Four means of transport in one day

Two days ago Charise left Kyiv to return home for work. It was very sad. On that day we used  four different types of transport so I thought I would tell you of them.

The first was the marshrutka.  We use this transport to go to school.  In tourist information here they are often referred to as fixed route taxis.  There are taxis as we are used to in Brisbane here in Kyiv, but a marshrutka is not like that at all.  A marshrutka is (in our case) a small yellow bus. There are also white ones and blue ones but not on our route.  When we wait for a bus we wait for the little yellow ones.  The bus stops are also interesting.  They may be distinguished by a bus seat or shelter but often you recognise one because for about fifty metres along the edge of the footpath you see people standing and looking to the right or left as appropriate. There are no timetables (or at least none that we have been able to discern so far).  You simply turn up and wait.  Generally you do not have to wait very long - maybe ten minutes at most.  Some routes however have more services and others have less.  From our  flat we can take a 465 which stops within a few metres of the school.  However this is ones of the less regular services.  There is a 455 we can catch which comes maybe every 5-10 minutes but the closest stop is either one stop away on the Metro or one stop on the trolley bus or about a twenty-five minute walk. The walk is not a bad option right now but in the winter it may not be so good. Mostly so far we have caught the 465 right outside our unit block but it comes so irregularly we may change to the 455 more permanently.  Coming home when timing is not important we will often wait for 465.

Early in the morning, hoping the 465 will arrive soon

Well about the marshrutkas themselves.  They can vary in size a little but usually carry about twenty seated passengers and as many as can fit standing.  One we travelled on not long after we arrived had a sign that said licenced to carry fourteen seated and eighteen altogether but at one point there twenty

On a marshrutka

on the bus. These little buses can be of any age and most would be described as ancient at best.  They rattle and bounce along and few would pass a road-worthy at home but we always arrive at our destination. The state of the roads here does not help either for a smooth ride. There is lots more to tell about riding marshrutkas but I will save it for another time.

Waiting for the metro

Our second use of transport on that Friday was of course the metro.  You come to love the metro.  It is so very convenient with a service every three to five minutes, and when you live across the road from a station it makes it even more convenient. The metro has a sign at the end of each platform telling you how long since the last service left. Since we have been here I have not seen it go over 3.22 minutes before the next train arrived. We had to be at the airport outside Kyiv at 9.20 for Charise to leave.  We wanted to be at the airport two hours before her flight left, so we decide to leave the flat at about six o'clock. Being that time on a Friday the trains were packed. We squeezed on. We have often been told that Kyiv is empty right now because the state schools and the universities do not start till after the first of September.  It is hard to imagine at times that the trains and marshrutkas can be busier. We caught the metro for just one station and then had to walk for about five to ten minutes for a bus to the airport. The bus to the airport is very close to the main train station in Kyiv so the were people everywhere with bags of various sizes. Getting off and on the escalators was fun.

Close to saying goodbye

This brings us to our next form of transport.  As we were approaching the bus and  carrying a large bag a man recognised that here were people off to the airport. So, he spoke to Bill and asked if we would  like to hire him to drive us to the airport.  I don't know what work he does now but for thirty years he was a helicopter engineer in the military. Anyway he lives out near the airport, so why drive home on your own when you can do the same trip with paying passengers . We have read that this is a fairly common practice here but just be careful that you don' t get 'taken for a ride' as the saying goes.  This man was driving a quite new Audi and looked and sounded all right and was asking the same as the bus fare and said he would be much faster. Well I am glad I was in the back seat.  I think he changed lanes every  minute and often drove in two lanes at once.  He couldn't drive fast because the traffic was just creeping a lot of the time. When we finally left the city limits the sign said  there was sixteen kilometres to go  he was able to do about 100 km/h or a little over then. We arrived at the airport at about 7.30, which was good.  When we were about three quarters of the way there we passed an airport bus that he pointed out to us and he said we had caught up to the one that had left before the one we had been going to catch. So we had time to organise everything for Charise and then watch as she disappeared off into the boarding area.

Time for us to return to Kyiv and our last form of transport for the day.  Once again we were approached by a man.  As we left the airport terminal (but the tears had not been left behind) a man asked us if we were looking for transport back to the city.  Upon being being told yes he said we could go on a mini-bus. He called over another young man who told us to follow him and off we went.  After about 150 metres or so we came to a very nice, very new van that seated nine.  There were already five people in it. In we climbed and the man disappeared back to the terminal and reappeared a few minutes later with another passenger and off we went. This time the trip was much faster because the traffic had reduced quite a deal. He was fairly typical Kyiv driver.  You see almost nil signs about speed limits here and I think most drivers drive above what it is anyway. Lane changing is a real art form here. Well we arrived back safely and then it was a metro ride and we were home.

