After a nice trip along the Black Sea coast that took me past the cities of Mykolaiv and Kherson, I entered Crimea a couple of days ago and found my way to Krasnoperekops'k. Here I scheduled a day of general maintenance. A number of things needed the attention of professionals: my favourite cyclepants were falling apart, so I brought them to 'Atelier Sylhouette' (of course the tailor didn't speak any English so we had to communicate by drawing, which was funny in itself, and the result turned out to be fabulous!), my stock of cookies and other sweet energisers were running out, so I stocked up on them at the local backery, and my laundry needed to be done urgently. I asked the receptionist at the hotel if there was a laundry service, by grabbing my shirt, making a washing movement, and asking: "Service?" and "Mashyna?" (a word Ukrainians use for anything with an engine inside). The answer was no, so this morning I set out to find detergent. If you think you can find this in any grocery store, than you are wrong. There is a special store for this, full of soaps, washing powders and other chemicals used for cleaning. Quite difficult to find though. Coming back to the hotel, the senior administrator saw me with the package of powder, and immediately directed me to... the laundry service. Well, at least it saved me from the act of manually washing the cloths. So now, after the 'domestic' duties, I have time to write a bit about the last couple of days. (Picture shows fish being hung out to dry on the road from Skadovsk to Kalancak.)
First of all, one of the downsides of making the road by bicycle that has been on my mind from the very beginning. Every day you get close-up views of the roadkills that modern-day traffic comes with. By now I have seen many erased cats and dogs, many birds (that could have died of natural cause and dropped dead from the sky as well, but in that case many of them just so happen to fall on the streets), countless hedgehogs, number one victim of the 'eracer', a badger, a brown furry type animal that I couldn't define, a goat, and two snakes, not to mention the dozens of crosses, tombstones and fake flowers on the roadside that I come across daily. Accidently I drove over one of the dead snakes, mistaking it for just another crack in the road. I hated that moment, and thought of it as a bad omen. Now, a month later, I have to say that it seems as if my rear tire was jinxed. About seven punctures in the tube, and an outer tire of which the heel thread (iron wiring inside the rubber) started to surface, causing a puncture with every bumb that I hit. According to Cycledad (my cycle-loving father) this normally only happens when brutal force is inflicted on the tire (e.g. if the tire is taken of with a screwdriver). Now, I might not be a specialist, but I try to be careful with the material that I am using. So it must have been the snake's final bite.
(Having a Café Américano at the boulevard of Jaltuskiv.)
At the time I posted my last entry, I was about to enter the city of Odessa (pronounced 'Adiessa' by the people that live there), and it became the longest stay I had in one single place so far: three nights in Illichivs'k, which is located 10 kilometres underneath Odessa, is relatively new (built during the sixties and named after Lenin's middle name: Iljitsj) and has one of Europe's largest harbours. Quite a neat place, with a nice stretch of sandy beach, a couple of night clubs and clean streets. I stayed with Iryna and Yuri and their daughter Svetlana. The first day of sight-seeing, Yuri gave me a grand tour around the city. I try not to write too much like a travel guide, but this walk through the old city centre of Odessa has to be described at least to some extent. We started with the humorous sculpture garden of the museum of Literature, after which we had a look at the staircases of the famous steps scene from Eisenstein's movie 'Battleship Potemkin'. The stairs are 12 meter in width at the top and 24 at the bottom. Like this it seems as if the sides form two parallel lines when you stand at the top. That's also from where the statue of the french governor Duc de Richelieu looks out over the harbour (Richelieu who fled France during Napoleon's rule and joined the Csar's army, was governor of Odessa at the beginning of the nineteenth century). After that we passed the Palais-Royal and the Opera, where I bought a ticket for that evening's show. I asked if my hosts wanted to join me, but that wasn't the case. The tour was finalised with a tour through the Philharmonic, a building designed by the Italian architect Mario Bernardazzi, where Yuri had talked his way in miraculously, as the building was actually closed.
