsk and zhaporhysia...unfortunately, political events made that travel plan seem like not the best idea...so we cancelled those tickets and figured out another idea...of course, we waited until the last minute to do this, so there weren't many options...
one of the girls found us a room in a cottage in a resort complex along the kyiv reservoir, a bit north of kyiv...there are a bunch of these resort complexes along the reservoir...they all have recreation options, conference facilities, etc...

saturday morning i was running late to meet the girls, i felt horrible about it...they'd booked a taxi for a specific time...the taxi took us to a complex about an hour from the city centre, near a town called glibivka...the town isn't known for anything, it's just a town...there are a bunch of these resort complexes in the area, all along the water...they offer  bike rental, horseback riding, sauna, massage, table tennis, etc...we checked in, and immediately scheduled massages and sauna time...
the weather was crap, so we sat on our porch, drank tea, and had snacks until it was time for our massages...

the massages were short, but felt sooooo good...the experience was not what i expected, but i would still do it again...when i walked into the room the massage therapist told me to get ready, and hop on the table...he worked on my back the whole time, it felt sooooo good...:) the girls each had their turn after i finished...
after massages we picked up the key to the sauna...we had our own private sauna for two hours, how awesome is that?!?! we tried to stay in the sauna for 15 minutes each time, then cool down out in the sitting room for a bit after each 'session'...i didn't bring enough water, i was a bit worried about getting really dehydrated...i love sauanas...after the sauna, i felt like a queen...

we had dinner in the restaurant of the complex...nothing noteworthy, nothing awful...the only bit of note was that the service was rather slow...all of us were tired after dinner, we all crashed early...
the next morning we'd planned to go to an easter service at a nearby church...we thought a service started at 0645 or so, the complex said they would transport us...it turned out we got the time wrong, we missed it by an hour...which means we woke up at 0600 on a holiday weekend for no good reason!!
instead of going back to sleep we made tea and took it to benches near the water to enjoy...the sun was showing itself beautifully behind clouds, everything was lovely...

eventually we decided it was time for breakfast...since it was a holiday weekend, and this was the holiday, this breakfast was included in the price of our room...easter breakfast...it ended up being quite a bit of food...i definitely ate more than i should've...
after breakfast we had another cup of tea out by the water, then figured out where to go to rent bikes...
after adjusting for size and adding air to my tires, we took off down the road...i think it was about 3 kilometers to the town of glibivka...nothing remarkable about this town, but susannah and i love seeing a 'normal' town...maryna must've thought we were crazy each time we got off our bikes to take pictures...

we saw an unfinished church, a giant wood pile, revolution street, chickens, tulips, wells, etc...as we rode over a bridge we saw lots of men fishing...
2 hours later, we rode back to the complex and turned in our bikes...another cup of tea out by the water to relax...then we went for a walk in the woods across the highway from our complex...maryna told us the woods are really really old...you can see plenty of places where trees have been cut down to be used for someone's dacha, but most of what we saw had been there for a loooong time...you can almost feel the history, it's awesome...i wish we'd had more time...

we loved the atmosphere...at times it was totally silent, at times we could hear various birds...awesomeness...
after we came back to the complex we decided to use the sauna again...this day was warmer, so susannah and i had a much more challenging 2 hours...we did 15 minute 'sessions' again, but it was much more difficult to cool down in between...we ended up turning down the temperature of the sauna, and even then it was really hard to stay in the sauna the entire 15 minutes each time...i think we figured out that we did 6 15-minute sessions...my face was sooooo red!

dinner was again at the restaurant, and again nothing remarkable...
the next morning we showed up for breakfast thinking it was included in our price again...unfortunately, it wasn't...oh well...
after breakfast we had another cup of tea and enjoyed some of our last moments of vacation...we had an extra hour, so after packing up our stuff, we went for one last walk in the woods...
after our walk a taxi took us back to kyiv...

ukraine: vinnytsia

i booked train tickets to vinnytsia because i'd never been there...after i booked the tickets, i learned the frontrunning candidate for the ukrainian presidency came from vinnytsia...the train ride was about three hours, so i started my trip early on a saturday morning...
i walked all day, as i usually do when i travel...my first 'sight' was a big market full of clothes stalls, there was a small produce section as well...as i got to the market some of the vendors weren't there yet, and others were just starting to set up, so the atmosphere was a little different...it was a chilly morning, so nearly all the vendors had coffee or tea with them in thermoses...

