Holiday in Ukraine: nostalgia trip in a land full of memorials to war
From Moldova in the south to Chernobyl in the north and to Lviv, western Ukraine retains a timeless charm for all that its past is filled with grief
More than most countries, Ukraine is a victim of geography; straddling the divide between Europe and Russia it is part of both and part of neither. The Dnieper River bisects the country, north to south, and is so wide, 19th-century writer Nikolai Gogol claimed that “birds fall down before reaching its middle”.
Vast arable lands, Orthodox churches calling people to prayer, apple orchards, Cossack myths, Jewish cemeteries, Black Sea sunshine and Carpathian snow are all typical of western Ukraine. East of the Dnieper the land is flat and monotonous, covered in beet fields and slag heaps, the western edge of a thousand miles of Russian steppe. Ukraine’s current problems stem from this clash of East and West.
Those to the east of the Dnieper look to Russia for their lead, those to the west speak a different language and look to Europe. Travelling through the west of the country, the question I am asked more than any other is, “Russki?” After I assure my questioner I am not, the mood lightens, the smiles broaden and the vodka measures become more generous.
Most trips to Ukraine start in the capital, Kiev, which straddles the Dnieper, although it is clear on my 20-hour train journey north from Moldova that few travellers arrive by rail. The old train may be half-empty as it clanks through the dusty summer countryside, but the guards, who greet me with sharp salutes and little taps of the heels and are dressed in starched nylon uniforms, are busy nonetheless.
At each small country station, where fat bees buzz around the pink flowers that frame the wooden buildings, the guards jump off, pick up bundles that have been left conveniently in the tall grass and bring them aboard, to add to a heap of frozen meat tied in white string bags that is growing in the carriage corridor.