Lilac Lanes

We had been told that the Kyiv National Botanical Garden had an impressive display of lilacs and so we went to see them on our preparation day, May 16.  [We returned the next year on May 7 and took more photos to add to this blog!]  The Loftus's went with us.  We paid our entrance fee and proceeded down the main walkway, already enjoying the lilacs and their smell that lined the way.  The main building is the headquarters of the Ukrainian National Academy of Sciences and its greenhouses.  




We could not see that there were any tours inside the greenhouses, so we decided to go left towards the domes of an orthodox church.   It was small, the Trinity Monastery of St Jonas, and not the cathedrals I had seen in pictures before coming.  But from the rise and over-looking the garden of the monastery, we could see the lilacs.

We walked towards the wonderful smells. Soon we were in the middle of lanes of beautiful lilacs.  It was incredible!

"The collection of lilacs in the Kiev Botanical Garden is one of the most impressive in the world: 21 species (out of 28 existing), 78 varieties and dozens of hybrids – totaling around 180 kinds. Occupying an area of about 2.5 hectares, fifteen hundred luxurious bushes are located on terraces on the steep hills overlooking the great Dnieper river, and the golden domes of the Vydubitsky Monastery."

On our return trip we walked down to the monastery to see the buildings.  

The Vydubetsky Monastery and its central church, the Mykhaylivsky (St Michael’s) Cathedral dates from 1070.  The domes' colors represent the gold of the sun, the stars of the night, and the green of nature.  In the foreground is a lacy variety of lilac and behind it the ubiquitous horse chestnut tree seen everywhere in Kyiv, especially when they are flowering. 

Unfortunately, the star-topped building has been turned into a restaurant--perhaps a good one!  

This is the small old chapel.

The main cathedral has a beautiful interior.

Painters were also seen among the lilacs trying to capture their beauty.  To the right is a tree peony.  When we first saw them we could recognize the leaves, and the people called them peonies.  When I could look them up online I found:

"Tree peonies are actually shrubs, not trees. They produce woody stems and do not die back to the ground like herbaceous peonies. They are slow growing but long lived. Some specimens in China are thought to be more than 200 years old. Plants eventually grow to 3 to 5 feet tall, but they may take decades to do so. 

  Tree peonies have larger flowers than herbaceous peonies and are available in a wider range of colors. Yellow, purple, maroon, and green are a few colors commonly available in tree peonies but rarely seen in herbaceous peonies. Both single and double flower forms are common in both types of peonies."

Beds of these peonies were among the lilacs.  Here is a specimen in front of a red variety of 

horse chestnut tree.  The blooms are very large!

We saw and enjoyed so many kinds of lilacs with hues of purple, lilac, pink, and white.  We found the "normal" lilacs to be most fragrant.  We saw "double" blossoms.  I was impressed with this "triple" or "quadruple" variety!  We did go back the next year for this thrill of the senses!

National Headquarters in Kyiv

On our walk on Monday, May 9, we went to the Presidential Administration of the Ukraine.  This building is like the US White House, though the president doesn't live there.  Information in italics is from Wikipedia:

The Presidential Administration of Ukraine is an administrative body set up to provide analytical, advisory and legal assistance to the President. It is colloquially known as "Bankova", because it is located on Bankova Street in a massive building across from the House with Chimaeras. Fourteen state residences are allocated for official Presidential use.

This is the building from the lower level street shot up through the lovely gardens of the House with the Chimeras.

  The main purpose of the Administration is to provide administrative, advisory, analytical, and legal assistance to the President. The Administration arranges communication and official statements between the President and the Ukrainian parliament the Verkhovna Rada, the Cabinet of Ministers, the Constitutional Court, local government bodies, and other institutions.

Across the street is the House with Chimaeras as you can see just in the right of this photo.

It is built into the hill so at this level it is 3 stories, but at the base of the hill it is 6 stories.  The gardens seen in above pictures are built on the hill by the side of the house.