After a quick stop at Illichivs'k (Yuri insisted that I would first go home to put on some decent pants, and if he had his way, also one of his dress shirts; I reminded him too much of an Australian who didn't care about hairstyle, notwithstanding my L'vivan haircut, and representative clothing. Iryna made me even take of my shirt upon arrival in order to iron it, which was the first time ever that T got ironed) I went back into town to see Adolphe Adam's ballet piece 'Giselle'. Honestly, I didn't think much of the story, which is set in the Rhineland during the Middle Ages. To me, there were two guys, one blond, one dark, who both like the same peasant girl. She chooses the dark one, and dies of sorrow when she finds out that he's actually destined to marry another woman (one from his own stature, 'cause he's actually a nobleman in disguise). Then, after the break, both men come to her grave and she appears, in order to make the same mistake again: she declines the blond one, who's honestly in love with her, and sticks to the dark one. The End. Despite this, I must say that the dance really impressed me. The other day Cycledad commented on this blog when speaking about plugging a tire that 'practice makes perfect'. The same phrase can be said about the prima ballerina: what a movement and control!
The next day I went to the city alone, to visit the famous catacombes. Unfortunately the tourist office for guided tours in English was closed, so I joined an Ukrainian group. This must have prevented me from paying at least 10 euro's too much, but at the same time it prevented me from understanding a single word of the tour.. Apart from the name of the guide: Svetlana Petrovna. And the words 'partyzansky' and 'fashyst' that she spoke in every single sentence, for these underground passageways were used by the Ukrainian resistance to plan and execute acts of resistance against the German occupation of the city during the Second World War. (Historically this journey has been very interesting, with many traces of the revolutions and wars that Europe has seen during the last centuries.)
My stay with Iryna and Yuri was very pleasant, and during our conversations we often touched upon the conflicting dominant world views in the Netherlands and the Ukraine. Oversimplified it came down to individual freedom on the one hand, and a more conservative take on things on the other. I don't mean any harm with this, but my host had some Borдtesque features. Whenever his wife would put some of her cooking on the kitchen table and I would thank her for it (assisting in the household work as a guest was out of the question, 'cause it would bring bad luck to the family), he would say something like: "Yes, take it a anyway kitchen, for anyway woman, is like a present for you! Yes is nicely!" To which his wife would look up and frown, and he would respond: "I luv you, I luv you, mwua, mwua", making small round lips and kissing the air. On the other hand, Yuri had a good sense of the state of the country. Having travelled many parts of the world on cruiseships, he can compare his country to other places. His conclusion: "Step by step things are improving." At the same time he realised that his country is ruled by businessmen that put personal profit over the country's interest. This leads to a kind of 'Wild East' in terms of the legal system: "Modification on modification on modification", and a situation where for instance the port of Odessa is functioning as a tax-free zone.
Cruiseships aren't the only vessels that brought Yuri outside his country. He served in the Soviet army as a crew member on big provisioning planes during its invasion of Afghanistan. Perhaps it's because of this military background that Yuri disapproved of my preparation for this trip. Looking at the 'political' map in his beautifully preserved 40 year old atlas of the world, he told me a number of times: "It's very dangerous, it's dangerous! Is not controlled, this territory, there's risk of kidnapping." At least I should get some decent sunglasses, and for this he recommended a specific German model that was used by certain high-ranked officers during the war. Now I don't know, but I think if anything would set off the alarm bells at the Russian-Kazakh border it would be me wearing these leather strapped goggles...
1 September was not only the day that I did maintenance, it was also the day that general life in the Ukraine started again after the holidays. It made the change-over complete. It stormed during the night and the day after it was at least 10 degrees colder, with water in the podholes. From a hot summer it changed into a mild autumn. The landscape itself also changed, because entering Crimea feels like being in another country. A large presence of Russians and the Russian language and slightly different vegetation (though not as different as some 'continental' Ukranians had described it: "Crimea has a tropical climate", and when I wrinkled my forehead: "well at least semi-tropical!").
Also the schools started and all the children were wairing their freshly washed and ironed uniforms. Well, 'uniforms' would indicate that they are all the same, and they're not. The children were just all dressed up. Girls in black dresses and white straps of lace in their hair. Boys in tailored suits. It looked somewhat silly, especially because most of the adults are wearing casual cloths. My first impression was that this dress up party would also put a stop to the massive alcohol consumption that you see during the day, but that proved to be wrong. When I sat down for my morning instant 'Jacobs' (just 30 cents, but not worth the predicate 'coffee') I noticed whole groups of youth sitting out on the terrace having beers, wodka with fruit juice and cigarettes. The start of the school year must be a bit like the end of it in the Netherlands.
Track 5 on the OST (I realised that this abbreviation is stricking for this blog, 'cause 'ost' also means 'east' in German): a live version of Under Pressure of Queen and David Bowie. A couple of days ago, about 25 kilometres away from Kherson, I made a morning Jacobs break at a small roadhouse where they had what can best be described as a cross-over between an old personal computer and a jukebox. My first impression: a noisy mashyna, but after a closer look I saw that it had a wide variety of good music, among which this song. Hearing it made me 'excited emotionally', to speak with the words of the Sofiyifka brochure.
