11 November. Kyiv

Passed through a rynok, went to our hotel to leave belongings. Walked out to the central square, then went to a periwinkle coloured church. Mikhail? Recently redone. Some architectural bits nearby, very cute. St Sophia Sobor was visible from across the street – this is the first and possibly most famous church in Kyiv.

Passed the golden vorota, not very golden, nor overtly historical.

12 Novemer. Kyiv

Went to main square (Maidan Nezalezhnosti), photographed militsia, hardworking as always. Then to ul. Bankov 10, a house with a variety of heinous gargoyles made out of cement. Continued on to the pecher’skii lavra. Saw a multitude of churches in there: a big white one. A one room, very small one (12 c.) with a single blue dome.

Entered the caves. Went to another church nearby, only peered inside, there was a wedding going on or just ending. Yet another church we were able to get into because some ceremony – something private, was going on.

Snacked in a very expensive café (I think that was the most expensive meal of the whole trip! Even including a posh lunch in Sochi at the end!) Nonetheless, it was very nice and had both good food and a pleasing atmosphere.

Walked back towards town. I changed money, and we visited a variety of bookstores. Found a medical bookstore, to my joy. Then internet café, and food shopping.

13 November. Kyiv

We went to the Chornobyl museum. Overwhelming with things to read, unfortunately there hasn’t been much added to give an overview and explanation of the event and the aftermath – nonetheless it was a powerful museum; though not quite on par with the Holocaust museum of Washington DC.

Andriivski sobor – the church made by Rastrelli, which indeed has a style similar to some of the churches in Venezia. This is considered his best work, and is very graceful despite the plethora of detail. We continued down the tourist alley by this church, where a painting market was going on (a Saturday event, apparently). Finally went to the St. Sophia Sobor – yellow with blue domes. Went inside. Heavy but balanced. It had the most complete decorative work of the churches in Kyiv, along with a second story balcony which I whimsically approved of. The windows actually let in light, which is always a nice addition in these dank Slavic churches.

Hopped on train. We got the coupe alone, which is always nice.

14 November. Simferopol

Luggage into storage. Wandered through town to bus station. First stop: book market. It was sunny and lovely, local market, people very nice. A stark contrast to the big cities.

Returned toward town, stopped at a park to watch the rides. Bought some food in a shop and ate sitting outside near the station. (Outside! A novelty in itself.)

Caught an elektrichka to Baxchisarai, it took about an hour. We walked around the town after settling into our hotel (oh so soviet, we never did figure out when, or where, the showers were. but the price was definitely right.) We saw the one church in town, white with black onion dome, small and quite cute. Too dark to photograph. Had dinner in a Kafeteria near the station – and it was good.

15 November. Baxchisarai

Walked to the Khan’s palace, wandered around inside the courtyard. Found the graveyard, the graves are mysterious stone boxes – flower boxes? Attempted to read some of the arabic inscriptions, without a lot of luck. Went from there on to the monastery (another 40 minutes or so). Went inside – it’s built into the wall of the caves so the church has a low ceiling, maybe 6 feet, but it is half windows. Incredibly lovely and airy. A surprising amount of mosaic artwork.

Walked up to the ? Lots of sinitsi (blue tits) and a bird the natives told me was a soika. Took an inventive route, we went through an arch into the woods and tromped along some goat trail for awhile through masses of dry leaves, we finally crossed the valley but got to the site at the back side. Interesting, and a nice view. By very carefully traversing the path alongside the stronghold wall we managed to get to the proper entrance and not fall off the cliff. (A feat in tennis shoes.)

Fortress was first created by the golden hordes when they controlled this area. We returned by a more direct route, and returned to the palace. This time we entered the harem, saw the famous fountains (Fountain of Tears, P was deprecating but I liked it, Pushkin notwithstanding.)

We ate at a cheburek joint across the street – rather empty at this time of year but we were stuffed with bureks – a serving was 6 of them!

After buying supplies we retired to our room to try out the local wine. Bad.

16 November. Sevastopol

Took bus to Sevastopol in the morning. Found our hotel by asking the bathroom-lady, she gave us great advice and super directions. Hotel was freakishly huge and lavish – hurrah for the off season. Checked out the waterfront and the city’s statues, windy and cold for the former, depressingly soviet for the latter.

Wandered to the ruins. Hm, this required traversing a number of forbidden zones, scooching under a few fences and picking our way through a tragic urban landscape of the fingerlike peninsulas between the city and the ruins. Ch was fascinating, it was a large Greek outpost from about 300-100 BC and the biggest city they had this far north. The ruins are still being excavated but are nonetheless stunning in size and layout. Modern church in the vicinity is very nice, with interesting designs inside, almost celtic. Unfortunately, despite the sun there was a beastly –12 degree wind, so after some tea we took a trolleybus back to town, wandered through the rynok, bought supplies. Dined in a place called grandmother’s kitchen – wonderful food. Nice bookstore next door, too.

