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Kiev- Who's been and what did you make of it?
UEAAddick
Posts: 512
The History Society at UEA of which I am an active part of organise a history trip each year to a city in Europe. A mixture of a piss up and history. Nothing beats it!
On the trip we visited Chernobyl as an organised group trip and the rest of the four days we spent there was free time to explore the city for ourselves.
Travelled on Monday and came back on Friday night.
I'm came home from Kiev with mixed views on how the trip. A lot of it personal to how the trip was organised but a lot to do with the City in general.
The last two years with the society we have visited Krakow and Budapest and enjoyed both cities and had a brilliant time. However with Kiev I felt there was a real edginess to the city that I didn't get from the other two.
Wasn't impressed by the food heavily apart from the Christmas market which was unreal and had a bad restaurant experience.
Chernobyl was a great experience. However the inclusion of a gift shop selling t shirts saying, " Keep Calm I Survived Chernobyl" I found to be in very poor taste. The t-shirts of which we as a group were all given for free by Chernobyl tour guides I found very weird.
There was however a brilliant World War Two Museum complex, that i would definitely recommend. The churches were also stunning and visiting several on their Christmas Day added to that.
Overall though, it is not a place I will be travelling back to anytime soon. Sorry if I have upset or offended any Ukranian Addicks on this page.
Wondering if anyone has ever been and experienced any of what I've said or got a totally different experience
On the trip we visited Chernobyl as an organised group trip and the rest of the four days we spent there was free time to explore the city for ourselves.
Travelled on Monday and came back on Friday night.
I'm came home from Kiev with mixed views on how the trip. A lot of it personal to how the trip was organised but a lot to do with the City in general.
The last two years with the society we have visited Krakow and Budapest and enjoyed both cities and had a brilliant time. However with Kiev I felt there was a real edginess to the city that I didn't get from the other two.
Wasn't impressed by the food heavily apart from the Christmas market which was unreal and had a bad restaurant experience.
Chernobyl was a great experience. However the inclusion of a gift shop selling t shirts saying, " Keep Calm I Survived Chernobyl" I found to be in very poor taste. The t-shirts of which we as a group were all given for free by Chernobyl tour guides I found very weird.
There was however a brilliant World War Two Museum complex, that i would definitely recommend. The churches were also stunning and visiting several on their Christmas Day added to that.
Overall though, it is not a place I will be travelling back to anytime soon. Sorry if I have upset or offended any Ukranian Addicks on this page.
Wondering if anyone has ever been and experienced any of what I've said or got a totally different experience
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Comments
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Nice chicken.3
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I’ve not been, but wouldn’t the current political situation in the east of the country (and Trumps recent shenanigans) have an impact on the general mood in the capital? Not really the place that springs to mind currently when I think “piss up”.1
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@se9addick I definitely got the impression of a city that hasn't quite recovered from the troubles that it has only recently experienced.
30p pints make it defo a place for getting pissed in but the bars were very hit and miss. The best being some craft beer bar that was unsurprisingly a bit more expensive.0 -
Went to see England there in the Euros. Probably one of the funniest 2 day trips.. didn't see any of the history just the football, beer and many stunning ladies. Was a great vibe with no hint of trouble but purely football related. I do remember taking a picture of a breakfast menu in one restaurant as one of the choices was "selection of fat". Don't think it is a place for gourmet food!1
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30p a pint would (and does) make Blackpool an acceptable night out!UEAAddick said:@se9addick I definitely got the impression of a city that hasn't quite recovered from the troubles that it has only recently experienced.
30p pints make it defo a place for getting pissed in but the bars were very hit and miss. The best being some craft beer bar that was unsurprisingly a bit more expensive.1 -
Been 3 times with England, got jumped the first time in 2009 with broken ribs. Was only there for 12hrs before getting the 12hr sleeper train to Dnipro, which as an aside made Kiev seem like paradise = very edgy but cheap and raw.
2nd time 2012 and was there even less time before a sleeper train to Donetsk, felt very different and safer as the Euros were on.
3rd time, qualifier in 2013 spent 3 nights there and back to being very, very edgy on football day with only 2k England about in what is a very big City and many locals who wanted a pop.
Women incredible on the eye, still dirt cheap and had a cracking couple of nights, the highlight being ending one night in a club in a warehouse out of town where at a certain time all the bar staff got up on the bar and started lobbing huge cakes into the crowd - talking big Victoria sponge type cakes - surreal. Brother pulled a sort who with all seriousness asked if he could speak to David Cameron to get her into England lol.
Visited Chernobyl on this trip which was an eye opener and very similar to Auschwitz in many respects - very sobering.
Im sure that not long after this trip the tanks rolled into the main square where we had spent a lot of time. Another surreal feeling.
A raw, edgy place certainly, but becoming more westernised all the time esp as the younger generation evolve.1 -
I concur on the food, in 2009 in Dnipropetrovsk our breakfast in the hotel was 1 cold boiled egg in shell on a large plate. Mmmmmm.Athletico Charlton said:Went to see England there in the Euros. Probably one of the funniest 2 day trips.. didn't see any of the history just the football, beer and many stunning ladies. Was a great vibe with no hint of trouble but purely football related. I do remember taking a picture of a breakfast menu in one restaurant as one of the choices was "selection of fat". Don't think it is a place for gourmet food!
And mine and my wife’s struggle to get pregnant I’m sure was due to the bowl of green slimey stuff I ate in Chernobyl 😉1
