Our geographers associations cultural geography trip this year was heading to Minsk (capital of Belarus) but we decided with 8 friends that we could do our own trip to Minsk but visit some other place before it and have a little vacation. Why not?
Kiev in Ukraine was quickly selected as destination before Minsk BUT getting to Belarus was so complicated and we ran out of time so we decided to extend our stay in Ukraine and then join the official geographers trip in Riga and then come back to Finland.
We started our journey early in the morning on 1st of April. First we flew from Helsinki to Stockholm, where we had wait some time before our flight departed to Copenhagen (this stop in Stockholm wasn’t our plan BUT Norwegian is on the verge of bankrupt and some planes are grounded because of the accidents).
Then we arrived in Copenhagen about at noon. We had about 12 hours to spend in Copenhagen so we headed to inspect the city. Weather was sunny and warm so day quickly turned to evening which meant that we should get back to airport and proceed to Kiev. We arrived to Kiev just before 1 am in the morning and after crazy taxi ride we were finally in our Airbnb.
Tuesday was day for a walk in Kiev city center. We checked few sights and just enjoyed for being abroad. In the evening we kept our student traditions alive and we had sittning (sitsit) in our Airbnb. We had our songbooks with us and we made some good food so everyone was having a really good time! (next day everyone felt bit hungover)
Wednesday was lazier day than Tuesday but we visited Tsernobyl museum and then just wondered again around Kiev. Nothing special happened on this Tuesday because we where waiting for Wednesday!
Wednesday was travel day again. This time we had tour booked to Tsernobyl! Tour lasted almost whole day and it was really really interesting. We visited Tsernobyl town itself, ghost town of Pripyat, took few photos in front of nuclear power plant itself, ate lunch in canteen of power plant workers and visited former soviet radar. Though day but it was all worth it! (I’m trying to keep this short because i could write so much only about this tour).
Friday was last day in Kiev and we again walked around the city and checked few sights, such as The Motherland Monument.
Saturday we left Kiev behind and headed to Riga for one night. Weather in Riga was same that had been in Ukraine: sunny and warm. In Riga we just walked around the old town, ate some good food and drank few beers.
Sunday was last day of the whole trip and after trendy brunch we joined the official geographers group that was going home from Minsk. Travel day again…
Ferry from Tallinn arrived in Helsinki 00:30. Home again! This was short report about our trip to Kiev and I tried to keep it short!
Using English on this journey was quite difficult sometimes as Ukrainians didn’t speak English very much. Tour guide on Tsernobyl of course spoke good English and we spoke with him about politics, war in Ukraine, corruption etc. In Denmark and Latvia English was language which was well understood and spoken. I would estimate that I spoke about 8h English on this trip.