To quote the title of a level from Cannon Fodder, "Bugger Me It's Cold". In little more than a week or so, the temperature has dropped from quite a bit above zero to -13. This dramatic fall is something that I'm just not used to in the UK, and even though I was in Kyiv last winter, it NEVER felt as bad as this. My fingers seem to be going numb after just 5-10 minutes outside, even WITH gloves on. It's inexplicable. Why I never got numb fingers last winter, when it was supposedly colder, I'll never know, but it's almost unbearable now.

Anyway, let's not complain too much about all this bad weather. I have pictures to show you from the past three weeks. Not too many, mind, but I've not been too keen to leave the flat in the last week given the sudden drop in temperature.

We begin with a somewhat childish photograph: yes, someone has indeed drawn a toilet on this bench in a building. Kids today.







Er, this little statue is in the north of the city, near Artema Road. The sign reads "Loshadka", which appears to mean "horse". What that has to do with a hedgehog, I don't know.









Here is the thing that gives the Metro station 'Teatralna' its name: the Theatre. Very grand.







This guy was Ukraine's first proper president, before the Soviets came along.










Ah, beautiful Kyiv... yes, there are a lot of cars here, at Ploscha Peremohy.







This photo was taken on 10th December, just to show the first snow that arrived. It's been falling sporadically since.







In other news, I went shopping in a relatively-new shopping centre in Obolon, with the catchy name of Dream Town. It certainly lives up to its moniker. There are several themed places in the centre: this one is Hollywood. Apologies for the bad focus, but see if you can spot everyone. King Kong is obvious, but Spiderman and Batman are there, too.







Below is an equally interesting spectacle. Old American-style cars, very nice.







And a piano! Notice the man with an old hand-cranked camera on the left.







Elsewhere we have some bizarre stuff. Next to a Western saloon, there's a Crazy Golf course.







This is a fake waterfall in the jungle section.











There's also an Oriental section.








This is the wonderful ice rink, for those who fancy a bit of skating. There's a rollerskating area, too, if you prefer.







For no reason, there's a model of the world here, with some crazy signifiers of different countries. Big Ben can be seen on the UK towards the left. All in all, it's a wonderful shopping centre, well worth a visit. Kyiv's certainly improving its shopping experience with places like this, out of the centre of town.




Here's another example of bonkers advertising inside Metro stations: all the walls are covered with ads for one of those bio-yoghurt-type things. So, they thought it'd be fun to put a load of balloons on the ceiling to demonstrate the point.





And a photo from a few days ago to illustrate the inclement weather.







That's yer lot for now. Maybe you'll see another update around Christmas. Or, maybe not. It's not long to go now.

Election Special!

On 17th January, Ukrainians will elect a new president. I say "new" because although the incumbent, Victor Yuschenko, is legally allowed to run for office again, he's so deeply unpopular that he clearly has no chance of victory. Will a new president solve the country's many problems, and do the people of the country really think that anything will change with a new leader in charge? Probably not. Still, I find it lots of fun, so I thought I'd educate you guys on the front-runners, so you'll know what's going on when international news outlets inevitably cover it come January.

Viktor Yanukovych - The front-runner. The big man. Two-time former Prime Minister, and (this is important, I think) lost the 2004 presidential election because he cheated, and massive protests (the Orange Revolution) resulted in a re-run, which Yuschenko won. Yes, that's right: Ukraine's the kind of country where a president who was proven to cheat his way to an election victory is now the front-runner to be president. He's very much pro-Russia, pro-East Ukraine, and thus he's very unpopular elsewhere, including Kyiv. His ads are everywhere here, but I doubt he'll get many votes in the capital.

Here you can see his rather plain ad campaign: "Ukraine For The People". Not particularly inspiring, but at least it has his face. So you have something to throw tomatoes at.






Yulia Tymoshenko - The challenger. The iron lady. Current Prime Minister (which gives her something of an advantage in campaigning). She paints herself as a woman of the people: very popular in the West, as well as pro-EU and pro-NATO, as the current regime is. She and Yanukovych seem such perfect opponents: East v West, EU v Russia... er, Man v Woman.

Her campaign has been rather interesting. It began with different phrases such as "They Betray - SHE WORKS". I guess there was no doubt who 'she' was, in a campaign with just one woman. Then, they changed tack: now, the catchphrase was "SHE WORKS - 'SHE' IS UKRAINE!" - which works in Ukrainian because they have grammatical gender which English doesn't, so both Yulia and Ukraine are 'she'. Smart.

In this photo, the phrase has changed from "SHE WORKS" to "SHE WINS". A bold statement. Oh, wait: 'she' is Ukraine. Of course. Not Yulia.






