August 31st - Official Potato Pancake Day

Our first full day in Kyiv and we hit the streets hard. A great way to break in my new trail shoes. After a hearty breakfast of potato pancakes with sour cream and kompot, we headed out to explore the city. We had no real itinerary in mind - just walk around and see what happens. We have 3 days here so we knew we could hit the sights on another day.

We decided to try and head to Andryisky Uzviv - a curving cobblestone street covered in stalls selling everything from embroidered blouses to kitchy Soviet memorabilia. On the way there we hit at least 3 churches.

The first was St. Sophia, which has a tall bell tower entrance. This was the most expensive of the three - with a 2 hryvnia entrance to the grounds and 5 hryvnia fee to climb the tower. We didn't go into the church itself - 20 hryvnia and no photos. I'm so picky now - no photos and a fee deters me. The church was stunning, with 7 gold domes. The view of it from the tower - yep, I climbed - was perfect for photos. We made it all the way to the top and I have to say there was a little vertigo happening.

We next hit St. Michael's which is quite breathtaking as well - robin's egg blue with another 7(?) gold domes. The entrance through the walled exterior is covered in Byzantine style religious frescoes. Some fantastic photography here. Next to this church stands a smaller, traditional Ukrainian church with the dark wooden shingle roof and tower. Quite the contrast to the more baroque looking colourful one next door.

Then we climbed, and climbed, and climbed. As we hit the art street (kitsch street?) we hit St. Sophia of Kiev church which was even more extravagant - more Roccocco style this time. No photos inside again but the exterior was forest green with gold accents.

Our adventuring took us all over side streets that had what we thought were abandoned buildings, covered in graffiti, which we have now termed "buildings with character" as it seems that here nothing is really abandoned, no matter how decayed or decrepit. When walking along the Dnipro River, we came upon some industrial buildings that had some great colour and look to them, only to be encouraged away by a very unhappy dog and his owner.

Dogs - they're everywhere. They run in packs and they seem to stake a claim to a square or parkette and if you invade what they feel is their territory, the barking starts and they follow you until you get to the nearest crosswalk. We watched so many people get "escorted" to the crosswalks today only to be escorted ourselves in the afternoon by our angry barky guide. WE steered clear of any dog gangs the rest of the day.

An amazing, interesting, eye-opening first day. Getting picked up at 7:30am for Chernobyl tomorrow. Need to rest up.