House with Chimaeras or Gorodetsky House is an Art Nouveau building in Kiev, the capital of Ukraine. Originally an upmarket apartment building, it was built in the period of 1901–1902 by noted architect Vladislav Gorodetsky, who was regarded as the Gaudí of Kiev.  Situated on No. 10, Bankova Street, across from the President of Ukraine's office in the historic Lypky neighborhood, the building has been used since 2005 as a presidential residence for official and diplomatic ceremonies.^[3][4]

The "House with Chimaeras" derives its popular name from its ornate decorations depicting various scenes of exotic animals and hunting scenes, which were added because Gorodetsky was an avid hunter. The name does not refer to the chimaera of mythology, but to an architectural style known as Chimaera decoration in which animal figures are applied as decorative elements to a building.

The Italian sculptor Emilio Sala was responsible for both the internal and external sculptural decorations, such as mermaids, dolphins, and frogs on the roof of the building, sinking ships and hunting trophies on the exterior walls, and exuberant interior decorations, such as grand stairways and chandeliers depicting huge catfish strangled in the stems of lotus flowers. The exterior sculptures created by Sala were made out of cement. 

This is a statue of Gorodtsky with Flat Stanley checking out his cup of hot chocolate!

This historic district of Lypky has areas which were not damaged in WWII.  Here are some lovely buildings

Another lovely builidng down the Bankova street is this one where the first meetings of the church in Kyiv were.  Pres. Neuenschwander along with the first two missionaries, Elders Stratov and Bradbury, held a fireside on Oct 9, 1990, just two days after their arrival in Kyiv.  At that time it was the Writer's Union Hall.  Subsequently, they arranged to rent the hall every Sunday.  Pictured are Sister Simanovskaya (who remembers attending church here) and Sister Ubyiko.

We walked over to the Pechersky hills overlooking the Dnieper river where there are mulitple parks.  The war memorial is located in one; the Lavre, the Motherland statue, the Vladimir statue, and a botanical garden we will visit soon, are also along the ridge.  Here we visited the site of the Mariyinsky palace and the Ukraine parliament building.  We also wandered through the Mariyinsky park.

The Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine ( Supreme Council of Ukraine) is Ukraine's parliament. The Verkhovna Rada is a unicameral parliament composed of 450 deputies, which is presided over by a chairman (speaker). It meets in the Verkhovna Rada building in Ukraine's capital Kiev. Next to is is the Mariyinsky Palace.

It is obvious that the Mariyinsky Palace is in repairs.  The Russian Empress Elizabeth (daughter of Peter the Great) ordered it built in Kyiv in 1744 following the pattern of a palace she liked.  She did not live to see it completed.  Catherine II the Great lived there in 1787 for 3 months.  The building was then mostly wood and was severly damaged by fires in the early 1800's.  Czar Alexander II ordered is restored in 1868 and his wife, Mariya Alexandrovna donated much of her own money and had a park constructed to the south where there was previously a parade ground.  So the park and the palace were named after her.  Since then thru wars, revolutions, etc. it has been damaged and renovated several times, more recently in the 1980's.  Today the whole building is surrounded by construction fence and this is the best looking part.  

WW II Victory Day in Kyiv--May 9

May 9 was a Monday and we were able to go to downtown Kyiv with our friends.  We had been told that this was a national holiday to remember the war and that we would see many war veterans.  In the Metro where we were meeting at 1p we saw several decorated men and they were glad to have us take pictures of them.  This man in the white suit spoke to us and told us he had been awarded the highest award of the USSR, the red star pinned to his left lapel (I have no idea what for).  The orange and black striped ribbon was worn by many on the day as a remembrance.