Serhiy Tihipko - The upstart. The strong man. Former Governor of the National Bank of Ukraine, and a bit of a banker in general. Not a huge amount of experience in politics, but he's gaining huge support at the moment, as Ukrainians become disillusioned with Ukrainian politicians: Tihipko seems like a breath of fresh air. One of his early slogans was "Strong President, Strong Country". He emphasised his 'strong' credentials by appearing on the front cover of Men's Health magazine. I'm not making this up.

His campaign has been a little cryptic. He's not been slagging off opponents, but not really been making his agenda clear. This ad says, "28th October: Ukraine's Day of Liberation and Unity, 1944-2009". Um, okay. I'm not aware of anything significant on that day, but anyway...




Arseniy Yatsenyuk - The new moderate. The young pretender. Former Minister of Foreign Affairs, and also served under Serhiy Tihipko in the National Bank. He's 35, the minimum age for presidential candidates, and he's certainly brought out the big guns for his campaign.

He's had by far the most striking and radical ad campaign (he even uses his first name on ads, without his surname). There's a real style to his ads. This one says, "Save The Country: New Industrialisation". It's one of a range of different ads with the 'Save The Country' theme. He's got a wonderful new one, actually: "Save The Country From The Corruption Virus: YU1YA1" - a play on the H1N1 virus attacking Ukraine, but 'Yu' makes people think of Yuschenko and Yulia, and 'Ya' reminds you of Yanukovych. Very smart.

Interestingly, he also has a load of little tents dotted around major cities, with people handing out 'newspapers' (propaganda leaflets).







Viktor Yuschenko - The boss. The dying swan. Former Prime Minister and, of course, current President. Given that Yuschenko was poisoned by forces unknown (resulting in a permanently disfigured face), and successfully led the country to rise up and put him in power, you can't help but feel a teeny bit sorry for this guy, as his people have completely turned on him. Perhaps their incredible belief in him has been let down, and they feel disappointed. Whatever it is, he's not going to win, but he's still running anyway. Two of his election pledges are visa-free travel with the EU, and kicking Russia's Black Sea fleet out of Crimea, so that should indicate to you his feelings on the EU and Russia (who, incidentally, he wants to have a more physical border with).

The poor sod's ad campaign is so insecure, they won't even put his face on it. Instead, they get a bunch of other guys to come on and say "I'm For Yuschenko!". Like this bird. (Actually, since taking this picture, he's started a round of ads with his face on, so it's not quite true.)




Volodymyr Lytvyn - The outsider. The mystery man. Lytvyn's campaign started very late compared to the others, but his ads and Arseniy-style tents are now popping up around Kyiv. He's a little mysterious, I don't really know that much about him. All I know is he likes football and looks like Terence Stamp.

His ads are pretty basic.








And he's nicked the tent idea from Arseniy. I wouldn't worry too much about him.







So, there's your round up of the major candidates, but the only two to really consider (given the latest polls) are Yanukovych and Tymoshenko. The elections have a two-round system: anyone with money can register as a candidate, but the two that get the most votes in the first round contest a run-off. According to polls, the YU1YA1 combo are easily going to the run-off, but it's super tight in the run-off polls, with Yanukovych having a slight lead at the moment. Of course, it's too tight to call for him just yet, so I'm looking forward to the new year to see who'll get it. I hope you are too, now.

Just want to mention first that, concerned about privacy and the like, I've decided to go back through the entire blog and remove any names of people I know (except Pete, as he comments on every post so it'd be pointless). I don't want to mention the names of anybody on the blog, as I prefer to keep things as anonymous as possible. That includes taking pictures of people, too - though anyone who's seen my pics from holidays with my girlfriend will notice this already. If you know me, you'll know who I'm referring to anyway. If you don't... well, none of your business. I hope nobody minds this 'censorship' of my early blog posts, before I got some good sense.

Anyway, enough of the guff. I've FINALLY got through all the crap that I've been building up, now it's time to tell you what's really been happening since August.

I got back to Ukraine on Sunday 23rd August, and finally met up again with my girlfriend after two months apart. It was a happy occasion, of course. It was also Flag Day in Ukraine, and the following day was Independence Day, celebrating 18 years of independence from the Soviet Union. Obviously, there was gonna be a bit of a party.

So we went down to Maidan Nezalezhnosti to see what was happening. Before we got there, I saw this statue, which I'd not seen before. So I took a picture. It's Mykhailo Drahomanov, a well-known public figure in Kyiv. Look him up.








This was the scene at Maidan (without my girlfriend).








"Ukraine, 18 Years of Independence: Our Victory". I think there were tanks and things for kids to climb on and take pictures, so it was a busy day.






So, I rested in the flat, waiting to see what would happen with teaching and that. My girlfriend has a tortoise. Here he is. We haven't seen him (or her, nobody's sure) for a while. Hopefully he's not crawled away to die somewhere.





