Kiev First Impressions

Kiev First ImpressionsFriday October 23, 2009 Often the first impressions you get of a city/country/tour/whatever become the tone of the city/country/tour/whatever. I do hope that doesn't turn out to be the case so I am trying to keep an open mind but at the moment, not having much luck. Today was my first tour of Kiev and it was good with a few problems in the tour itself. I’m in an apartment with no map, no orientation of the neighborhood, no way to read Ukrainian, and 4 flights of stairs on arthritic knees and sore feet that just aren’t happy to be here at all. To be fair, it is hard to come from a tour with happy, laughing people and go immediately into a tour where you are the only one. Still, I have paid a lot of money for this tour and I want it to work better. Coming into Kiev yesterday, it was pretty gloomy and ugly until one got past all the factories. In the city today, it’s a nice enough place with some great buildings and architecture. My guide is quite good actually. I unfortunately have this "thing" that I do with all tours. I don’t really read up on the place ahead of time. I have found over the years that reading place names and descriptions before I have seen the place just don’t remain with me nor leave an impression. I can read about the stuff after I have seen it and then I remember it and go, Oh yea. So that’s what I do. Today we went through so many mosaics and frescos and paintings and beautiful churches that it’s going to take me awhile later to read on it all. Our first stop was the House of Chimera which a rich person built out of cement and decorated it on the outside with all manner of animals both real and fanciful, including flying frogs. It’s just a fun house to see and photograph. Supposedly they use this house in commercials for cement because most people think you can’t do much with concrete. Made an impression on me. We did the Caves Monastery which is quite a complex. The churches there are beautiful and I think I like best the huge bell tower but I couldn’t climb it with the knees and feet and that makes me quite sad. Am I getting too old now to enjoy my travels by having to curtail what I do? I am hoping it gets better. We went through the Treasures Museum. It was amazing to see these gold pieces that have been dug up out of burial mounds dating back to the 4th century B.C. The work on some of the gold was just remarkable and to have been doing work like that so long ago was incredible to me. When we went down the hill to the caves, I wrapped a scarf around my pants to keep the monks happy. They like skirts on women and scarves over their hair. Then I find the caves are not really well lit so we each get a very small but long candle that we are to hold between our fingers so that the wax drips on our hands and not the floor. The monks in the caves are saints now apparently so many people come down there to kiss their coffins and pray and shuffle through the semi darkness. It wasn’t crowded today but I am thinking on a day where the narrow hallways are full, how is it that no one catches on fire? We also covered St. Sophia which has a lot of frescos and mosaics and is another church with a cast iron floor. Some of the most ordinary things to some people seems so strange to me. St. Sophia has a lot of chapels to various saints and most have frescos of one vintage or another. They have just uncovered a couple of 18th century frescos and know that there are 11th century frescos underneath them. What do you do then? You have beautiful ancient work showing and possibly beautiful ancient work underneath but do you destroy what you see to get to what you can’t see just because it is older and more historic? Certainly glad I am not on the decision making committee. But after the tour, had some problems. The apartment I am in has a door code which I have yet to get open until I have stood there and messed with it for 5 to 10 minutes. I’m on the fourth floor so I am not inclined to go up and down the stairs often. I can’t find any food markets other than the kiosks and I was pointed to a market today but it is just fruits, vegetables, meat, fish, flowers, and nuts. Not quite what I had in mind for a good meal. The other markets are supposedly close by but if it’s in Ukrainian, how am I supposed to know? I went to the internet that was pointed out to me and it has been closed for a long time from the look of the building. So I had to text my husband and ask him to email the man who arranged the tour for me and tell him I had problems. I hate it when you have problems and the person who is supposed to fix your problems for you gets defensive and attacks you rather than tries to solve your problems. That’s what happened. The upshot of it apparently is that I am a stupid person for know being able to open the door properly because it certainly worked last time he was here and how could I not find the big markets that are right down the street from me. What an idiot. Well, he didn’t use those words but reading between the lines, you can certainly tell that is what he was thinking. So tomorrow I have to hope I can get some better information from my guides as to a true internet place that is close to the apartment and to where the real market is and also I will leave the apartment in the morning with computer in hand just in case I find a Wi-Fi somewhere, then problem solved. Geez. This is my 4th former Soviet Republic and 2 have been exceedingly difficult to tour. I sure hope this one improves.