Greater Kyiv
To Pro lisok Tour is Complex 700m Zhytomyr 125km Khmelnytsky 308km Y f Lviv 530km tW Ivano-Frankivsk 565kra i 'Jo Chernihiv marshrutlcy stop 2km , I Chernihiv 140km , Novhorod Siverslc gt ATMs and credit cards. For a reliable, centrally located bank try Raffeissen Bank Aval Map pp68-9 vul Khreshchatyk 46a S 9am-8pm Mon-Fri, 9am-6pmSat amp Sun M Teatralna .
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Crimean Tatars are renowned as industrious and entrepreneurial, and their former capital is now a great base for budget travellers. For more, visit the Crimean Association of Local Tourism Initiatives www.ethnotour.crimean.biz . Hotel Prival 478 46, 522 70, 472 35 www.prival .crimea.com vul Shmidta 43 dm bed 10-16, d 45-50, tr 48, 2-3 person cottages 66-100 g 6 This Butlins-style holiday camp that's Butlins, Ukrainian division offers breathtaking vistas of the limestone cliffs, a sauna, pool,...
Pereyaslavkhmelnytsky
The 'museum city' of Pereyaslav-Khmelnytsky was the hometown and stronghold of Cossack leader Bohdan Khmelnytsky, and also where he signed the infamous agreement accepting Russia's overlordship of Ukraine on 18 January 1654 p28 . Today the whole town, with its 23 museums, has been declared a historical preserve. The highlight is the outdoor, 32-hectare Folk Architecture Museum admission 3uah Sl0am-5pm . Annoyingly, you must pay about 2uah extra to view each of the traditional houses on display....
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Sea Port Morskoy Vokzal MopcKon BoK3aji Tram Stop trams to Arkadia 75 C6 Otrada Beach Unaac Orpafla 22 F6 Panteleymonivsky Church IlanTejienMOHOBCKaa C5 44 Potemkin Steps IIoT MKHHCKHe CTyneHLKH.,24 C2
Economy
Although Ukraine remains one of the poorest countries in Europe - and in some rural regions looks it - its economy has been in rude health recently. There's even a danger of overheating, as price rises over 14 outpace wage gains about 6.8 . Property price hikes are extreme. In Kyiv they've shot up by at least a third in recent years, making this the most expensive eastern European city. With one-bedroom apartments starting at around 100,000, the capital is even dearer than Amsterdam. Whatever...
SLEEPING D Ake
IbTem. Kojiomhh 4 C2 We hesitate to call Kosmach off the beaten track, as the only road to it is very beaten indeed. The road's infamous potholes and Kosmach's vigilant villagers even managed to keep the Soviets at bay after WWII. Today the place is famous among Ukrainians for the private Oleska Dovbush Museum, run by Mykhailo Deidyshyn. It's a very Pan's Labyrinth experience. Deidyshyn claims the hut housing his small museum is the one in which the 'the Ukrainian Robin Hood' see box, p144 was...
Tours
The lion's share of the marshy, bird-laden Danube Delta Biosphere Reserve, Europe's larg est wetlands, lies in Romania. Few tourists enter from the Ukrainian side, but those that do are rewarded with extremely affordable half- to full-day boat tours through the delta's unique waterways. You can visit the Danube's terminus - dubbed the '0km mark' -or take a bird-watching tour. When we visited in June, our guide dropped us off on a small island populated by thousands of terns and their...
Midrange Mjq
Vesuvio Pizza Map pp68-9 235 6681 vul Reytarska 25 pasta 25-30uah, large pizzas 25-32uah M Zoloti Vorota Vesuvio serves delicious pizza and sensibly priced Italian food in a quiet, no-frills space near Zoloti Vorota. Long one of Kyiv's most popular pizzerias, it now has a second location on bul Tarasa Shevchenka, near the St Petersburg Hotel. Both restaurants deliver. Kray Map p66 285 6887 vul Kutuzova 12 mains 25-40uah M Pecherska The Chinese chef at this well-kept secret in Pechersk cooks a...