On one of my journeys around Kyiv trying to get interest in teaching, I stumbled across something that I should've seen before.










It's a monument to the Holodomor (the famine which killed millions in Ukraine in the 30s - now recognised by the Ukrainian government as an act of genocide by the Soviet regime).






It's very large and impressive.








And its position give you a great view of the left bank.








There are some nice steps here too.








Underneath the monument is a small museum about the Holodomor.











It's all in Ukrainian so not much for me to see - plus I don't really know any family here that might be affected, so these books of remembrance are of little use to me right now.






It's visually impressive, though. Certainly worth a look if you're ever down this way (near the Lavra).







Some poignant statues around here too.











And angels.








This, on the other hand, is, I think, dedicated to the Unknown Soldier. So, a war memorial.







Very tall.











There are some things here honouring the heroes of the war.








You can clearly see the other monument from here, and, in the distance, the Lavra.







This is Glory Square, next to the monuments. There is the Hotel Salut in front (the big circular building), and under the road is a little shopping centre. Good for a quick bite to eat, as they have a mini food court.





This is unrelated: it's the following day as we were just walking around Kyiv. Beautiful, isn't it?







I was twiddling my thumbs, waiting around to find something to occupy my time. So I watched a bit of TV and went shopping a lot. This woman's unusual attire on Megasport confused me a little.






I found this CD in Megamarket. One of the most bizarre metal CD covers I've seen. I like the guy on the right: get that hand away!







I had lunch at McDonald's near the train station (which is now closed for refurbishment, damn), so I thought I'd take a nice pic of the station on a sunny day.






The following day (5th September) Ukraine played Andorra in the football World Cup qualifiers, so me and the missus went down. Tickets were outrageously cheap, and it was a nice sunny day out. She'd never been to Dynamo's stadium before, so it was a nice occasion for all.




A day later and I went to her friend's christening (their kid was christened, not the friend). This was the grand cathedral where it took place: St Pantheleymon's Cathedral. The actual ceremony was in a small room, though, not the main hall.





This building was next to the cathedral. Don't know what it is.








Here's the cathedral again.











Near the cathedral is a nice park, Feofania. It's a lovely place for a walk on a summer's day.







You can still see the cathedral from the park.








I was enjoying my shopping back in Kyiv, as you can see. Who needs to live in England when you can buy all these beers here? Admittedly, they're about six times the price of local beer, but that's about in line with their price in England. And yes, I know Asahi is Japanese, but it illustrates the point about foreign beer.




I was starting to see some of the stuff I'd missed in Kyiv previously, like this church, St Nicolas (I think).










Not been in here, but I'd certainly like to soon. A British pub? Makes a change from Irish ones.







This is Palats Ukrayina (or Palace "Ukraine", if you like), where all the big concerts are held (well, here and the Palace of Sports). Yes, that IS Engelbert Humperdinck playing soon.






Next to Pechersk metro station, there is this statue of, unless I'm mistaken, Lesya Ukrainka, the famed writer.










And now, to round off my summer update, a load of old people were having a march on 13th September. Why? No idea.







Summer turned to autumn, and things started to settle down a little bit. I had my birthday with my girlfriend's family, having a nice meal. I'm starting to settle down, and teach a bit, too.

Meanwhile, we move on to October, and this kid's playground made me chuckle. Why? The childish graffiti. For those who can't read, the elephant has the words "Я лох" ("I'm a cock") written on him, and if you look carefully, the slide has, in large letters, "ПИЗДА", scrawled all down it. This latter word refers to a certain part of female genitalia, and has since been removed. The other word is apparently not that serious, so it is still there.


This is the side of the Verkhovna Rada (Supreme Council) building, where parliament resides.







And here's the front.








Meanwhile, I was watching BBC World News' story about Windows 7 coming out, and do you think they could've picked a geekier-looking guy to be their expert on the issue? He's a walking stereotype, for Christ's sake.





Interestingly, it seems that Sega still produce consoles over here. Yes, that's a NES in an N64 box with a 'Mega Drive III' title. Not to mention the NES in a Playstation box with a 'Sega 2000' title. This shop had a few of these phoney consoles. I'd buy one, but what's the point?








Walking the streets of Kyiv, I happened upon a coach which looked a bit old school.







I think you'll agree that you just don't see this kind of thing in the UK anymore.







Next to Pechersk metro station (again), I encountered a large group of people staging a political rally of some sort. All I can guess is that, with the orange flags, it's in support of (still) President Viktor Yuschenko's party, but as I'll explain in my upcoming Election Special, he doesn't have all that many fans right now.




