Spring break in March

School holidays are done differently in the US system.  There is a very long break in the summer, three months.  Because of this there are not so many holidays during the rest of the school year. Other than Christmas when we had a little over two weeks the only other longer break was at the beginning of spring, hence referred to as - Spring Break.  We had a week's holiday.  It was so nice. Even in the Christmas holidays we had done some school preparation at times because we were at home; but in the spring we went away so it was the first time since August that we had seven consecutive days without any school work at all.

You can see foothills of the Carpathian mountains  in the background.  On the lake are two wild swans.  We walked past here most days and it was a lovely sight.

We spoke to a local resident one day as we were passing here and he remarked that it was good to see not one but two swans, that it wasn't good if there was only one.

We decided to go to the Carpathian Mountains region in the very west of Ukraine.  We went by train. There is a fast train service to the general area but it arrives in L'viv about 11.00 pm so we decided to go by the overnight train that arrives where we were staying at about 9.00 am, a much more civilized time for booking into your accommodation. We stayed just outside the town of Truskavets.  It is just at the foothills of the Carpathian Mountains and from the town you could see the mountains in the distance very beautiful.  In the winter people stay in Truskavets and travel to the snow fields.  Truskavets is a tourist town.  There is no industry there so the air is clean and fresh. In the seasons other than winter the main reason people travel there other than for the scenery and the quiet is for the waters.  There are many high rise apartment blocks which are spa resorts.  We also saw one quite large building where you could go and drink various waters.  We saw people with what looked like small tea pots.  In a large circular room there were taps and each had a different water.  People would fill up their teapot like containers and then drink the water via the spout. There were many of the containers for sale around the town and many were very elaborately painted with different scenes.  We watched but didn't participate.

Walking into Truskavets.  It took us about an hour each way.  Even though it was the beginning of spring it was still quite cold even when  walking fairly briskly.

We had walked a  hundred metres or so off the road into the forest. As you can see many of the trees still didn't have leaves.

The holiday resort we stayed at was about an hour’s walk outside the town and in the forest.  We could have caught a mini bus part of the way but whenever we went into the town we walked.  It was really nice walking through the forest.  The road we walked along for about half of the way was not used much so the walk was very pleasant. The forests here are quite different to the bush we are used to at home. The trees have more horizontal branches and many leaves so it is quite shady in the forest and the patchy shadows make beautiful patterns on the ground.  There is also very little undergrowth .  It almost looks as if someone mows it. Never having heard a woodpecker we didn't know the sound to listen for, but on one of our first days there we heard one in a park, in town and then knowing what to listen for we heard many of them on our walks.  It was special to hear them.  The leaves of the trees are so dense that you usually cannot see the birds you can hear. In the summer when we first arrived I really noticed the lack of bird sounds but in the spring you hear a lot and it is lovely.  In the parks in town we also saw many squirrels that are often  prepared to take nuts from people's hands. They are a different type of squirrel to this part of Ukraine.  The ones in the east were a chocolate brown with very feathery ears and tails. 

One of the cabins where we were staying. Each one had about a dozen rooms.

In Truskavets itself.  These are small booths aimed at tourists.  They are permanent structures but there were many small booths that were not permanent and we saw people packing up quite a bit of merchandise at the end of each day and then of course they had to set it all up again the next day.

We ate here almost every day. The food was Ukrainian and so cheap.

In Ukrainian the sign on this fire brigade station says:
to prevent, to save, to help.

This young lady slowed her horse down so it would be in the photo.  There were horse drawn carriages you could tour the town in . This was a government office of some kind but very typical of the older buildings in the town.

The last thing for this time is about our train journeys to and from Truskavets.  The fast train that I mentioned earlier takes about five hours to reach L'viv and then we would have had to travel south.  We decided to take the overnight train which went directly to our destination. Being new to Ukraine we didn't know what the train would be like. We had asked some people who had used the train and they just sort of said that we would find it an experience.  We did.  The train leaves Kyiv about 8.30 pm and we arrived about 9.00 am the next morning. We found out that we had booked on the least elaborate service.  The carriage was like a large open dormitory with double bunks on either side of a narrow aisle. Most bunks were across the width of the carriage but some ran the length of the carriage.  Ours were the length of the carriage ones. Not long after the train moved out Bill (tongue very much in cheek) asked when I was changing into my pyjamas.  Seeing as we were in a completely open carriage I was not changing.  However we soon found out that in Ukraine even if you are in an open dormitory carriage you do change into pyjamas.  There was a toilet at the end of the carriage but very small and everyone just changed where they were as modestly as they thought necessary.  Some people hung up blankets for family members, but most people just changed. Nobody seemed to even notice.  I do not know how men manage to sleep in the beds but Bill said he slept reasonably well.  The beds are very small.  The bed was about four centimetres wider than my shoulders and my feet touched the division to the next bed when I lay flat. People whose bunk ran the width of the train simply put their feet out into the aisle.  This was a hazard to avoid if you walked down the aisle after the lights went out (not of course that it was ever pitch dark).  I tend to spread out when I sleep but the bed was so narrow it was not possible so I didn't have the best sleep on the way there.  On the way back it was a little better. Most people was very thoughtful and considerate and kept their talking to a minimum.  People started going to bed about 9.30 pm and everyone quietened down.  The train of course stopped at many stations during the night and people got off and on.  We were on holidays so we could catch up on lost sleep and it was a most interesting experience especially when you look back on it after it is over.