Hello Koen, only when reading the story I uderstood that the snake bite was in your tyre instead of in your leg, Even when this is also inconvenient , it is a lot better then in your leg I hope you have a nice indian (or russian) summer in septemeber-october. gijs
(Picture shows fish being hung out to dry on the road from Skadovsk to Kalancak.)
First of all, one of the downsides of making the road by bicycle that has been on my mind from the very beginning. Every day you get close-up views of the roadkills that modern-day traffic comes with. By now I have seen many erased cats and dogs, many birds (that could have died of natural cause and dropped dead from the sky as well, but in that case many of them just so happen to fall on the streets), countless hedgehogs, number one victim of the 'eracer', a badger, a brown furry type animal that I couldn't define, a goat, and two snakes, not to mention the dozens of crosses, tombstones and fake flowers on the roadside that I come across daily. Accidently I drove over one of the dead snakes, mistaking it for just another crack in the road. 
I hated that moment, and thought of it as a bad omen. Now, a month later, I have to say that it seems as if my rear tire was jinxed. About seven punctures in the tube, and an outer tire of which the heel thread (iron wiring inside the rubber) started to surface, causing a puncture with every bumb that I hit. According to Cycledad (my cycle-loving father) this normally only happens when brutal force is inflicted on the tire (e.g. if the tire is taken of with a screwdriver). Now, I might not be a specialist, but I try to be careful with the material that I am using. So it must have been the snake's final bite.
(Having a Café Américano at the boulevard of Jaltuskiv.)
At the time I posted my last entry, I was about to enter the city of Odessa (pronounced 'Adiessa' by the people that live there), and it became the longest stay I had in one single place so far: three nights in Illichivs'k, which is located 10 kilometres underneath Odessa, is relatively new (built during the sixties and named after Lenin's middle name: Iljitsj) and has one of Europe's largest harbours. Quite a neat place, with a nice stretch of sandy beach, a couple of night clubs and clean streets. I stayed with Iryna and Yuri and their daughter Svetlana. The first day of sight-seeing, Yuri gave me a grand tour around the city. I try not to write too much like a travel guide, but this walk through the old city centre of Odessa has to be described at least to some extent. We started with the humorous sculpture garden of the museum of Literature, after which we had a look at the staircases of the famous steps scene from Eisenstein's movie 'Battleship Potemkin'. 
The stairs are 12 meter in width at the top and 24 at the bottom. Like this it seems as if the sides form two parallel lines when you stand at the top. That's also from where the statue of the french governor Duc de Richelieu looks out over the harbour (Richelieu who fled France during Napoleon's rule and joined the Csar's army, was governor of Odessa at the beginning of the nineteenth century). After that we passed the Palais-Royal and the Opera, where I bought a ticket for that evening's show.
I asked if my hosts wanted to join me, but that wasn't the case. The tour was finalised with a tour through the Philharmonic, a building designed by the Italian architect Mario Bernardazzi, where Yuri had talked his way in miraculously, as the building was actually closed.
After a quick stop at Illichivs'k (Yuri insisted that I would first go home to put on some decent pants, and if he had his way, also one of his dress shirts; I reminded him too much of an Australian who didn't care about hairstyle, notwithstanding my L'vivan haircut, and representative clothing. Iryna made me even take of my shirt upon arrival in order to iron it, which was the first time ever that T got ironed) I went back into town to see Adolphe Adam's ballet piece 'Giselle'. Honestly, I didn't think much of the story, which is set in the Rhineland during the Middle Ages. To me, there were two guys, one blond, one dark, who both like the same peasant girl. She chooses the dark one, and dies of sorrow when she finds out that he's actually destined to marry another woman (one from his own stature, 'cause he's actually a nobleman in disguise). Then, after the break, both men come to her grave and she appears, in order to make the same mistake again: she declines the blond one, who's honestly in love with her, and sticks to the dark one. The End. Despite this, I must say that the dance really impressed me. The other day Cycledad commented on this blog when speaking about plugging a tire that 'practice makes perfect'. The same phrase can be said about the prima ballerina: what a movement and control!