Well, these guys look all fine and WHAT THE HELL IS THAT? Looks like Ukraine's finest is going to the Winter Olympics. I shouldn't make jokes about the 'woman' in the background, but the fact that I took this picture at all must say something.





One of these is a Kyiv Cake (Kyivskiy Tort/Tort Kyivskiy) made by a famous Ukrainian chocolate maker, the other is a supermarket own-brand copy. See if you can guess which is the real deal and which is the fake!





I never saw this building before. It's a government building, and it's quite impressive. No, I don't know what it is.







Finally, it appears that a cinema in Kyiv will host a day (or season, maybe) of 'New British Cinema', illustrated wonderfully by Queen Elizabeth I face-painted with the cross of St George. Whether this is 'British' or 'English' is a debate that I can't be arsed to enter into in Ukraine, as most people don't know the difference - and why should they? After all, most English people think Chernobyl is in Russia.






So, that brings me up to the present day. I haven't taken any newer pictures than that, and I haven't done any really interesting things either. All I can say is that living in Ukraine with a Ukrainian girl gives me a real perspective on Ukrainian life, even if my language abilities are not improving much.

My girlfriend can't get enough of two particular shows on TV - "танцюють всі" ("Everybody Dance"), and "Фабрика Зірок" ("Factory of Stars"). The problem with them, aside from the fact that they suck (the former is a dancing competition, the latter a 'singing' competition) is that one a week they last virtually an entire evening. At least The X Factor only lasts an hour or so: these things go on forever, just like one of the most popular shows, Shuster Live, a current affairs talk show. A whole evening is lost to these stupid shows. But I digress.

I'll sign off for now, but I'll be back soon with my Election Special, where I explain to the layman exactly how the 'system' works in this country, and who you have to look out for before the election in January. Hey, it makes a change, doesn't it? You might even learn something. Ta ra.

Part 2 of my trip to Chisinau.

In my last instalment, I took you through the heart of the city, culminating in reaching the Triumphal Arch. Now I'll continue exactly where I left off.

This charming building is the bell tower next to the cathedral. The cathedral's behind it.







It's quite nice, isn't it?











This is in front of it. It looks like a fountain but it also looks a bit weird.







A nice two-shot of the cathedral and this... thing.








Woo, classy shot.











Pigeons!








I came, I saw, I took a picture.











After that, I happened across a shopping centre, so I went inside. Not much of interest, mainly clothes, but I took the lift to the top floor and took a pic. Then I realised that there were no stairs to the top floor. So if the lift broke, you were stuck. Genius. Maybe there was an emergency stairway...




I left the shopping centre, only to find a large religious group doing something in the street. Don't know what, but I took a pic anyway.







I kept on walking around and noticed what looks like a fancy hotel.








This is the shopping centre I was in earlier. Sun City. It looks so... lovely.







I dunno what this is but it looks COOL. Probably police or something, looking at the logo.










Back onto the main street. Busy.








Now what's this? Hmm... Interestingly, the toilets have a keycode which you get when you buy something. Toilets in Ukraine and the like cost money so McD's toilets are even more common to nip in for free than in England.





This just illustrates how easy it is to change currency on the main street of Chisinau. 'No commission'? That's normal, here and in Kyiv.






National Theatre, I guess. That's what it says.








Next to the theatre is a park with this weird statue, and people were selling paintings and stuff too.










I'm guessing this is a musical theatre place. Inside is a small café, where the girl serving me spoke Romanian, so when she said 'eight lei', I asked her to use English or Russian, and she used both with a bit of thought. Sweet.








City hall. Another EU flag. Funny: the ruling party is communist, but there's now a coalition for EU integration, so maybe that has something to do with it. Don't fully understand, though.









As I was walking, I turned round and thought, 'what the hell is that?'







It's SKYTOWER! A big office block, though apparently there's 'shopping', as the sign says, but I couldn't find any.










Next to the tower, I'll let you figure that one out.








Well, everything seems to be in ord... wait a minute! Lira? Deutschmarks?! Get a new sign, mate, it's a bit old.







Central Piazza, I presume. Well, it's actually a BIG market, rivalling Petrivka in Kyiv. There's all sorts of crap to be found here, though it's a bit harder to navigate than Petrivka because of many people in a small space.





The smell of this indoor cheese market hit me when I entered. The photo's blurry because I didn't want anyone to see me. Coward, I know.






Meanwhile, outdoors, it's just as busy. And this was on a Wednesday afternoon!







Imagine how busy it'd be on a Saturday lunchtime! Jesus.








Anyway, I like crowded markets, but time was getting on and that one's pretty damn crowded. Outside the market was this big department store. I didn't explore too much, didn't see much point.





Opposite that building, another bloody big one. Weird how you can see the lights through the windows...







