First day in Kiev: 7/13/17
Early Thursday morning, we got an Uber and drove the 45 minutes to the Vnukovo International airport to fly to Kiev (it cost less then 20 American dollars). Because Ukraine and Russia hate each other, there are no direct flights from Moscow to Kiev. So, we had to fly from Moscow to Minsk, Belarus, then from Minsk to Kiev. The flight was easy and uneventful. Once we got to Kiev, it was only a $3.00 Uber ride to our hotel.
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Hotel in Kiev |
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Hotel in Kiev |
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Garden courtyard behind our hotel |
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Ukraine money - The Hryvnia. The exchange is 1 USD to about 26 Hryvinias. Everything there is insanely cheap. |
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It had to be done - We had to go to McDonald's! Surprisingly, there were a TON of McDs in Kiev. And they were super nice and always packed! |
Once we got settled and Gary got his McDonalds, the next order of business was to get some food and drinks to carry around with us for when we were walking around the city. So we walked to the nearest grocery store to get food. I think grocery stores give you a real insight to how the local people live. In the US, everything in a grocery store is packaged and contained. However, it seems like every other country I have been to has food laying out in the open. Usually, it's no surprise to me...to see fresh bread just laying in baskets in the open air or eggs not being refrigerated. However, I was really surprised when we saw a bin of raw chicken...just sitting out in the open on ice. People would put on a plastic glove and pick up the chicken they wanted and put it in a bag. You can see what I mean in the picture below.
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That there is a bin of raw chicken sitting on ice out in the open. Put on your plastic glove and choose the chicken you want! Whoa.... |
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There was a second story in this grocery store. You went up the flat escalator with your cart. The cool thing was that there were magnets in the conveyor belt that held your cart tight in place until you reached the top and got off. The magnets were so strong that you could not pull the cart off while you were going up. |
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The easiest thing to do is take a picture of the transit system so you know all the stop names...then you can follow where you are in the system and where you are going. |
2nd day in Kiev - Walking around the city - Friday, 7/14/18
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On our way to the metro station, we saw this water access point. We asked one of the girls at the hotel what this was, but she didn't know...or she was confused by what we were asking. People would come here with jugs of water and fill them up. Free water I guess? Or maybe it's a natural spring and people want natural spring water instead of tap water? We tried it and it was just cool water. |
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Someone stopped along the road filling up water bottles at the spring. |
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We took the metro to Maidan Nezalezhnosi stop and got out. This is the main downtown area of Kiev. Independence Monument commemorating Ukraine's freedom from Russia. |
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Founders of Kyiv (Kiev) Monument |
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We saw some Muslim girls modeling their Hajibs in Independence Square. |
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Entrance to St. Sophia's Cathedral 11th century orthodox church |
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St. Sophia's Cathedral Church |
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We saw this a lot in Kiev. No toilets. Just a hole in the ground to pee into and then a handle to flush. Usually there was no toilet paper either. AND, if there was toilet paper, you were required to throw it in the waste basket, not into the toilet. So most bathrooms smelled really bad. Thank goodness I carried around wipes with me everywhere! lol |
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Walking towards the Dnieper River from St. Sophia's Cathedral, you encounter the Behdan Khmelnytsky monument |
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Keep walking towards the river and you encounter the Princess Olga Monument |
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Just passed the Olga monument, is the Saint Michael's Golden-Domed Monastery |
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One of the doors to the Monastery |
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In many places, you were not allowed to take pictures inside of the church. Sometimes I would sneak them though. This is a picture just inside the Monastery. This is blessed water or holy water that you could drink. |
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We saw a wedding procession getting ready to go into the church. |
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Sometimes having OSHA isn't a bad thing... |
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Behind the monastery, there was a funicular train that took you to the bottom of the hill. |
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Exit of the funicular station |
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At this point, we were at the river. In the distance you see the friendship arch. We visit this one of the other days. |
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The Dnieper River |
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The Chernobyl Museum. We toured this before we toured the real thing! |
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You could listen to an English recording of the history of the disaster. |
