Naturally, the boys were very impressed with this tanker and wanted to follow it and the tree watering lady all the way down Kreshtatik, Kiev's main boulevard.
The other day I saw a huge Ukranian flag flying outside a farm shop in the sleepy Suffolk village of Yoxford, halfway between Lowestoft and Ipswich. I must investigate further. Misha says that it could have been Equador, but I've since checked and Equador's flag is nothing like it. No, it was Ukraine all right.
Below a mobile radio station broadcasting the day's celebratory events. Every time I am in Kiev some celebration or other seems to be going on. Maybe a tradition from the old days that they just can't shake off. Even the old van is in national colours.
We did lots of walking. Poor boys, they were exhausted each evening. This is Vladimirsky cathedral.
A view of the Academy of Sciences on the left before the heavens opened.
Shevchenko boulevard, at one end of Kreshtatik and just round the corner from the parents' flat, with Lenin still standing.
Kreshtatik.
Where the wild things are. The back alley escape route from the parents' flat.
Drinking in the best coffee shop in town.
Kreshtatik on the day of the technical schools' graduation celebrations.
Onlookers outside the Nadra bank (a recent casualty of the banking crisis).
Andrejivsky spusk, Bulgakov's former street. Gregor sporting Shaktar Donetsk shirt in orange.
St Michael's cathedral - a 1990s replica of the original building that was blown up in the 1930s.
St. Andrew's church, at the top of Bulgakov's street.
Carpets.
A typical 1900s Russian empire style, neglected and fenced off in the Podol region by the river, itself undergoing enormous development, not all for the better.
No comments:
Post a Comment