Jesus, how many big buildings?! Yes, this was in the same square I was standing in.










This globe, attached to the big glass building two pics ago, turns. I thought of a video, but I think you can imagine it yourself, so a photo will suffice.






This building, with mobile phone and electronic shops inside, has some nice statues attached.







In the distance is a nice statue. Shame I didn't get closer.








Ciuflea church complex. Looks nice from the outside, but sadly didn't go in...







...because there was a big gate with a man in uniform in front, and I'm too much of a pussy to go and ask if I can get in.







I walked back to the hostel over a bridge, and looking over the side I realised that there's some crazy shite down there.







This is the bridge, with Mall Dova in the background (apologies for awful photo).







It's like another world under the bridge.








After getting home, I went for a meal with a guy from the hostel, then onto a bar called the Rock 'n' Roll Café (I think) and met another hostel guy, plus a local. As we were thinking of moving on, a guy walked in and announced that he was staying in the same hostel, so we had a new member of our team.

After finding that most of town was closed on a Wednesday night, we walked to Club City, or the City Club, or whatever. This was obviously where most people were that night, as it was a busy nightclub. I hate nightclubs and I made that clear, but we went anyway. After a while of watching two go-go dancers, I grabbed a taxi with another in my group, and went to bed.

The following day I did very little as I'd already seen about as much of the town as I wanted, and the weather wasn't so good. I eventually went for a meal with the three others from the hostel in Mall Dova. The top floor has a range of different restaurants, and we decided on one with typical food of the region (I think... it's hard to classify, but it was lovely, and cheap).

I just hung around at the hostel, and eventually grabbed a taxi to the station and jumped on the train. My kupe was empty, which was interesting. I got the chance to watch a movie on my laptop as a result.

I also thought I'd take some pics of the train for those who are curious. This is my kupe, my bed on the bottom left.







View from the top bunk, towards the (closed) door.








Looking up from the top bunk, towards the other bunk.








My bed again, a more direct view. It's rather comfy, actually, as the train is so damn slow that it's easy to sleep on, and I traditionally have immense trouble sleeping on the move.,






Er, the toilets are not so comfy. This is a bad shot, but you get the idea. Don't sit down. Though hovering is hard with the train shaking. There's a hole in the floor for water to leak out, and when you push the flush, the water (or whatever else) simply drops out of the train. This means you can't use the toilet either at a station or when you're near a station/town. Can be frustrating, that.



And this is the corridor, with windows on the right and kupes on the left. I didn't use the flash as there were guys there and didn't want to attract attention (I like to go unnoticed on my travels).









A guy got in my kupe at Ungen and I talked to him in my basic Russian for a few hours, enjoying a drink of brandy and some chocolate until it was time to sleep, then had to get up super early for the border crossing. Everything went smoothly, thankfully.

So, that was my trip. Hope you enjoyed it, and if you happen to go to Chisinau for any reason, just take some Euros or dollars and you'll find it easy to change them into the local currency. Other than that, it's a small city, not much to see. I'm kicking myself that I didn't plan on a trip to Tiraspol (in autonomous province Transnistria, essentially a separate country but a corrupt Soviet-style one) but this was a last-minute plan and I didn't really find out about it until I got there. Maybe some day...

I went for a long, long trip to Chisinau, in Moldova. The reason was to sort out my visa, but in the end it didn't really work out. On the plus side, I was able to visit a new city and country! In addition, I now know how it feels to spend 18 hours on a train (yes, really).

I'll divide this trip into two neat parts, just because I don't want to upload more than 50 pictures in one update. It's not divided into Day 1 and Day 2, as I didn't really do much on Day 2 other than hang out with some guys from the hostel and go for lunch.

I arrived on the train at 2am, the night of Friday 2nd November. I walked into my 'kupe' - four-person cabin - and all three of the other beds were full of sleeping guys (yes, long trips in Ukraine have beds as standard). I struggled to dress my bed and climb onto the top bunk, but eventually fell asleep with the others snoring around me.

I awoke around 6am as the others in the kupe awoke themselves. We were due to cross the border around 9am but these guys decided to wake up and get chatting early. Not for me. I tried my best to sleep for the following three hours. When we hit the border going out of Ukraine, the passport people came along. The Russians and Moldovan in my kupe were obviously no issue, but they took me away to talk to someone with basic English. Why they needed to debrief me so much when leaving the country I don't know, as getting in again was much simpler.

The Moldovan border people were much different: they were in full 'militsia' dress, contrasting the khaki dress of the Ukrainians. Not only that, but just one guy went through the carriage, armed with a netbook computer with attached passport scanner. The difference in tech between the two countries surprised and impressed me. The guy was quick, to the point, and spoke reasonable English (but he didn't really need much since he was, as I said, brief). It was 10am, and I was happily inside Moldova.