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Small model explaining what happened in the reactor that April day in 1987 |
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Contrary to popular belief, there were not tons of animals born with 2 heads or giant monster squirrels or anything like that. Not saying that the land, plants and animals aren't messed up from the radiation, but they only found one such case of a 2 headed pig and it's in the upper portion of this picture. |
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Coffee Cats! lol |
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Monument Petra Sagaidachnogo. We passed this on the way back towards the funicular park. |
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As we are walking up this steep street to St. Andrew's Church, there were lots of street vendors selling things. We got most of our souvenirs from these vendors. |
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Beautiful Saint Andrew's Church at the top of this hill....Oh, it's closed. Thanks Ukraine! |
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They HATE Putin in the Ukraine...can you tell? I wanted to buy something like this from a street vendor, but I was afraid that we would get in trouble since we had to travel back to St. Pete's to fly home. |
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This blue suit was what all the business people were wearing. It's all about blue! |
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I bet grumpy cat doesn't know he has a cafe in Kiev! |
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Somewhere near Bessarabska Square is this 'farmer's market'. Unlike our farmer's market, they have raw meat hanging. You cannot imagine the smell from all that meat and fish just out in the open. I think we made it 5 minutes before running out before we puked. |
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Just off the famous Khreschatyk St. near Bessarabska Square, there is this amazing restaurant! It was by far our favorite place to eat! Varenychna Katyusha. It seems to be some kind of chain, because we saw other walking around Kiev. We ate there 2 or 3 times. It was amazing! |
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The most amazing food ever. |
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We may have walked a ways our first full day in Kiev! |
Bus tour of Chernobyl: Saturday, 7/15/17
Saturday morning, Gary and I set out for the main train
station in Kiev to meet up with our bus tour group. We had kind of strict rules to follow: We had to wear long pants / long shirt, no
open toed shoes, we had to pay for everything on the tour in cash, and we had
to have our passport with us at all times.
If anything was wrong, we were told that we would not be allowed on the
tour. There were 2 vans waiting for us just
passed the train station. They split us
up evenly between the 2 vans. We were in
a van with 3 kids from Italy and a couple of kids from Australia. All guys, except for me. Go figure.
Our tour guide was Natalia. We took
off around 8am heading for Chernobyl. It
was maybe a 1-2 hour drive there. I
slept in the van of course.
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Our Chernobyl Bus Tour! Outside the Kyiv-Pasazhyrskyi main train station |
Our first stop on tour was a check point where Natalia took
our paperwork and passports and went to talk with the guards. We all got out to stretch and go to the
bathroom. It was at this point that
Natalia noticed that my shoes were open on the top….they weren’t open toed, but
she said that I was not allowed to wear those shoes into the exclusion
zone. I was at a loss for words…I
thought my shoes would be fine. Thank
God one of the Australian guys says “Hey, I have an extra pair of socks that
you can wear”. I thanked him profusely
and put the socks on. I honestly would
have cried if I had to sit back the entire trip just because my foot was a
little exposed.
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Our first check point. Natalia is in the blue pants. |
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Thank you to the Australian guys who gave me a pair of his socks to wear |
She explained that when the accident first happened, the Soviet Government kept it a secret from
their own people and from the world. The
people that lived near the reactor really thought nothing of the noises they
heard and the fire they saw because there had been smaller accidents before and
it was never a big deal. At first, I
think they just needed to get the fires put out, so they sent in firemen to
that job. However, at the same time,
winds were blowing all the reactive dust westward across Europe. Other countries started picking up these high
levels of reactive material in their airspace and they confronted the Soviet
government about what was going on at Chernobyl. That’s when the Soviets finally fessed up and
let it be known that the reactor was melting down and it was a dangerous
situation. I think it was 3 days before
the government finally told the people in the surrounding towns that they had
to evacuate. Most people didn’t want to
leave because they didn’t understand what was going on and they just didn’t
understand how something that you can’t even see with your own eyes could be
harmful.

At first, they sent in machines and robots to try and bury
the debris and cover the reactor so that more particles didn’t get out. However, the radiation was so strong that
the machines could not operate and they just broke down. The only machines that would work without
breaking down immediately were humans.
So, the Soviets ‘recruited’ local men to be ‘Exterminators’…those people
who would go into the reactor to bury the radioactive debris. The first of the exterminators worked about a
week or so before they got sick and died.
They eventually modified how long each exterminator was allowed to work
in the area before taking a break from the radiation. But, over the weeks and months following the
accident, most all of the exterminators died from radiation poisoning.