while walking down the main street of vinnytsia i entered a MEAT market...it wasn't huge, but it was intense...two ends of the room, each had a ring of counters around an 'island'...next to each island were men with really strong arms who were doing all the cutting...they had what looked like small axes to make the cuts into each animal...i know that's how butchers work, but i'd never before seen anything like it...i even saw them split a couple skulls! the counters were covered with all kinds of meat, you can probably get any kind of cut you want...

i crossed a bridge over a river, i could see fishermen out for the day...i wonder how long they fish, and what time they start? near the river was a rocketship looking church...
walking further i found the water tower on one side of memorial park...it's a unique looking water tower, not at all like what we have all over the midwest in the states...across the sidewalk from the water tower was a mosaic with a soviet theme...a soviet flag, musical instruments, lots of red and yellow, a few people in 'patriotic' professions, etc...i wonder how long it has been there, im sure it was put there in the 50s or 60s...

as i've mentioned before, it seems that every city/town/village in ukraine has a memorial for WWII...most are quite large...along the other side of the part was a memorial with all the names of people from vinnytsia who fought and died...there was also a large statue of three men, and a 'sign' with the years of the war listed, and the name of the park/memorial...
back on the street i walked past the old central synagogue...(ukraine used to have a large jewish population, most of which 'disappeared' between 1937 and 1945...hitler wasn't the only evil leader)...i don't know if this synagogue is still used or not, but i found it fascinating that the sign was in ukrainian and hebrew...

walking along, i came to the 'maidan' of vinnytsia, complete with the yellow and blue painted piano...
continuing my walk, i explored a bit of the big park...i liked the areas with birdhouses perched on top of poles...very colourful, i liked the feeling of cheeriness...
from there it was a LONG walk to my next sight...much longer than i expected, made even worse when the numbers on each side of the street don't match up...the name of the street was pyrohova (a name which likely only means something to ukrainians or those in the medical community)...finally i got to the pirohova estate and museum...he was a soviet scientist in the 1800s, who lived at least 20 years in vinnytsia...he pioneered the use of anesthetic if i understand correctly...he was also a pioneer in other aspects of medicine and science, but i can't remember any specifics of what the guide told me...ooops...(i really should've written it down)

i giggled to myself when one tour guide assumed i had a basic idea of who the guy was...sorry, the history we learn in the US growing up does not cover accomplishments by soviet folks...the estate had several buildings visitors could enter, including the pharmacy, but it wasn't easy to figure out what was what...i'm pretty sure i didn't see everything i should've, oh well...
from the estate it was another 1.2km walk to a church...the church isn't anything unique or impressive, it's visited for another reason...in the mausoleum under the church, the embalmed body of pirohovo is displayed...(so i've now seem lenin, ho chi minh, kim il-sung, and pyrohovo)...

the tour guide told me he is re-embalmed every 7 years or so, (is it the same person who does this, or is it a different person every time?) he looks a lot better than lenin, who was embalmed quite a few years later...pyrohovo's body has been embalmed for more than 130 years! it was his second wife who decided to have this done...not surprisingly, there are no photos allowed in this area...
from there i walked ALL THE WAY BACK to the train station, and from there to my hotel...the hotel wasn't very homey (no tv, no wifi) but it was cheap, and it was nice to have total silence...
the next morning i walked back into town a bit, and wandered through a couple neighborhoods i hadn't seen the day before...
a lot of towns in ukraine still use well water, i saw several old folks getting water from wells as i walked along...this struck me as 'quaint' since it doesn't really work that way anymore in the states, even for families who are dependent on wells...

i saw a beautiful old church, and walked along one branch of the river...i saw a couple other big churches, and saw the old walls of a monastery...this day was more about soaking up the feeling of the town and wandering around rather than looking for specific sights...since i'm clearly a foreigner, and not afraid of wandering through non touristy areas (not that there are a huge number of touristy areas anywhere in ukraine) i am used to being stared at by locals...as long as it isn't by a creepy guy, i don't much care :)
eventually i went back to the train station and went back to kyiv...

 i wouldn't mind going back to vinnytsia during warmer months, as there is a huge fountain in one bend of the river, it apparently puts on quite a show!