Dnipropetrovsk
m 056 7-digit Nos , 0562 6-digit Nos pop 1.08 million You don't have to be a rocket scientist to come to Dnipropetrovsk these days, but at one time you practically did. As the USSR's leading missile production base, it manufactured ICBMs and was closed to all outside the industry. However, that era is long past. Soon after Ukrainian independence the city gates opened, Europe's largest missile factory turned to making space hardware instead and its director, Leonid Kuchma, packed his bags and...
Black Sea Rave
Most people west of Berlin have yet to hear of it, but long-term attendees complain that the annual rave Kazantip www.kazantip.com Jul-Aug has become too commercial. Launched in the early 1990s as an apr s-surf party near a half-finished nuclear reactor on the northeastern Kazantip peninsula, the five-week-long festival moved, because of local pressure, to Popivka, north of Yevpatoriya. Today 'the republic of Kazantip' is a huge Ibiza-style operation with enormous stage sets, international DJs...
Ivanofrankivsk
8- 0342 6-digit Nos , 8- 03422 5-digit Nos pop 204,000 With pastel-coloured neoclassical buildings, neatly landscaped gardens and orderly, tree-lined cobblestone pavements, the spruced-up city of Ivano-Frankivsk is increasingly becoming one of Ukraine's most pleasant. Just a few years ago 'Ivano' seemed more of an unfinished colouring-in book, where the renovated centre bled off into a monochrome past. But somebody's been busy with the paintbrush, while the service, food and general ambience...
Lifestyle
Just as there is no one 'typical Ukrainian, so there is no single average lifestyle. This is still a relatively poor, second-world country. However, it's fair to say that daily life has become marginally easier for most households since 2005. The average national wage has been increasing at about 36 a year. In 2007 it was at 1426uah 275 a month, peaking in Kyiv at an average 2400uah 480 . In The Ukrainians Unexpected Nation academic Andrew Wilson examines Ukraine's founding myths, how its...
Cinema
'Basically, the Ukrainian film industry is dead right now,' producer Vladimir Horunzhy told movie-trade bible Variety in 2006. 'The only filmmaking that's going on is production servicing for Russian films and TV,' Horunzhy asserted, before modesdy announcing that he and his partners were starting a revival with their sentimental AIDS drama Orange Love www. orangelovethemovie. com . Horunzhy is right that independent Ukraine hasn't had enormous cinematic success. Links to Russia and, further...
Sea
Cruise and cargo ships are the main users of Ukrainian ports but some useful scheduled ferry services do exist. Please note, however, that some routes frequently change, so double-check any information you can just before leaving home. From Ilyichevsk, outside Odesa, Ukrferry 8-0482 344 059 www.ukrferry.com travels year-round to Varna, Bulgaria one-way passenger 10, car 85 to 135,20 hours, Ilyichevsk departure 6pm Monday, Varna departure 6pm Wednesday . It also sails to Georgia, heading for...
Pyrohovo Museum of Folk Architecture
Ukraine is dotted with 'open-air' museums like this, full of life-size models of different rustic buildings. However, the Pyrohovo Museum of Folk Architecture Map p66 526 2416 vul Chervonopraporna admission lOuah S museum 10am-5pm, grounds sunrise-sunset , 12km south of Kyiv, is one of the most fun and best maintained. Two things make it stand out. Firstly, the quaint 17th- to 20th-century wooden churches, cottages, farmsteads and windmills are divided into seven 'villages' representing...
Solo Travellers
More independent travellers are making their way to Ukraine, and though the rest of the country still doesn't exacdy cater to their needs, the growing network of hostels does. Apart from a few well-trodden international train routes eg Przemysl, Poland to Lviv , these are the only places you can really bank on meeting other travellers. However, if you're moving around, rather than staying in one city, you'll never feel alone in Ukraine. Whether pressed against local people on a crowded,...
History Dts
Although their northern neighbours disparagingly refer to Ukrainians as 'little Russians', it was Ukraine that was home to the first eastern Slavic state. So historically Ukraine is the birthplace of Russia rather than vice versa. Another irony is that this initial state, Kyivan Rus, was founded in the 9th century by neither Russians nor Ukrainians, but by Vikings - an indication of just how much foreigners have meddled in the region's convoluted history. Invaded by Mongols from the east,...