Asked a passer-by in Truskavets to take a photo of both of us :)

A magnificent monastery complex

We had just come out of the catacombs (hence the head scarf). The size of the of the church in the                              background helps to give some idea of how vast the whole site is. 

We have now been in Ukraine for ten months and we have finally made a trip to one of the most prominent sites in Kyiv - the Kyiv-Pechersk monastery complex.  This is a huge area on the highest point in Kyiv and contains many, many buildings.  

This helps to see how it is the highest point of the city. All the buildings with green roofs in the foreground and middle distance are part of the complex. We were standing very near the church you can see in the distance with the scaffolding, in the previous picture.  In the far distance on the right of the photo you can see the other side of the river with the row upon row of residential high rises.

The complex, however, has been built in a very haphazard fashion and there doesn't seem to be any order as to where various buildings are located. It is a very ancient site and some parts of buildings date back to the 11th century.  There are many churches on the site and an Orthodox seminary which is under the authority of the Moscow Orthodox Church. It is a place where many people visit and tours of small groups are conducted. 

The lady with the pink scarf was the guide.  She always put the scarf over her head in the churches but it was only in the catacomb section that it was mandatory for the women. The explanations were not in English. You could have one in English but it was a lot more expensive and Bill could tell me about what he heard without the cost.  Seeing as I was not listening to her so much we have quite a few photos of me gazing upwards at the churches.

We went on a tour and it took an hour, but we saw just a small fraction of the area. There were many university-aged art students doing sketches and paintings of the buildings.

The whole area is very well maintained and as you can see the churches are magnificent structures.

The buildings are not all churches by any means. There are libraries and other things and one building (not one of these) was once a hospital.

 

There were tourist things for sale (see on the right) but it was very low key and did not intrude on the experience.

The churches are amazing with just about every speck of the interior either painted with scenes from the Bible or saints of the church or carved.

At the conclusion of the tour we were able to walk through a catacomb area. Priests in the distant past would live in small cells in this area. Some would live there for a number years, some lived all the remainder of their life. You couldn't see into the cells but the doors into them were unbelievably small.  The area was completely dark.  We were allowed to take a taper candle in with us for light and there were occasionally some feeble electric lights but I found it difficult to see my way.  There were passages and stairs. The passages were fairly low and very narrow.  The tourist information said it is a difficult place for taller than usual people and for people who are claustrophobic.  I am not especially keen on dark narrow places but I didn't find it difficult at all to cope with. My problem was that it was so dim and the path was not always very even so I was not always sure of my footing. The area where we could walk was not huge but there is another area as well which we did not see, maybe it is bigger.  There were a number of glass coffins where there were bodies from many centuries ago. The information says that the monks built the catacombs themselves but it didn't say how. Women cannot go into this area unless wearing a skirt and having their hair covered. I had come prepared. Even though it is a tourist site it is still a working Orthodox community and seminary so we saw quite a few young seminary student in ground length black robes moving around.

There was building work going on in one area. During World War 2 damage was done to the area. Many years ago not long after we married Bill's dad had read for me from a book called 'Babi Yar' (grandma’s ravine).  It recounts what happened in Ukraine and Kyiv in particular during the German occupation from Sep 1941- Nov 1943. At the present I am re-reading the book. In one part the author recounts what happened to the Kyiv-Pechersk complex.  He says there is controversy as to who caused it but many parts of the site had mines laid in it some months after the initial occupation of the city. These mine were then suddenly detonated. Official Soviet history blames German troops saying the German commanders were trying to destroy Kyiv and punish the local people. Others blame the Soviet troops for setting off the mines in order to cause as much damage to the occupying German army as they could.   No one knows for certain which story is accurate.  Anyway, one of the largest churches on the site was one of the buildings that was mined.  Only about an eighth of the large building was left standing.

This is the church that is being rebuilt.  As you can see it is almost complete after fourteen years of work.  On the other side there is still scaffolding in places. We did go into a small section but I don't know how much of the interior is still to be completed. The cupola on the left partially obscured be the tree is one that was damaged in the explosions and has not been replaced.

In the Soviet era in Ukraine after the end of the war many of the buildings in this area were turned into museums.  However, since Ukraine gained independence again late in 1991 work has begun to rebuild this important church.  Most of it is now complete.  One of the cupolas is obviously damaged. It has deliberately been left as it was when the building was mined as a reminder of the event. The churches are beautiful and magnificent. We hope and pray that many here will come to know the unsurpassed beauty and greatness of the Creator of all in the face of Christ.