We are at the airport in Kiev getting ready to depart. Actually, we are already ready, but the plane is not. We are delayed for about an hour, so I thought I would take this time to blog about our fall break trip to Kiev, Ukraine.

We arrived here on Sunday afternoon. We spent that day getting familiar with the area around our apartment, although most of the area around our apartment was remarkably wet due to the heavy rain. We are about two blocks from Independence Square where the Orange Revolution took place a year and a half ago. We discovered a great Ukrainian restaurant in the building next to ours, and we have had meals there several times throughout the week. It was great food at a great price.

Monday brought more rain along with some snow, so we took the chance to explore the inside of some churches around our apartment. The most impressive way St. Sophia church, named after the Hagia Sofia in Istanbul. It was built by Yaroslav the Wise in the 11th century after Ukraine converted to Christianity under the influence of the Byzantine church. The church has some remarkable frescoes that are still intact, although the church was turned into a museum by the Soviets. St. Sophia was lucky, at St. Michael’s at the other end of the boulevard from the 11th century was torn down by the Soviets. It has just now been rebuilt, and we had a decent view of it from our apartment.

By Tuesday, it had warmed up a bit, so we headed to the Caves Monastery.  This monastery was also founded in the 11th century and is a rather large complex overlooking the Dniper River.   The monks dug out caves to live in and there is now a huge complex of caves and tunnels under the monastery.  Monks were also buried in the caves, which naturally preserved their bodies.  This led to the conviction that they were saints.  We got to go down into the caves for a tour.  You have to carry candles to see and you are surrounded by mummified monks.

Wednesday we were supposed to head to Zolotonosha to visit some students.  Unfortunately, we arrived at the bus station five minutes after the only bus to Zolotonosha had left.  So, we used the day for a walking tour.  We got to see the Golden Gate (famed in song in Mussorgsky’s Pictures at an Exhibition - Movement 15).  It is the main gate from the 11th century fortifications of the city.

Thursday was without a doubt our best day.  We spent the afternoon at Andrew’s Descent, a winding road the follows the route Andrew (the first Christian preacher here) used to climb the hill of Kiev to plant a cross.  There were tons of souvenir shops with nesting dolls, Soviet memorabilia, and Ukrainian t-shirts.  We also went to the Ukrainian Museum of National History, which had some interesting displays on the Scythians.  That night, we went to the Kiev Opera Theater to see the ballet La Corsaire.  The kids had a great time.  The entire walk back to the apartment saw them dancing and spinning to their hearts content.

Today we had to be out of the apartment by noon, but our flight was not until 8:40 pm.  So, we stowed our luggage at the train station and headed to the Zoo.  It is not the most impressive zoo in the world, but this may be in part because they have started putting up some of the animals for the winter.  But we did get to see some tigers, alligators, ostriches, and — oddly enough — American bison.  The cages and pens were not the most secure places.  Neighborhood cats were wandering in and out of cages.  It was fun to watch the ostriches chasing the cats.

They are about ready to board the plane, so I will go ahead and post this.  We won’t get back to Vilnius until around 11:30, which means we won’t get into Klaipeda until 2:30 am.  This will require a lot of coffee.  Check back here in a few days when we will have some pictures from Ukraine posted in our photo album.