17 November. Yalta

Left the hotel and hopped on a bus to Yalta. It took longer than I expected. The sun came out, drowsy and warm, and the view was of breathtaking heights and sparkling teal sea. Arrived disoriented, and immediately found a lady renting out a nice little room. Settled in and went to wander around. Went along the naberezhnaya to the Lenin statue, found the rynok. Very tempted by honey, pomegranate juice, some yummy little green fruits.

Bought my return ticket – from Sochi. Cheap, on the plus side, but miserable, on the foreshadowing front. Walked up a hill to this pink church that we saw. It had interesting – again, almost celtic patterns inside. We came down the hill, saw the church again and went to see it again thinking it wasn’t the same thing.

Went to the other church in town. A service was going on, just spent a moment gazing at it.

Had dinner at a neat little restaurant café, was outside although covered. And the miracle of eating dinner outside!

18 November. Yalta

Hopped on a marshrutka to go to the falls. It took us all the way there; our guidebook was terribly misleading on this point. (A bad guidebook altogether, but Russia is plagued with the same problem.) We tested out all the forbidden paths and tried to extrapolate how magnificent the falls would be if there were water. We took a trail back down through the field of stories and by the zoo. We went down a road and found the trailhead that our guidebook had failed to direct us to. Continued on the main road to the Swallow’s Nest, now an italian restaurant. Walked around it – cute but not all that stunning, other than the dropoff. Took a taxi back to town, and made ourselves spaghetti for dinner.

19 November. Feodosia

Cleared out of our apartment, and as the day was sunny and balmy, went to the water and sat on benches for a few hours.

The guidebook misled us yet again – all paths lead to Moscow if you’re in Russia, and similarly, if you’re in Crimea, all paths lead to Simferopol. So, we finally shared a taxi with this lady to Simferopol, and she gave a rundown of all the tourist sites as we passed (so we could regret what we were missing, presumably) and tried to interest the driver in political talk about the extraordinarily depressing state of the elections.

Arrived in Simferopol, again, sunny and beautiful. We clearly picked the wrong place to get a tan this time around. Found a bus to Feodosia. It took an hour, not as long as could have been expected, but the stupid thing had a radio and so we had to listen to horrific music the whole time.

Checked into the station hostel, beautifully soviet in the best way, everything simple and cheerfully painted. Freezing room but nice staff. And stupendously cheap. Wandered downtown, walked around a bit. Only got to the water after dark, unfortunately. Came back and ate at a little family restaurant. Decent food and entertaining ownership.

20 November. Sadly in transit

Up and out early, caught the first bus to Kerch. More horrific music. Interminable rain. Got to Kerch and it was pouring rain and depressing. We managed to get, almost immediately, onto a bus to Novorossiysk, by sprinting. Not sure when we were going to get there, but I had to be in Sochi by the next evening. More rain. Bus took forever because the ferry decided not to run, customs officials had never seen a multi-entry russian visa and fretted endlessly.

Luckily no rain on the ferry, although wind and dastardly cold. Chatted with two locals – fascinating people, and the accents, which vary from the clearest russian to total Ukrainian, are very interesting to listen to. Rained all afternoon, and bus was horrifically cold. My toes got wet and did not dry out for two days. Got to Novorossiysk at about 6. Immediate consulatation of the bus schedule showed that we had to take the night bus to Sochi. Still pouring rain. We trundled through town looking for a money exchange for P, then finally settled into a café, where we got to participate in Olya’s birthday party and chat with some local boys (to my delight), although they weren’t really locals.

Hopped on the bus and headed off. The militia picked on me at every stop, but I couldn’t complain too much as it gave me some desperately needed chances to pee. (Besides, sorry, yeah, I’m the blond, American chechen tourist-terrorist you were looking for. How’d you guess?) Arrived in Sochi at 6 am, where it was, naturally, pouring rain.

Lounged for awhile in the bus station, put my stuff into storage and went to find P a hotel and boat information. All successful. P managed to pick up a local and speak English with him – he took us to a café where we had some tea. Wandered around town a bit, whined about the impossibility of changing our Ukrainian money, and had lunch in a lovely and posh restaurant. I hopped in a marshrutka to the airport, giving myself a good couple hours leeway. Unfortunately. I waited about 10 hours in the airport --“airport” meaning a huge drafty room with enormous open doors and leaking ceilings, where you wait until they call your flight over a totally incomprehensible intercom, and where, since you have no choice, the café charges you 5 times normal prices for everything. The final few hours were spent playing cards with Kolya, who was a lot of fun. Got on flight and fell asleep immediately. Got to Domededovo at 1 am, unfortunately, and after the marshrutka to the metro, had to pay outrageous sums to get home, just because I have a stupid accent. The snow was a relief from all the rain, but I’m not sure I wasn’t better off in Yalta…