I might as well take a picture of what I saw, then. Moldovan countryside. Pretty much the same as Ukrainian countryside (not that you guys'd know).






There was a long time to go yet, though, as I travelled from the north to the south of a country the size of Belgium, in a slow sleeper train. You'd think that they'd speed it up during the day as nobody's sleeping.





I think this stop is called Ungen, and we waited a while here. Still a few hours to go, though...







The swine flu's really taken this area of the world, but unlike the distorted nonsense from the Ukrainian government, the Moldovans produced this lovely little leaflet...









...in Russian and Romanian. Judging by the pictures, pretty sensible information - and do you see any masks? Exactly.










Finally, at around 8pm, I arrived at the train station in Chisinau. I changed some hryvnia into lei (money), grabbed a marshrutka towards the hostel, and got off at Mall Dova, a nicely-titled shopping centre next to it.

I went inside the huge red building first. Here is a chain you see in Kyiv, but normally written in Cyrillic. A lot of the stuff you can buy here is the same as Ukraine, with a few differences. Booze is a little pricier here, but restaurants are better value than Kyiv.





Also near the hostel is this 'boutique hotel', which is such a bizarre building that I felt compelled to take a pic of it.







And finally, in the hostel for a sandwich, a game of cards, and bed. The following morning I looked out from the balcony, and took this pic.






Time waits for no man, and I headed out for the embassy to do my business. On the way, I met some chickens.







This is the 'huge red building' I mentioned, Mall Dova. You try telling a taxi driver you want to go to 'Mall Dova'.







Perehod (that's 'subway' in Russian) which is rather dark. I took a very crowded marshrutka, got off at the embassy, and was thoroughly disappointed. Visas are never simple.






Never mind, although my entire point of coming had failed, I might as well make the most of it. I walked past a sporting arena. At least it's in Latin characters now, I don't have to translate for you lazy buggers.





A closer look. Romanian and Russian are both used. The two languages seem to have equal currency, at least in Chisinau. Romanian - sorry, 'Moldovan' - is the only official language, of course.





As I walked to the centre, I went past a library, with a statue. Well, you know me by now.










And onto the main street, Stefan cel Mare Boulevard. This street goes straight through the city, and all the nice stuff is on this street. That's not to say nothing interesting lies beyond it, of course.





But as you can see, all the big official stuff is here. And that really is big.











There was a church as well. I've been to bigger ones, but this was nice enough.










My Romanian isn't very good.








Here's a closer look at that huge building.








And a final look, as I walk on.








This, I believe, is the presidential building. Very swanky.











And here, opposite, is the parliament building. Scene of 'civil unrest' in April - that is, lots of people burning stuff and looting. That's why there's a big grey wall to stop people doing that.






The opera house. Yeah, not exactly Sydney, is it? But what's that on the left...?







It's a restaurant! The charmingly-monikered Andy's Pizza, a very nice (and very cheap) place for a meal and a drink. The meal was basic but cheap (I didn't have much lei on me) and the beer is Chisinau beer, of course. It's not bad, but Ukrainian beer is good enough for me.




Remember I said Russian was spoken a lot, but Romanian is official? Well, these guys are saying 'we want Russian to be an official language'. That's what their massive banner says. I heard them marching as I left Andy's Pizza, and ran back to the parliament building to watch them.




While I was there, I got a closer pic of said building.








Back on towards town. This is a park very close to the centre. Why there's an EU flag there I don't know, as Moldova sure ain't EU, unlike their Romanian neighbours.






The park is home to the Alley of Classics, a collection of busts of important Romanian and Moldova people. Wikipedia has a pic of every one of them, so I only took one pic.






Here's a more general view.








I really don't know what this is. Probably a bit Soviet, who knows.








Woo.








Grr, I'm a bear.











This is a fountain. I guess it works in Summer. Meh.








And who might you be?








Pushkin, of course. I guess he's important enough to have his own pedestal thing, surrounded by flowers. And he was born in Moscow, so never mind the local heroes.









It's a pretty nice park, all told. As usual, I'm sure it'd be nicer in Summer.







As the statue says, this is Stefan cel Mare, or Stephen the Great in English. Former Prince of Moldavia, this street's named after him, his picture's on all of the money, and when Romanians voted on a TV poll for the 100 greatest Romanians, he came in at numero uno. So a pretty cool dude, then. (Incidentally, Nicolae Ceausescu came in at number two on the Worst Romanians list - meaning Ion Iliescu must've been REALLY bad)





Turn around, and you can see this large square. This is, essentially, the centre of town. Regular readers will have figured out that communist cities loved to have massive squares where they could organise a load of people. Think back to Chernihiv, Zhytomyr, Sevastopol... think of Red Square in Moscow and Tiananmen Square in Beijing. The commies love a big empty space to mark the centre of a city.


