Finally, here we are with the closing post about Kiev.
The question that may arise in your mind after reading all these posts could be “so, what to see in Kiev?” One area that you cannot miss and that you must visit is Pecherska Lavra district. Here you can admire a monastery that has in its depths catacomb labyrinths where mummies of ancient monks, saints and important people lay in the darkness. Getting down there is a unique experience, even if, to be honest, a bit disquieting. The white tunnels are narrow and you are not allowed to walk in with a torch but you must rely on the dim light coming from the thin candle they give you before entering the depths. Along your way, you can observe the worshippers praying silently next to the mummies. Once back to the surface you can wonder around the entire complex admiring its architecture, that contrast between the white of the walls and the shining gold of the domes. Here you can have a look to many different museums: the jewellery museum, the culture, tradition and decorative arts of Ukraine museum and the miniature and a literature one. But the area has a lot more to show, such as a modern art exhibition place called Mystetsky Arsenal and the Arsenal Memorial. Walking few hundred meters there is the Museum to the Great Patriotic War and its incredible huge statue to Motherland. A kind of titanium woman tall 62 meters standing on a 40 meters tall cone pedestal. This imposing woman soviet statue stands out the Kiev’s sky holding in her hands 12 tons of sword and shield. The places I’ve just mentioned are just few of the many you may visit. Then there are the Universities, the theatres, the Opera House, the Chernobyl museum, the botanical gardens, the riverside and many amazing churches where you may be surprised to discover that some of them were projected by Italian architects. During evening time you could just walk in one of the many nice restaurants offering delicious traditional local food.
Coming to an end it is difficult. This trip awoke in me a sufficient curiosity to push me to get back here as soon as I can and maybe visiting also other Ukrainian cities. Probably in these episodes I wrote about Kiev I dwelled a bit too much on the alive crisis and the war that Ukraine is living. This country looks at us Europeans with hope, every streetlight in the centre has two flags, the Ukrainian and the European one. It is a country with an amazing nature and a millinery culture. Kiev is a city up to the most historical European capitals, it has really everything, from the fun, the culture and a river that, during the hot summertime, with its beaches, refreshes people from the heat. So, the question is: why not visit it? Why end up here and find all those desert museums? The peril is somewhere else, but mass media aren’t that concerned about positive news so, in their perspective it seems better only to show Ukraine as country at war without showing the better part. A counter altar that would allow many people to survive and not wasting the big resource called tourism.
After four days in the company of great and helpful persons, after having visited a place where history is being written, a city that deserve full respect even if it is facing a hard time. I want to say just two things: a wish that Ukraine will soon find his peace back despite the foreign interests in it, and a goodbye to Kiev, convinced, as I am, that this is only my first time and not the last one here.
Here you can have a look to a photo gallery about Kiev.
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