Kharkiv Xapkib
If Dnipropetrovsk, Donetsk and Zaporizhzhya are the strong-arm muscle of Ukrainian industry, then the more northerly city of Kharkiv is its nerve centre and brain. It's a leafy university town that makes the unusual boast of being the birthplace of the Soviet nuclear industry. And it combines vast, agoraphobia-inducing plazas -particularly its unforgettably enormous pi Svobody - with charming early-20th-century buildings on more compact streets. With more than 100,000 enrolled at the...
Rivne Pibhe
Standing in Rivne's central maydan Nezal-ezhnosti, you couldn't be anywhere else but THE WORLD OF NIKOLAI GOGOL MarcdiDuca Although Taras Shevchenko is the greatest literary figure within Ukraine, one of the best-known Ukrainian writers outside the country's borders must be Nikolai Gogol. He was born in 1809 to impoverished parents in the Cossack village of Sorochyntsi near Poltava. It was here, in deepest rural Ukraine, that Gogol spent his formative years before leaving for St Petersburg in...
Uchansu Waterfall Mt AyPetri
Heading northwest from Yalta, bus 30 from the main bus station takes you within walking distance of two beauty spots in the mountains off the Bakhchysaray road. From the Vodopad Waterfall stop about 11km out, you can walk to a platform 5uah beside the lOOm-high Uchansu Waterfall. From the Karagol stop, 3km further up the road, a track leads to forest-ringed Lake Karagol. Both spots have a restaurant. Continuing past the Karagol stop, the road winds spectacularly up to the top of the range 13km...
Hotels 1
Hotel Krim 271 701 baza hotelkrim.yalta.crimea.ua vul Moskovskaya 1 6 s 8-11, d 18-50, tr amp q 22-70 gl Despite its best efforts to be dour and utterly unwelcoming, this ex-Soviet number remains megapopular for its low prices and central location expect noise . The cheaper rooms for each category have a shared bathroom, and the priciest doubles and triples have air conditioning. Hotel Otdikh 353 069 otdyh yalta.com vul Drazhinskogo 14 s 30-70, d 45-100 Hotel 'Relaxation' was a 19th-century...
Kalynivsky Market
With its own police station, first-aid point and dedicated bank branches, the 33 hectare Kalynivsky Market www.kalina.cv.ua, in Ukrainian S 8am-2pm is like a town unto itself. As a conduit into Ukraine for goods from neigh bouring countries, it attracts some 50,000 shoppers a day and is a frenetic, wonderful phenomenon. You might not want to buy anything in particular, although it is good for baseball caps and trainers, and it's great for people-watching. Take any of the numerous marshrutky to...
Kaniv Kahib
When Taras Shevchenko died in 1861, his famous poem Zapovit Testament requested his fellow countryfolk bury him on a hill overlooking the great Dnipro River where, after rising up and liberating the land, they could 'freely, and with good intent, speak quietly of him'. Kaniv, 162km down the Dnipro from Kyiv, is the spot. In 1925 the steep and scenic bluff overlooking the river called Tarasova Hora Taras' Hill admission 8 to 4pm Tue-Sun luah, other times free S sunrise-sunset , was designated a...
Entertainment
Dnipro River, flanked by a promenade and busy vul Naberezhna Lenina nab Lenina , parallels pr Karla Marksa to the north. Handle both your snail-mail and email needs at the post office pr Karla Marksa 62 internet per hr5.50uah S 8am-8pm Mon-Fri, 8am-7pm Sat . Check out http gorod.dp.ua for the latest hotel, restaurant and club news. I Window shopping is one pleasant Dnipro- Ea petrovsk experience. Tree-lined pr Karla Hja Marksa has plenty of retail therapy, but the latest shopping hot spot is...
