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Tag Archives: Ukraine
Riding the Kiev Funicular
Funicular railways seem to be quite common in European cities, and the Ukranian capital is no different. The Kiev Funicular is a 238 meter long railway opened in 1905 that links the top and bottom of a hill. Here is … Continue reading
Posted in Tourism, Trains
Tagged funicular, heritage railways, Kiev, railways, Ukraine
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Newsagents: then and now
Here’s a traditional newsstand on the Kiev Metro. And the modern equivalent in Moscow – a bank of newspaper vending machines. Given how the internet has decimated traditional print media, how long until even the vending machines disappear?
Posted in Everyday life
Tagged Kiev, Kiev Metro, metros, Moscow, Moscow Metro, newspapers, Russia, Ukraine
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Диггерство – the urban explorers of Russia
In the English speaking world the practice of exploring tunnels, drains and abandoned buildings is known as urban exploration. Russian speakers have their own term – Диггерство – which translates to ‘digger’.
Get your Crapdogs and VD in Kiev
There are plenty of foreign names that look funny to an outsider – I found a few in Kiev.
‘You break it, you buy it’ at Russian restaurants
Restaurant menus around the world are usually pretty simple, but in post-Soviet countries some restaurants include something extra – a section titled «бой посуды» (“battle dishes”).
Farewell to the Chernobyl sarcophagus
For thirty years Reactor 4 at the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant has lay beneath a massive steel and concrete sarcophagus, protecting the outside world from any further radioactive contamination following the 1986 Chernobyl disaster. But 2016 has seen this iconic scene change forever, with the completion of the New Safe Confinement structure.
Mobile coffee trucks on the streets of Kiev
Before I visited Kiev I never thought that it would be a city that takes coffee seriously, but it appears that the local residents love to drink the stuff – coffee carts fill the streets.
Smoking in the former Soviet Union
Cigarettes are dirt cheap all across the former Soviet Union, hence why smoking is so prolific. In Kiev I found cigarette packs for sale between 7 and 30 Ukrainian hryvnia – about US$0.85 to US$3.70! And cigarette displays were in … Continue reading
Kiev to Rostov-on-Don by train
All aboard for another look out the train window – this time the 20 hour journey south-west from Kiev, Ukraine. Our next stop was the Black Sea resort of Sochi, but due to a lack of direct services we made our way to the Russian city of Rostov-on-Don, where we would change trains.
Posted in Trains
Tagged Kiev, out the train window, Rostov-on-Don, Russia, Russian Railways, snow, travel journal, Ukraine, Ukrainian Railways
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Bilingual directional signage on the Kiev Metro
On my visit to Kiev, I was pleasantly surprised by how easy it was to get around the city via the metro network – the key being the well designed directional signage.
Posted in Trains
Tagged Kiev, Kiev Metro, language, metros, passenger information, Ukraine, underground
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