Trip to the Ukraine, Days 9, 10, 11, Kiev

From Kaniv, burial place of Shevchenko, we sailed upstream to Kiev, the capitol, arriving on September 26. Kiev is one of the oldest cities in the world, dating back more than 1,500 years; it is sometimes called the "Mother City." The locals spell it "Kyiv," and pronounce it "Keeve." At a time London had a population of 5,000, Kiev had 25,000.

We toured the city and learned more about how Stalin treated the people of the Ukraine. During a time of good harvests, he starved to death farmers because they would not willingly give up their farms as required by Stalin's version of Communism. So Stalin took their harvests and starved to death more Ukrainians during the "Great Hunger" than the number of Jews Hitler killed. There are very few statues of Stalin left in Ukraine, but most statues of Lenin have survived.

Stalin, who had studied for the priesthood, tore down a very large number of churches in Kiev and elsewhere. One church was spared, however, because the French Ambassador went to its defense. I think that is the church in the photo at the bottom. It is a slightly smaller version of Haggia Sofia in Istanbul. Most of the destroyed churches have now been rebuilt.

The next photo up is "The Great Gate of Kiev," the inspiration for a piece in an orchestral suite entitled "Pictures At An Exhibition," by Mussorgsky. (The music was the first thing Carol thought of when we saw the gate.)

We went to the Kiev Opera House and saw the "Barber of Seville." Carol posed by the orchestra pit. The opera was very well done and was sung entirely in Ukrainian which, our hosts told us, is the second most musical language, Italian being first.

On Sunday we saw the Mormon Temple being build in Kiev, top photo. We flew home on September 28 through Moscow; with several plane changes and it took 30 hours to get home.

Trip to the Ukraine, day 8, Kaniv

On September 25, we stopped at near Kaniv and visited the burial site of Taras Shevchenko, a rebel-rousing poet and artist who wrote in Ukrainian after the Soviet Union banned the language. In defying the ban, he probably saved the language. In addition, he prodded the Ukrainians to long for independence, which he did not live to see. Ukraine has no one like George Washington, and Shevchenko is the nearest to a national hero of Ukraine, and is known throughout the world (though not previously by me). There are monuments to him throughout the world, even in Washington, D.C.

The bottom photo shows us walking up the stairs from the ship to the top of the hill where the great man is buried. Next photo up shows Wilf, Meka, and Kim overlooking the river and our ship. There is a giant statue of Shevchenko but the light was not right and I could not get any detail of his countenance. The top photo is of a barge moving by.

He died at age 47, having spent most of his life in various prisons, and is buried on a beautiful hillside overlooking the great river because of something he wrote.

Here it is in English.

The Testament

Dig my grave and raise my barrow
By the Dnieper-side
In Ukraina, my own land,
A fair land and wide.
I will lie and watch the cornfields,
Listen through the years
To the river voices roaring,
Roaring in my ears.

When I hear the call
Of the racing flood,
Loud with hated blood,
I will leave them all,
Fields and hills; and force my way
Right up to the Throne
Where God sits alone;
Clasp His feet and pray...
But till that day
What is God to me?

Bury me, be done with me,
Rise and break your chain,
Water your new liberty
With blood for rain.
Then, in the mighty family
Of all men that are free,
May be sometimes, very softly
You will speak of me?

Trip to the Ukraine, days 5, 6, and 7, The Dnieper

On September 22, we sailed back across the Black Sea from Sevastopol to the delta of the Dnieper River (Ukrainians refer to it as Dnipro). This time, sailing the Black Sea was uneventful with calm waters. The balance of our trip ,was sailing up this river, which is very large. Combine that with the flat land along the river, "steppes," (think Kansas) and the river widens in places to miles. At one time there were rapids here and there, but dams have been built in these locations. What this means to those in boats is LOCKS. One of the five locks we went through is the highest in the world.

On September 23, we visited the island where the Cossacks headquartered, the city of Zaporizhia. The island protected them from their enemies and they took over a large portion of the Ukraine from there. In the morning, we visited a museum on the island and in the afternoon saw a horse show put on by actors pretending to be Cossacks. Cossacks were great horsemen. Below is a video of Wilf participating in this. Then, we boarded the ship and ascended the world's highest lock. See the video below

On September 24, Thursday, we visited Kremenchuk where we wondered around, looked at the modern shopping centers, and I bought a Pepsi and a candy bar. Aah! The food on the ship was very good, but they had only Coke and had no candy bars.

