Ukraine - Lviv

Ukraine was a country high on my list of places to visit. Torn between East and West, it can't seem to decide whether to move closer to Russia or the EU. It is in fact the only Eastern European country that does not have joining the EU as an official goal and recent political turmoil shows it could still go either way.

Just like any other European city...

Getting there was not easy - a 7 hour train journey from Warsaw to Przemysl on the border, and then a dilapidated old Ukrainian bus across to Lviv, Ukraine's second city. It was probably the worst bus I've ridden on, with the seats not firmly secured to the floor and a worrying stench of diesel fumes throughout. A nice introduction to Ukraine!

I really should make an effort to learn this alphabet

To be honest I had absolutely no idea where my hostel was in the city, and I soon discovered everything was in the absolutely impenetrable cyrillic (Russian) alphabet. Luckily, of all people I was sat next to the owner of a travel company who kindly took me on the tram to the hostel, which was the only one in Lviv.

The book market

I set out to do some sightseeing and found it to be very similar to other Eastern European cities. In fact, Lviv was historically a Polish city, right up until the second world war when the USSR moved the borders of Ukraine westwards, swallowing up the whole area. The architecture and feel of the place still seems to me very Polish.

On top of the hill

I climbed the hill dominating the town, where the ruins of a castle now lie, before climbing back down to visit the market. Just as in other former USSR states, there are many relics left over to buy including medals, old uniforms and propaganda posters. I settled on some Soviet coins from the time of the Moscow Olympics in the 1980s, which aren't too rare but I liked the design.

Soviet War Memorial

In contrast to the overall European atmosphere of the place, there are still areas with a Soviet feel, especially with the monumental 'Social Realist' sculptures scattered around.

Close up of the war memorial

One of the most interesting places in the city is the main graveyard. Hanging around graveyards isn't normally something I would do, but this one was particularly beautiful with many extremely elaborate and ornate gravestones and shrines. Interestingly, almost all of the buried had Polish names, and there were big groups of Polish tourists wandering around taking photos and placing candles.

Another war memorial, this time in the graveyard

Late at night I decided to head back to the hostel, which turned out to be a lot more difficult than I thought. It was pitch black, with no moonlight and there were, amazingly, no streetlights. In fact they were there, just not switched on. I had to make my way across the entire city in total darkness, without tripping over the cobbles, uneven paving stones and bewilderingly large holes randomly dug in the road.

One of the random holes, this time in daylight

It was not a particularly fun experience, especially as I could at times hear voices close to me but not see anybody at all. Thankfully, I made it back safely to the hostel, where the owner just laughed and said "Yeah, it's not like England here". Well I know that now!

Ukrainian nationalist hero, you won't see many of these in the east of the country...

In fact the biggest problem I had to overcome was the sheer rudeness and unhelpfulness of the local population. Nobody spoke English, which I really don't mind at all, but many seemed to only pretend not to understand my attempts at sign language which had worked everywhere else in europe. Normally pointing at your watch and then the train would work, but apparently in Ukraine they don't understand even simple things like this. Coupled with the alphabet being unreadable for me, I was not able to take a train back to Poland and had to settle on a bus, which was easier to work out and yet still involved a taxi ride across the city to the main bus station which is conveniently 7km from the centre!

The totally bewildering train departure board

The bus ride back was amazing - I was the only foreigner on the bus and absolutely everyone else, the driver included, was smuggling. They were strapping cigarettes and alcohol to their arms and wearing sleeves over the top, putting them down their trousers, in the engine compartments, they even used screwdrivers to remove the air conditioning panels and hide bottles of vodka in there! At the border, despite bribing their way across the Ukrainian side with US dollars, the Polish customs were having none of it, forced everyone off the bus and searched everybody one by one. Luckily I got out of it, waving my British passport at them, but the guards were furious with everyone else and arrested seemingly half of the bus. In the end it took 3.5 hours just to cross the border! I had been warned about the likelihood of smuggling on the buses, but thought it was exaggerated. I think I'll pay more attention in future...