After the check points, our first main stop was this little
abandoned village. Natalia pointed out
what the buildings were at the time.
There were homes, a small school and a doctor’s office. The buildings were all falling apart and had
been ransacked over the years. Copper
wires had been pulled out of the walls and the aluminum window edging had been
taken as well. She did explain that even though everyone was
told that everything was contaminated; people still came in to loot places of
their valuables to sell. She said that
there were reports of people buying TVs and stuff on the black market for
really cheap prices, because they could not afford to buy a TV in the store,
only to get sick from it because what they had bought was something that had
radiation in it. It was sad to think
that these people had to leave everything behind because of the contamination.
And now that Ukraine is it's own independent country, they are stuck with the mess of Chernobyl and they are still dealing with its effects. .
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One of the first abandoned villages we walked through within the 'exclusion zone' of Chernobyl |
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A lot of the town signs were used as propaganda to promote Russia's use of nuclear energy. |
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There were stray dogs everywhere! My guess is that there are so many strays because people had to abandon their pets when they were forced to leave. I'm guessing the dogs just became sort-of wild and kept breeding in the area. Everywhere we stopped there were stray dogs begging for food. It was difficult to watch. |
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Memorial to those who perished in the fire and the containing the contamination of Chernobyl |
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These are some of the machines that they tried to use to move dirt and contain the contamination. They are brightly painted because the paint helps hold in the radiation that is still on or in the machines. |
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As we get closer to the reactor and the main abandoned city of Pripyat, we keep have to stop and go through checkpoints. |
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Natalia explained that this huge radio tower was pointed directly at the US. It just sits there abandoned now. Some people had Geiger counters with them. During our walks off the paved path, the Geiger counters would sometimes go off. because we would be in a 'hot spot'. |
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The radio antennas were huge |
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Near the radio antennas there was a building that was used for the military. I guess they had classes there. She also talked about how some of the buildings were disguised to be day cares, but they were really for military people. |
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This was an elementary school or a day care |
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The large half dome is the new sarcophagus built around the ruins of reactor 4 |
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Monument to the accident right outside of reactor 4 in Chernobyl |
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For lunch, we ate in the cafeteria with some of the power plant workers. You have to step onto this machine that checks your radiation level. We were told that if you 'fail', it probably means you just have some dirt on your shoes and all you need to do is go brush them off outside. No one from our group ever 'failed' this check. We had to do this one other time when we finally left the exclusion zone. |
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I actually really liked the food here! The salad on the right was just beats and carrots. The meat was some kind of schnitzel. I remember that the roll was sweet...kind of like a dessert. And the cloudy pink drink is something w/ milk I believe. It has a funny texture but it's actually pretty good. |
Crazy as it sounds, this power plant is still functioning today. We asked them how can people work here everyday being so close to the reactor. It is not a problem for tourist like us, because at the end of the day we didn't get any more radiation then what you would get from an X-ray. She said that the workers here will work for 30 days and then they switch off to another group of people for a while. That still seemed like a lot of exposure to radiation though....that's like getting an X-ray every day for 30 days...and then repeating that again after 30 days of no exposure. I'm not sure I would want to go in to the exclusion zone day after day...but since so many people here are poor and need the money, I think they are willing to do whatever it takes to make ends meet and live.