So now we are here on our own really feeling the break from home. It is already becoming colder here and the leaves are starting to drop and change colour. So in the not too distant future I will be experiencing my first real autumn. We should be able to include some lovely photos next time.

A Day in Lviv

We spent Friday in L'viv in Western Ukraine not all that far from the Polish border. We came by fast train from Kyiv on Thursday night. The train takes five hours with speeds up to 160 km/h but there were delays last night so we were an hour late. We had let our accommodation know that we would be arriving about 11 pm but it ended up being almost midnight before we arrived at the hostel.  Fortunately someone was still awake to let us in.  Today we have explored the old part of L'viv.  Charise commented that Kyiv is like Sydney and L'viv is like Brisbane.  There is less hustle here and it is perhaps more western. Not that Kyiv feels eastern just a bit more different from home.  We saw many beautiful sights. We climbed to L'viv's 'Mount Cootha' , went to an historical museum  and saw lots of other things.  I think I will let a picture say a thousand words. The train leaves in the morning at 5.50am and we are walking to the station so we plan to rise at 4.00am to be sure of everything so an early night is called for.

This is the main railway station in Kyiv. It is a magnificent building.  You can see the vaulted ceilings and the murals on the walls. You can pick out Charise and me in about the centre of the picture. I have a blue back at my feet.  This is a time when the station was fairly empty. 

This a view from our hostel room in L'viv. if you were on the far balcony and looked back at our room the picture would look the same. 

Charise is standing at the end of the passage way we went down to reach our hostel.  The street outside the building was completely closed because they were taking up the cobblestones and appeared to be replacing them with new ones. This fact did not deter either pedestrians or cars who simply walked or drove around the work site and went on their way or parked their car and left.

 

As I have said Ukraine is place for enormous statues.  This is one of Ivan Franko a famous Ukrainian writer. Bill wrote an extended assignment on him so it is special to have this photo.  It is out in front of the Ivan Franko University.

Just to show the beautiful parks and huge trees. When you are high up and overlook L'viv you can see their policy of putting a ring of parks around the city to make for green space.

This statue is of Taras Shevchenko.  He is Ukraine's most noted writer.  This was erected after the collapse of the Soviet Union and a lot of the money needed was provided by Ukrainians living abroad.

The Opera House in L'viv.  It was a fairly hot day when we were there - about 33 degrees, so later in the day we saw people standing in the water of the fountain. When the Opera House was built it was decided by the architect that it be interesting to build it over a small river which flowed there.  So they did.  Apparently the building began to subside as soon as it was finished, but it soon went no further.  The tourist information says the only ill effect of the subsidence is sink holes near the building which catch out unwary tourists.

I don't know how recently these seats were put in this street making it into a mall, but motor-bikes were still happy to use it as a thoroughfare.

The view of the old town from their version of "Mount Cootha"

These two photos show the way up to lookout over L'viv. There were over two hundred steps and then a reasonably long steep walk  from the top of them.

A typical street scene in the old town part of L'viv. 

This is very usual in both Kyiv and L'viv to have flower boxes on the footpath.  Perhaps not quite as many as in this spot.  The flowers will often be petunias or geraniums but these were begonias.

I 

This was about 7.30 pm.  It is light here at present till about 9.00-9.30.  There was a whole row of older men playing chess and as you can see they could draw a crowd.  Many of them were using timers for their moves.


I had to add to this blog. We left our hostel  at about 4.15 am on Saturday morning.  and walked for about thirty minutes to the station. We found out two things   within a few minutes. One is that there is almost nil street lighting in L'viv,and the other is that  it is completely dark at 4.15 am. The next thing is, that you know from the last week you have spent in Ukraine,  that the footpaths can be very problematic.  Many of the footpaths in L'viv are cobblestones and uneven. Also there are often broken cobbles and completely missing ones.  So we made our way alone, for the most part, through the dark early morning  of L'viv.  We made it without incident but I can tell you my toes were very concerned the whole way. .

By this time we arrived at the station and it was much brighter and there were lots of people around, but it gives you an idea of how it was.