Here's the government building. Though I thought the other two buildings were government, so not sure what this one does.







This is the Arca Triumfala. Any fans of Paris don't need a translation. In the background is the cathedral, which I'll show you next update.






To round off this update, another shot of the Triumphal Arch, or Ark Pobyedy, or whatever.










Right, I don't want to do the whole day of Chisinau in one update, as I said, so I'll leave it at that for now. Next time you'll see lots of interesting and banal things. Should be fun.

I was quite shocked on my way home at the sight of a significant number of people covering their mouth and nose with scarves and masks. Swine flu has been declared an epidemic in Ukraine, because one person died. 220 miles away. PANIC!! Remember that this is a country that thinks standing next to an open window will harm you. From what I've read, masks do nothing to stop you getting flu, and may even be counter-productive because it gives wearers false confidence and panics everyone else. It's true: I felt genuinely ill just seeing them. I'm not worried about this whole situation, as the whole swine flu thing is nonsensical hyperbole. This happens every bloody year, why should this year be the year that 10 million die? Rant over.

Anyway, time for Lviv part two. I'm glad I've bothered to get up to this point, because I have my recent adventures in Kyiv to document, too. I thought I'd do a little thing about the political situation in Ukraine, too, given that the presidential elections are coming soon. Or, maybe I won't. Maybe nobody cares. Also, it looks like I'll have a super-fast trip to another country very soon, but more details about that when it happens.

So, onto Lviv. Our hotel was very nice for a reasonable price, and it included a straightforward breakfast of eggs and bread and stuff. So, with this start to our day, we set off on our journey around Lviv again. Unfortunately, the weather started bad - as it had been the previous night - and got worse as the day continued.

To make matters worse, as well as my girlfriend losing her phone the day before, she'd accidentally set her camera to take pictures on the highest quality setting - and by 'quality' I mean megapixels. The pictures look no better, but they take up three times more space. So, her card was full. And I think the battery was perhaps finished too. Whoops.



So, for most of these pictures, she took charge. Which is why there's a picture of a tree here, because she likes trees.










I think the reason she likes Lviv is because of the 'atmosphere' that the old buildings and such provide.










This illustrates quite clearly the inclement weather.








Mmm, lovely. We spent a while here, taking more pictures.








But they all look like this. Bleak.








Shame this door's out of focus. Let's step inside.











She wouldn't stop going into these old buildings with rickety staircases.







More rubble that constitutes the streets of Lviv.











Agh, scary dog!








This can't be normal...








Beret.











Kyiv doesn't look like this. Mostly.








Not very Soviet.








She liked this building so much...











...she took a closer look at the flowers.








Trams are quite common here, much more than Kyiv, mainly because they don't have a Metro system, I guess.










Monument time. This is a monument to the people who suffered during WW2: Ukrainians, Poles, and (cough) Jews. Notice how the Jew bit is all dark, wonder why... Nobody likes them, do they?






The main part of the monument. Cool.








And here's the detail mentioned before, but in English.








Somebody's having a wedding. Woo. After this, we journeyed north to look through the less glamorous side of Lviv, and sadly took no pictures (you ain't missing much, trust me). We circled around and ended up back in the centre and had coffee.





By this point the rain started to fall pretty badly, and walking around the city became less fun as our shoes slowly filled with water. This is Mr Ivan Franko.






And here he is up close. I didn't care about the rain: I had a brolly, and I wasn't gonna miss such a big, stylish Soviet monument.










This is just to illustrate the weather.








After this we went and sat in several cafés, which wasn't really what we wanted, but we couldn't think what to do in such nasty weather. Eventually I discovered that waxwork exhibit that I showed you in Zhytomyr (go back and find the pics). It's a travelling exhibit, you see. That cheered us up a bit, but the weekend kind of ended on a downer, as the weather stopped us really enjoying the city at its best.

I'm told Lviv is 'the London of Ukraine' because it always rains, so maybe we weren't unlucky, exactly. Nevertheless, I think that on the whole it was worth going, but perhaps having been to so many wonderful cities around Europe has made me hard to impress. I still love travelling, anyway.

So, that's all my travels up to now. Aside from my aforementioned upcoming foreign excursion, I just have my local stuff to clear out. I'll do that when I get round to it, which may be very soon. Hopefully I won't die from the lurgy before my next post.

Here we go: Lviv. There are an awful lot of pics, so I'll do the first day now, then the shorter second day later.