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So many stray dogs outside the cafeteria begging for food. |
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Other monuments in honor of those who had fallen. I do remember at this specific monument, you had to be very careful where you were taking pictures and pointing your camera. They were VERY specific that we didn't take any pictures of their engineering office building. I was too afraid to even find out what would happen if you did. |
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Sign at the entrance of Pripyat - this is the town where most of the power plant workers lived. The town was considered a utopia. The town showcased everything: apartments, restaurants, grocery stores and an amusement park. I guess Russia would have dignitaries from other countries tour Pripyat to show them and the world what a powerhouse Russia was and how far forward Russia had come. The reality is that just down the road from this 'utopia' city were people that had nothing to eat and had to stand in lines for bread. |
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As we walked around Pripyat, Natalia would hold up pictures showing what the landscaped looked like before compared to what it looks like now. I know that 1986 was over 30 years ago, but I was still floored as to how much nature had taken over the town in those 30 years. |
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Abandoned grocery store |
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The famous Ferris wheel - The accident happened a few days before the grand opening of the amusement park, so this Ferris wheel never actually got used. |
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Bumper cars |
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There was a large stadium and soccer field. You can't even tell where the field is anymore because it is covered in trees. You can see remnants of the track and the stadium here. |
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Apartment buildings |
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gas masks |
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Sports complex w/ a gym and pool. |
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Me and Natalia. This was honestly the best tour and the most interesting thing we did during our vacation. The is a 2-day tour, but I felt like we got our monies worth from just the 1-day tour. We were gone for over 12 hours! |
Last day in Kiev: 7/16/17
We took the metro to Arsenalna station and walked along the river to see these different sites
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Museum on genocidal Ukrainian famines - We didn't tour this, just observed |
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Kyiv historical reserve - basically its an entire area of churches, cemeteries and a monastery. |
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In the distance on the right you can see the HUGE motherland monument. We walked to that later in the day |
Within this cultural center is a system of caves that you can tour. Inside the caves are rooms with the bodies of saints or monks displayed in glass cases. Apparently, it's a pretty big deal to the religious people of Kiev. Almost all of the women wear scarves over their hair....the tourists don't have to I think...because there are just too many people to police...but I think it's highly encouraged and you kind of feel disrespectful if you don't do it. So, I bought a scarf to wear over my hair. When we entered, there were just mobs of people trying to get inside. We had no idea what we were doing, so we just followed what everyone else was doing. We bought little candles to hold in our hands and we followed the crowd. You weren't supposed to take pictures, but this was just too bizarre to NOT sneak a few pictures of.
We followed the line of people through these tunnels. It was so small and cramped....there were tons of people trying to walk through the area....the ceilings were very low...everyone had a lit candle...the woman all had scarves on their heads...somewhere in the crowd a young child was bawling.....all I could think of was this was the most dangerous fire hazard I have ever been exposed to and I almost felt claustrophobic. There were rooms off to the sides along the stretch of tunnels. Even more people were packed into these little rooms. Inside each room was a coffin with a glass lid so you could see the body. I don't know why, but these monks or saints were very important to pray to. People would kiss the glass lid. They would get on their knees and pray. They didn't push or shove too bad, but they frantically wanted to get to the coffin to touch it or pray to it. At one point, I was so overwhelmed by all of this that I just stood out in the tunnel hallway and stared. Somehow, Gary found me and looked at me and was like, "What are you doing? Are you ok?". It was just so bizarre and strange. We could not stay in there for very long, so we made our way out quite quickly. When we popped back outside we both looked at each other to say "What the F was that???".
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Me, my scarf and my candle. |
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The preserved body of one of the monks or saints |
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The preserved body of a monk / saint - you can see his mummified hands sort of in the center of the picture. Their faces were covered with decorative fabric...the only piece of their body that you could see were their hands folded across their chest. |
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Small, narrow tunnel to the rooms with the monks. |
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One of the cemeteries within the grounds |
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The motherland monument - a lot of the monuments and parks around Kiev really center on their freedom from Russia |
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All part of the park where the motherland monument stands. |
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Outside the Ukrainian state museum of the great patriotic war - still in the same park as the motherland monument |
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The Motherland Monument - This statue was enormous. |
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You can get an idea of how large these monuments were by comparing them to the size of the people in the background |
After walking to the motherland monument, we couldn't figure out how to get down to the river...so we ended up walking back the same way we came....we headed back past our metro stop to the Friendship arch.
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Circle of Flags of Ukraine |
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Friendship of Nations Arch |
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Friendship of Nations Arch |
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Looking out over the Dnieper River from the park where the friendship arch sits. |
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The city of Kiev from the Friendship arch park |
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On Sunday's in Kiev, there's this street that they shut down and turn into a pedestrian walkway. It's the main street through the city - Khreschatyk Street. There are vendors and street performers. It's just kind of neat to be able to walk down the center of a very busy street |
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In order to use the metro, you have to buy these plastic coins. I think it cost us a couple of American dollars to ride the subway anywhere in the city. |
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This is some of the 'traditional' Ukrainian clothing we saw...no one really wears this daily...I think they only wear this kind of clothing during holidays or festivals. |
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Our last meal in Kiev was at our favorite restaurant there! |
Next Stop - Fly back to St. Pete's and then home to the USA!