The Metro

On Saturday we made our first venture into the under ground rail system here in Kyiv.  I have basically lived all my life in Brisbane and we don't have an underground so I have no point of comparison but the Kyiv Metro just blew my mind.  The first thing was the speed. Here I am talking about the speed of the escalators to go down into the metro.  Charise was ahead of me and as she stepped onto the escalator I saw her stumble and thought she was going to fall. Then I stepped on and I thought I was going to fall.  The escalator moves much faster than the tame ones we have in Brisbane.  These are also much steeper than any I have used before.  We went down about the usual distance and came to the end.  Because you are moving quite quickly it is tricky coming off at the end until you learn the knack.  You are kind of catapulted off the end.  This is so much so that they have a raised portion at the first step off to slow down your exit. Well, ahead of us you could see twenty or so meters and then I expected we would see the trains.  But no. Instead we came to another escalator.  This was a real!!!!escalator.  Unless you have seen one like it is almost hard to describe.  Maybe there are many under grounds like this one in other parts of the world and many of you have seen them but it sure was new to us. The escalator stretched down away from us so far you couldn't see the bottom.  It was incredible!  The escalators are not new so they clank and rattle.  So down and down we went. I didn't think of it on our first experience because we were just so amazed but on our next time ascending I timed our ride up.  Remember this is travelling quite a bit faster than a regular escalator in Brisbane.  We ascended for two full minutes! It is amazing however how quickly you become used to things.  This is Tuesday and we used the metro first on Saturday and already we are quite used to the incredible depth we reach but somehow I don't think you really comprehend just how far down you go.
We have just found some actual statistics about the metro so I thought I would add them for your amazement. So the Kyiv metro has some of the deepest stations in the world.  The Arsenalna station (which we used today) is the deepest metro station in the world at 107 metres deep, and the Universytet station (which is just a couple of stations from us) has one of the longest escalators (87metres long). The site that put up this information then says "Many stations have two long and intimidating escalators in a row,"  They are very correct. They are very intimidating!  When I was in PNG in the 1970s I landed on the world's steepest airstrip a few times and now I have been on the world's deepest underground.

The metro system here is very good. It is very cheap and there are no timetables because trains come every few minutes.  There are three metro lines in the main part of the city and our flat is opposite a metro station so it is very convenient.  We do not intend to have a car while we are here so we see a lot of the metro.  This description may make me seem a country hick but it certainly was one of my first adventures in Ukraine! We also do a lot of walking.  Most days since we have been her we have walked about  ten kilometres.

Today it was even more because we went to a tourist centre where they have built typical houses  from the various parts of Ukraine and put them together on a site that is approximately 150 hectares.  This meant a lot of walking to see most of them.  It really was quite beautiful and the general scenery was beautiful too.  One thing I noticed was that it was very quiet there except for the rustling of leaves in the breeze because there were very few sounds of birds. Tomorrow more sites to see but this should involve a little less walking. As it ended up, today Bill and I walked the furthest of all our days so far (about 15k).

Here are some photos of the houses we saw.

Charise in a traditional Ukrainian headdress.

Trip to Ukraine

On a nine hour flight you do some silly things. One that I did was to watch" Horton Hears a Who". That is not really so silly because I love that movie.  But to get to my point.- as the people of Whoville say,"We are here, we are here, we are here", well we are here, not in Whoville but in Kyiv in Ukraine.  The trip was long but uneventful which is just what you want.  It was nine hours to Bankok then a two hour layover, then about eight hours to Istanbul, a three hour layover there and then two hours to Kyiv. Our body clocks are still trying to catch up. I woke at four this morning and was unable to convince my body that it was not 11.am. Charise went to bed at 6.00pm last night and managed to sleep till 8.00am this morning.  Everything went fine with our luggage and visa entry.

Our apartment is very nice and comfortable and bigger than we expected. We are on the second floor of a six floor building.  We are told that it is a Stalin era building and that is good because building standards dropped considerably later on.  From the outside and the stair wells etc it appears that no money has been spent on the building since it was built,but inside the apartment it is very nice and cosy. Our next door neighbour is the Kyiv Zoo but so far they have been very model neighbours with not a sound from them. We are on one of the main streets of Kyiv but in the flat it is very quiet.

We have been out and about today stocking up our pantry and visiting the school where we will be working.  There are only 150 students so it is quite small but nicely set up. Because we do not plan on having a car while we are here we will be doing a fair bit of walking and this morning we were walking along the edge of  a park which is opposite our flat when Charise caught a movement in the grass quite near to us and there was a little reddish brown squirrel looking very cute.  At the moment it is raining lightly but the temperature has been quite pleasant since we have been here.
The adventure has begun.