Trip to the Ukraine, day 4, Yalta -- Part 2

Here is the famous photo of the "Big Three." I will later add the photo of the "Three Wise Guys" taken in the same location. (My camera battery was flat, so the photos were taken on Kim's camera).

Trip to the Ukraine, day 4, Yalta

On September 21, we drove from our boat in Sevastopol across the Crimean Peninsula. On the way we stopped at Alupka Palace. During the month of February, 1945, the "Big Three," Roosevelt, Churchill, and Stalin met at the Livadia Palace near Yalta and made final decisions concerning World War II. Churchill stayed at Alupka and Roosevelt stayed at Livadia. Stalin, I think, stayed in a Dascha not far away, right on the Black Sea (maybe the same one where during the 1991 coup Gorbachev was placed under house arrest and replaced by Yeltsin).

The bottom photo is Alupka Palace and you see our group, minus me the photographer, going in (the two young people work for Wilf's company and are acting as our guides). The Palace is located on the side of a very high mountain and the next photo up shows the view of that. If your eyes are sharp, you can see a tram going up the mountain suspended from a cable. On the other side of the palace is the Black Sea. The photo above that shows the outside of the rooms where Churchill stayed during the conference. He choose this location, even though it is about 3 hours by winding roads from the conference location, in part because it looks like an English castle. The top photo shows the front of the Livadia Palace, built by the last Tzar, where the Big Three met, negotiated, and signed the agreement.

Trip to the Ukraine, day 3--Part 2

Here is something incredible! Germany, during WWII had a fleet of submarines in the Black Sea. To protect them from the eyes of the allies, they built this base. After the war, the Soviet Union took Crimea back and improved the base for their nuclear submarine fleet. The base was a very secret, and very cool, way of servicing those submarines. There is a bay off the Black Sea into which the submarines sailed. They then went right, left, and right again and then into a tunnel! They were serviced inside the tunnel and then moved through the tunnel and out a different way. I wonder if the U.S. knew about this?

The top photo shows the bay in the foreground and the Black Sea beyond. It is not apparent from this photo, but a ship sailing by on the Black Sea and looking in would only see a small bay. The middle photo is a diagram of the man-made tunnel. Note that they came in one side and out the other. We did not have time, but for about $4 we could have gone into the facility. The bottom photo is the actual tunnel. I think this is cool.

Trip to the Ukraine, day 3, Yalta

We left Odessa on the afternoon of September 19 for the Crimean Peninsula. This meant sailing all night on the Black Sea in our little riverboat. During the night we awoke during a serious (to me) storm causing the boat to rock, roll, shimmy and twist. During the Second World War, Crimea was in the hands of Russia and a major battle was fought there. Now there are memorials to the soldiers and sailors who fought the Germans. In about 1951, Stalin gave crimea back to the Ukraine and, with the Ukraine now an independent nation Russian no longer owns the peninsula. Pursuant to a treaty, the two nations each have a Black Sea fleet headquartered in Sevastopol. We saw both Russian and Ukrainian sailors there. The two nations are not friendly, but the locals say no problems exist between the sailors of the two nations. The treaty expires in a few years and will probably not be renewed requiring the Russians to leave.

The top photo shows our ship leaving Odessa; in the foreground are Carol and Meka (looking surprised at the jelly fish), and Kim and Wilf are in the background. The second one down shows German bullet holes in a very old Orthodox church. The third from the top shows a memorial located in Sevastopol honoring the Soviet soldiers and sailors who fought together; the memorial is a stylized bayonet and sail. The bottom photo, like the one above it, honors the two branches and shows a sailor and a soldier in warlike poses. (The man in the foreground, with his wife, is a retired U.S. nuclear submarine captain). Meka Voge and Romaine Romney are in the background. The Crimean peninsula remains a major naval area.

Trip to the Ukraine, days 1 and 2, Odessa

We went to the Ukraine with our friends Kim and Romaine Romney. Our hosts, Wilf and Meka Voge, were already there. We left the local airport on September 16, and landed in Odessa, Ukraine on September 17. We were met by our hosts at the airport and driven to the port; we stayed the entire time on a riverboat. Odessa is a newer city started by Katherine the Great. It reminds me of Washington, D.C. with its straight, broad streets. On the evening of September 18, we went to the Opera House there to see Swan Lake. The opera house is an exact duplicate of La Scala. For about $12 each, we got seats in a box. The top photo is the Opera House. The middle one is of the six of us in our life jackets during the mandatory safety drill; from left to right: Wilf Voge, me, Meka Voge, Carol, Romain and Kim Romney. The bottom photo is our sister ship.