The next day I went to the city alone, to visit the famous catacombes. Unfortunately the tourist office for guided tours in English was closed, so I joined an Ukrainian group. This must have prevented me from paying at least 10 euro's too much, but at the same time it prevented me from understanding a single word of the tour.. Apart from the name of the guide: Svetlana Petrovna. 
And the words 'partyzansky' and 'fashyst' that she spoke in every single sentence, for these underground passageways were used by the Ukrainian resistance to plan and execute acts of resistance against the German occupation of the city during the Second World War. (Historically this journey has been very interesting, with many traces of the revolutions and wars that Europe has seen during the last centuries.)
My stay with Iryna and Yuri was very pleasant, and during our conversations we often touched upon the conflicting dominant world views in the Netherlands and the Ukraine. Oversimplified it came down to individual freedom on the one hand, and a more conservative take on things on the other. I don't mean any harm with this, but my host had some Borдtesque features. Whenever his wife would put some of her cooking on the kitchen table and I would thank her for it (assisting in the household work as a guest was out of the question, 'cause it would bring bad luck to the family), he would say something like: "Yes, take it a anyway kitchen, for anyway woman, is like a present for you! Yes is nicely!" 
To which his wife would look up and frown, and he would respond: "I luv you, I luv you, mwua, mwua", making small round lips and kissing the air. On the other hand, Yuri had a good sense of the state of the country. Having travelled many parts of the world on cruiseships, he can compare his country to other places. His conclusion: "Step by step things are improving." At the same time he realised that his country is ruled by businessmen that put personal profit over the country's interest. This leads to a kind of 'Wild East' in terms of the legal system: "Modification on modification on modification", and a situation where for instance the port of Odessa is functioning as a tax-free zone.
Cruiseships aren't the only vessels that brought Yuri outside his country. He served in the Soviet army as a crew member on big provisioning planes during its invasion of Afghanistan. Perhaps it's because of this military background that Yuri disapproved of my preparation for this trip. Looking at the 'political' map in his beautifully preserved 40 year old atlas of the world, he told me a number of times: "It's very dangerous, it's dangerous! Is not controlled, this territory, there's risk of kidnapping." At least I should get some decent sunglasses, and for this he recommended a specific German model that was used by certain high-ranked officers during the war. Now I don't know, but I think if anything would set off the alarm bells at the Russian-Kazakh border it would be me wearing these leather strapped goggles...
1 September was not only the day that I did maintenance, it was also the day that general life in the Ukraine started again after the holidays. It made the change-over complete. It stormed during the night and the day after it was at least 10 degrees colder, with water in the podholes. From a hot summer it changed into a mild autumn. The landscape itself also changed, because entering Crimea feels like being in another country. A large presence of Russians and the Russian language and slightly different vegetation (though not as different as some 'continental' Ukranians had described it: "Crimea has a tropical climate", and when I wrinkled my forehead: "well at least semi-tropical!"). 
Also the schools started and all the children were wairing their freshly washed and ironed uniforms. Well, 'uniforms' would indicate that they are all the same, and they're not. The children were just all dressed up. Girls in black dresses and white straps of lace in their hair. Boys in tailored suits. It looked somewhat silly, especially because most of the adults are wearing casual cloths. My first impression was that this dress up party would also put a stop to the massive alcohol consumption that you see during the day, but that proved to be wrong. When I sat down for my morning instant 'Jacobs' (just 30 cents, but not worth the predicate 'coffee') I noticed whole groups of youth sitting out on the terrace having beers, wodka with fruit juice and cigarettes. The start of the school year must be a bit like the end of it in the Netherlands.
Track 5 on the OST (I realised that this abbreviation is stricking for this blog, 'cause 'ost' also means 'east' in German): a live version of Under Pressure of Queen and David Bowie. A couple of days ago, about 25 kilometres away from Kherson, I made a morning Jacobs break at a small roadhouse where they had what can best be described as a cross-over between an old personal computer and a jukebox. My first impression: a noisy mashyna, but after a closer look I saw that it had a wide variety of good music, among which this song. Hearing it made me 'excited emotionally', to speak with the words of the Sofiyifka brochure.
Hello Koen, only when reading the story I uderstood that the snake bite was in your tyre instead of in your leg, Even when this is also inconvenient , it is a lot better then in your leg
ReplyDeleteI hope you have a nice indian (or russian) summer in septemeber-october.
gijs
Hé Koen,
ReplyDeleteze drinken in ieder geval goed bier daar(Desperados!). Het is mooi om te zien dat je veel tijd in je blog steekt, want het is heel leuk om te lezen!
Jw