I found the following information excerpted from various articles at  www.infoukes.com 

 [An Information Resource about Ukraine and Ukrainians] :

World War II ended in Europe on V-E Day (Victory in Europe) May 8, 1945 after 2,076 days of war. The USSR celebrated the end of the war, which it called the "Great Patriotic War," one day later on May 9th. Ukraine was the greatest victim of World War II, suffering the greatest material damage and the greatest human losses of any country in the war. How is it possible that Ukraine was even more devastated than Germany? One reason was that Ukraine suffered twice from a "scorched earth" policy conducted by the two greatest totalitarian powers of this century, first Stalin's Soviet Russia and then by Hitler's Nazi Germany.

An American foreign correpondent, Edgar Snow, who visited Ukraine in 1943 and at the end of the war in 1945, was so astonished at the enormous losses it had suffered that he wrote an article for Saturday Evening Post titled "Ukraine Pays the Bill." It could be said that "The Allies won the war but Ukraine paid the bill."

Every Ukrainian family suffered losses in the war and many had victims of both Hitler and Stalin. Perhaps it is significant that out of three of my relatives who were victims of the war, two were shot by Stalin's USSR and one was shot by Hitler's Gestapo. Ukraine has thousands of World War II monuments. Very small villages often have a monument listing the names of the World War II dead. Ukrainian losses probably numbered 10 million or half of the entire USSR total and twenty per cent of the entire World War II total of fifty million dead. (from article by Andrew Gregorovich)

Another source identified 459 Ukrainian villages that had been destroyed with all or part of the villagers killed or deported.  Another 27 villages were "annihilated"


Hitler occupied Ukraine totally, and the well-manicured fields and villages of Ukraine were repeatedly a battleground. Both Stalin and Hitler wanted to erase Ukrainians, both burnedout Ukraine upon retreat, leaving uncounted numbers to die from starvation and exposure in the winter.


As I searched the website of the president of Ukraine I found various pictures of the official parade and ceremonies of the morning and our little man in the white suit was there at Pres. Yanukovych's side as they walked down the street at the head of the parade.

He sat at the president's right while reviewing the parade at Independence Square

and during the following program where the president gave a speech!

We arrived after the programs were over to find the Independence Square still full of people and musical numbers still going on the stage

  After walking around the streets we wanted to go to the WWII war memorial.  This had been the site of a visit by the president earlier in the day.

JD and I had been there before, but it became obvious that most people were going there to lay flowers in remembrance.  In spite of the crowds, we went and were glad.

The flowers at the front of the memorial were stacked up as you can see.  Also visible is the white hat of one of the honor guards posted on both sides of the memorial

Flat Stanley Explores Grocery Stores

We love to go shopping. Here we showed Flat Stanley the frozen foods.

You can buy frozen vegetables and mushrooms 

and frozen fruits---so many different kinds of berries!

These are frozen "pelmeni" and "vareniki" which are like ravioli or dough filled with meat, cheese, or fruits.  Upper left are stuffed green peppers; to the right are stuffed cabbage rolls.  There are cases with these kinds of products prepackaged but these bulk items are more interesting to see and cheaper.  

Ukrainians like fish and here are many varieties in the frozen foods section.

The dairy section is also filled with many new things.  Here Stanley is among the liter bottles of milk, looking at the liter packages of milk.  Milk comes in many percentages of milk fat and is always "ultra-pasterized" so it has a very long shelf life--six weeks.  We buy lots of these green-checked packages of milk at 1.5%

Here are cream, sour cream, and fresh spreadable cheese with different milk fat percentages.

Yogurt also comes in bottles and packages of liquid as well as the small containers we're used to

Many varieties of cheese can be bought prepackaged or cut/sliced to your liking

The deli section is full of many different cold and hot foods to try!

Flat Stanley is hanging around in the varieties of smoked salami sausage.  And here are more kinds of smoked meats that can be bought by the piece or slices.

Smoked and fresh fish is sold here

And if you want it even fresher, every store has at least one tank of live fish for sale to kill and eat!  That means the salesman nets the fish you want and you take it home and clean it!

  

People eat many kinds and parts of meat that we don't normally think would be good