Sleeping
In addition to the following options, Salix Tours has a secluded riverside cabin available for 15 per person per night, exclusive of boat hire 60 . Bring your own food. Venetsiya 313 74 vul Lenina 19A r per person from Si5 P K The brand-spanking-new 'Venice' represents exceptional value, with big, bright, comfy rooms and fluffy rugs. Most rooms share squeaky-clean bathrooms and there's a restaurant. Pelikan Tour 8-067 483 5207 d with shared bathroom, per person 20 . Pelikan Tour runs a homy...
Budget
Duke 252 200 www.blackseahostels.com vul Yekaterynynska 25 dm 11-15 2 The owner adjusts prices here to match the cheapest beds in town. Enter through the ground-floor courtyard and find the entrance immediately on your right, then go up to the 3rd floor. There is free wi-fi but few other perks. HIU'IIM Odessa Hostel 252 200 www.blacksea hostels.com vul Yekaterynynska 25 dm 25, d with shared bathroom 40 g E S The Odessa shares the same building and the same Aussie owner as the Duke hostel and,...
Kherson Xepcoh
Kherson is pleasantly situated at the mouth of the Dnipro River, but the main reason to come here is, rather, for what lies around the city. The city is a popular, if not terribly convenient, jump-off point for the Askaniya Nova Reserve right , and there are also several less-ballyhooed excursions closer at hand. One such excursion is to the Swedish village of Zmiyivka, whose first citizens begged Catherine the Great to move them here to escape serfdom in Russian-governed Sweden in the late...
Kurortne Kypopthoe
Tiny and remote Kurortne is where hardcore travellers now head, although it already boasts a modern resort complex. Construction continues apace - possibly at an alarming pace -in this hamlet below the striking rock formations of the Kara-Dag Nature Reserve. One of Kurortne's most popular attractions remains the nearby Lissya Bukhta Fox Bay . For the full libertarian experience, you can pitch a tent at this sandy beach about a 2.5km walk west from Kurortne. Clothing is optional here and the...
Hiking Hoverla
It's hardly the most remote trail in the Carpathians, nor the most litter-free, but the popular ascent to Ukraine's highest peak is relatively easy to achieve. On a clear day, the expansive views from Mt Hoverla are also breathtaking. Initially, the trail follows the Yeremcha-Vorokta-Zaroslyak road, so how much of the way you want to hike and how much you want to cover by marshrutka which go as far as Vorokhta or taxi is up to you. About 6km south of Vorokhta Map pl42 , you will need to take...
nieHHa YKpama
This southerly region once helped make the Russian empress Catherine great. As part of her territorial acquisitions in the late 18th century, it vastly expanded her dominion and brought Russia huge wealth by opening it up to the Black Sea. Novorossiya, or new Russia, as it was ambitiously christened, had been a Wild West-style no-man's-land between the domain of the Cossacks and that of the Crimean Tatars. Under Catherine it became a melting pot, as Bulgarians, Germans, Greeks, Italians,...
Russia
o 11. '.lyviii'l. Okhtyrka lt O . . Nova gt unaivtsiO u hytiya oSharf amyanets- A W sj Podilsky Mogyliv Museum bul Kafedralna 14 admission 2uah, S 10am-5pm Tue-Sat , housed in a former Orthodox church. Here you'll find stuffed specimens of indigenous foxes, elk, wolf and wildcats lurking in dioramas that accurately portray Polissya's forested topography. The Korolyov Cosmonaut Museum 372 653 vul Dmytrivska 5 admission 7uah S10am-1 pm amp 2-5.30pm Tue-Sun, closed lastThu ofthe month , named...
From Rakhiv To Romania
Officially there are two ways of travelling from Rakhiv to Sighetu Marmatiei in Romania. On Monday, Wednesday and Friday, there are two train services one morning, one afternoon from nearby Teresva across the border to Sighet. Any bus from Rakhiv to Uzhhorod, Khust or Mukacheve will get you to Teresva one to two hours . Additionally, in 2007 a car-pedestrian bridge was opened across the Tysa River between Solotvyno and Sighetu Marmatiei. But the train has been stopped in the past to thwart...