On the evening of Friday 9th October, my girlfriend and I caught a train bound for the west. It was the first time I'd been on a Ukrainian train, and I expected it to be noisy and uncomfortable, and thus difficult to sleep. This was a night train, after all, as the journey takes between 6 and 10 hours (night trains obviously are at the slower end of that, probably because you don't care about distance when you're sleeping, and if they went too fast you might wake up).

It was actually a very nice train - maybe we got lucky. There are different types of tickets for trains. The one we got put us in a cabin of four people: us two, plus another young couple. This is a little more expensive than the main alternative: loads of people in an open carriage, each with their own bed. It's probably the best option if you're travelling alone, I suppose, but I imagine it's not easy to sleep, a bit like some hostels I've been in. Except, they move.

As this photo suggests, we arrived at Lviv train station very early on the Saturday. It was still pretty dark outside, and I had no map. I had no idea where we were in the city, but we grabbed the tram with all the other people who got the night train. Once in central Lviv, everything was closed. Well, except McDonald's, which was packed.



We got breakfast at McDonald's (which took a while with all the people asking for coffee). After that, it was time to get to the hotel and figure things out. I took some pics on the way, too. Traffic's a bit quieter than Kyiv.





This is the opera house, I think. We didn't go inside.








This is just a square. Nothing special, but it gives you a bit of flavour for the town, I suppose.







There was a ton of building work going on with the roads at the time. Here's a dog, sitting on some stuff.







Our hotel was lovely. It was in this little courtyard (behind the camera).







Ah, beautiful Lviv. Like I said, roadworks.








Er, a LOT of roadworks.








This is a nice building. Lviv was one of the biggest cities that wasn't too affected by the Soviet regime. They were never too fond of the Soviets, either. I guess being at the arse end of the Soviet empire meant they felt closer to Europe. It used to be part of Poland, amongst other places.




"Hotel Kyiv". My girlfriend said she stayed there, partly because it's messed up. Charming.







Back to the opera. It was Ukraine v England that evening, so there was a Fan Zone (sponsored by beer maker Chernihivske) in this square.






Like I said...








National Museum. Didn't go in here, either, which was a shame.








I think this is some kind of church or something. Girlfriend was disappointed that they'd renovated it (she's been here before).










And now, the central square. Similar to Krakow or Prague, I suppose, but the building in the middle is a bit bigger and more permanent than in the other two. This is one of four (I think there are four) statues based on Greek legends (I think...).





Here's the aforementioned building. We'd go up where the flag is later.











The same building from the side.








Church.











Interesting monument. The missus hates it.








See if you can find the dog.








A nice little alcove which houses a lovely café. Unfortunately, it was at this point when my girlfriend discovered she'd lost her phone. We never recovered it. That put a bit of a downer on proceedings.





I see a lot of conkers, but other than that I don't really understand what the point of this is.







After going through an archway to see a church, we encountered this courtyard. Lots of 'character' here.







And this is the church I just mentioned. Rather small.











Little book market. Amusingly the man in the centre had a road atlas for Britain from a couple of years ago. He explained to us what it was, but I kinda figured it out by myself.






Next to the book market, a curious little bunch of ruins. Your guess is as good as mine.







Monument to somebody. I don't know why I take pictures of these things. Maybe Wikipedia can use them.







Next to the central square. There's certainly a Prague/Krakow feel to this place, very different to Kyiv.







So, time to climb the tower in the square. It was a long and tiring climb up many steps, but we got to see this fascinating clock mechanism.






And lo, another high place to add to my collection.








TV tower. We could've visited it, but it's up a big hill... and the weather got worse on Sunday.







Look, a horse!








You can see a square in the distance.








We were shocked by a loud bell that went off at some point. This is the culprit. Very loud.







After climbing down the stairs, it was after 5pm, so things were closing. We encountered another building with real 'character'.







And what appear to be more ruins.








Don't think we went in this church here.











The missus was fascinated by this little thing, so I took a pic of it.








'King Danilo', or so it says. Don't know who he is, of course. C'mon, I'd be letting you down if I actually knew something about a monument, right?






It appears to be a café in a coach. Strange. But nice.








We were in search of a restaurant. Not a café with some food, not McDonald's, but a restaurant. It was almost impossible to find such a thing. I took a picture of this square while we searched. Eventually we found a lovely restaurant that was expensive for Lviv, but reasonable for Kyiv. So, I was satisfied. Great food, too.




And so, the night drew in, and the crowds arrived in the rain for Ukraine v England.







My phone is not good at all at night, but I figured I had to show you something of what happened there.







There were a lot of people.








We, on the other hand, sat under cover to squint at a far away TV along with quite a few others, as you see here. For those who don't know, Ukraine won, so everyone was happy. England had already qualified, so I didn't really mind that much.





Okay, that's enough. We went to bed after the match, as it had been a long day. I'll get back to you with Day 2 of our Lviv trip in due course.