The city of revolution

So it happend that my first big, waiting long time travel was Ukraine, Kyiv specifically... Exactly from 16th till 20th of February. Pretty good timing, huh? Well, I can only say on my defense that I didn't really had a choice, I went there with some business to do.

Despite of that I still managed to see something and I have to say that this city made me fall in love with from the firts sight. Or maybe a bit later, as the first thing I've seen was a huge block that seemed to not have any windows! It is the building of The National Library, just next to the main bus station that I got to on the bus from Chisinau.

Then, straight to the metro, that I really recommend, even people who cannot read cyrilic alphabet will be fine, there is an English caption under all the Ukrainian stations' names. After I got out it was still very easy, there are boards with the tourist map all over the city center.

I had a little walk, passed university building and Vladimirskij Sobor and I reached my place to sleep for today - Railway hostel at Semena Petlury str. Making long story short - not recommended! Perfect location and comfortable bed but don't count you will be able to sleep.

In the afternoon some more walking, Museum of Ukrainian Literature and the desired one - Maidan! Just 3 days before the violence broke out. Impressions? The atmosphere of a family picnic. With some seriously looking people around  with their faces covered of course, but anyway very nice feeling. Lots of people that were just walking through, parents with children, on the stage a couple just getting married and after a performance of Ukrainian traditional music. Shortly, a lot of fun. It was hard to belive how fast the situation got so bad from that point.


The the business time came out, I was sitting few days in the small village near Kyiv, watching TV and not beliving what I see. And the last day, on Thursday, when the situation got really bad came time to go to the city to catch a bus. They were saying that the roads are closed and we can not even get into, but we were lucky and we got to the city without any problems. Then it got a bit more complicated. Almost all the buses were cancelled, including mine. Luckily, there was one that went. 7 hours of waiting at the station, but still very good news. At the beginning, lots of people were waiting in the McDonald's nearby, but they close it like 2 hours earlier and told us to leave. So we waited in the waiting hall of the station, with the TV on showing what's going on so close to us. The atmosphere of tension and nervousness. The bus welcomed with a relief.

After the bus left we still managed to see the face of revolution, the road was blocked by the protesters, we passed their barricades like 5 times. Twice they got in to check the bus, but we were able to go without too long stops.

Maybe it was nothing special, but when we crossed the Ukrainian border I was so happy it is over and I'm at "home" now, in a safe, welcoming place. But Kyiv will have another place in my stories, I'm sure of that. Just in better time...