Updates

BEIJING: So you may be wondering what happened to this blog. Well we're finally in Beijing, actually we've been here since late on the 29th. Hopefully this afternoon I'll be able to spend some serious time recapping everything from Kiev onwards. That's a lot of blogging but there are numerous trials and tribulations that need to be documented. Happy Christmas and Merry New Year to everybody, if a little belatedly. In the course of telling my story I'm sure my lack of communication will be explained.

Leaving

MOSCOW: So I'm packed, stocked up in Crimean wine and a reading list like you wouldn't believe. It includes:

Selected Poems by Osip Mandelstam
The Aeneid by Virgil
Snow by Ohum Pahnuk
Post-Captain by Patrick O'Brien
The Secret Agent by Joseph Conrad
Democracy in America by Alexis de Tocqueville
Anna Karenin by Leo Tolstoy

Four days till Irkustk. I'll tell you more when I get there.

It's War Jim, But Not As We Know It

KIEV: We arrived in Kiev yesterday then visited the Chornobyl Museum which was kind of crap until we stumped up the extra cash, which wasn't much, for a guide who then enriched our experience no end.

Today we visited the caves monastery where various Orthodox saints lie mummified, and wrapped in cloth, in a network of narrow passages carved into a hillside. The caves are filled with pilgrims and people trying to harnessed the alleged healing powers of the dead saints. The whole complex is filled with beautiful churches crowned with some of the most stunning golden cupolas I have ever seen.

Afterwards we walked down to a museum dedicated to, at a guess, communist wars fought through the twentieth century. It wasn't exactly clear though there were exhibits, all in Russian and Ukrainian, on the Cuban War, Angola, Mozambique, Spain, Vietnam and China. You can see the common link. The highlight was walking amongst the tanks parked outside and even getting to sit in a Hind Gun Ship. For the uninitiated, that's the helicopter in Rambo 3, the ones used by the Soviets in Afghanistan. Afterwards we visited another vehicle collection full of various Migs, tanks, amphibious craft, artillery and scud missiles.

Then it was into the Second World War Museum where we understood very little. Again in Russian and Ukrainian. But there is a massive statue of Mother Russia, colloquially Tin Tits, on the roof, a huge sculpture outside and some painted hippy tanks.

The People, The Places

KIEV: Have finally met some decent people. Other than a shoemaker who'd visited Padua on a religious quest, we haven't really met too many interesting people. However on the train up from Sevastapol on Monday night we shared with a Ukrainian sailor named Vladimir. Good bloke. Then after helping to sort out some mixup with a Canadian next door, knob jockey, who had been sleeping in the wrong bed I managed to befriend just about the entire cabin. Including Ruslan a guy from Odesa who lived in Yalta but worked in Kiev (go figure), Vassily a William H. Macy lookalike with a moustache and Igor a Ukrainian business man. For most of the train ride I'd turn around and someone would be putting a new beer in my head or admonishing me for not drinking quick enough. Since arriving in Kiev we've also met a bloke named Liam; an ex-heroin addict with a penchant for cigarette smuggling. Our current hostel manager is a Norwegian wanker who resembles a penis. But that's another story.

Almost Dead in Sudak

YALTA: Our other main day trip for Simferopol, the one that had confounded us previously, was a trip down to the Genoese trading fort in Sudak and then along to Novy Svit, famous for its champagne, before hiking back to Sudak.

Sudak itself is like a sleep English seaside town though, in the off season, perhaps sleepier. Literally everything in the town was shut. It was charming enough though. We walked along the seaside and then across country until we got to the entrance to the massive, wall of China-esque fortress. Inside we could hike along the walls, scurry up the cliff that provides it's oceanside rampart and even sneak into a tower that seemed to be off limits.

Afterwards we stood on the roadside until some random guy picked us up in his car and deposited us outside the wine merchants of Novy Svit. Thankfully we decided against quaffing a couple of bottles as we had a seven k hike back to town. Unfortunately the track that "the book" described has long disappeared and we were lead a merry dance down a number of precarious hill tracks. At one stage Jacqui was forced to cling to the gritty dirt as her legs wobbled, only some pine needles and a few rocks seperating her from the ocean thirty metres below. We went up hills, we went down them, we backtracked, we walked through isolated coves, we scrambled over rocks, we walked on the road and then went back in search of the path again. All things considered we made it back to Sudak in daylight, alive and in time for some grub from a worker's canteent.

Peace in Our Time

YALTA: Since arriving in Yalta I've also visited Chekov's summer dacha where he wrote, amongst other things, "The Cherry Orchard" and "Lady with a Lap Dog". Unfortunately his study was shut, his bedroom was closed off and the gardens weren't exactly in their best form. We also walked along the promenade watching the fisherman, trying on half price Rip Curl boardies and quaffing popcorn by the cupful. So this is how Russia's middle classes squander their gas money.

Yesterday we also did the aforementioned cable car trip as well as visiting Alupka Palace in the morning. We didn't actually enter the palace but we walked around the gardens. Then after our trip up the hill we dropped in on the fabled Swallow's Nest for cocktails and hot chocolates. This palace, or house, was built in the 1920's but enjoys an emblematic status for Crimea because of it's dramatic location perched, actually overhanging at some points, on a cliff forty metres above the ocean.

Today we dropped into Livaydia to recreate the Yalta Treaty where Stalin, Roosevelt and Churchill set the tone for the latter half of the twentieth century. The palace was actually built as the summer residence of the Romanov's, and upstairs most of the exhibits are about Anastasia's famous family, however downstairs there is the actual table around which the treaty was signed, various rooms utilised by the famous troika and a number of candid pictures.

Stuffed on Shashlyk

YALTA: Another day by the seaside, and another mid-afternoon buzz from sweet red wine slugged from plastic cups and poured out of Coke bottles. For the last two afternoons we've eaten our lunch atop Mt. Al-Petri, a 1400 metre stone behemoth that rises up sharply from the Black Sea. You have to take a long cab ride or a dramatic cable car soaring over pine forests to get there and both days we've opted for the cable car.

Yesterday when we got to the top, it was something akin to a plane flight as all we could see, save for a few lone trees jutting out of the clouds, was a soft, pillowy white all the way to the horizon. Down at sea level the day had been relatively cloudy but amidst the heavens the clear blue sky was only occasionally marked by clouds.

After walking around for a while, trying a local muscat or two, sizing up some slippers made of dog, a local accosted us with offers of shashlyk (basically shish kebabs for the uninitiated). He recognised we were from Australia and started talking about Kostya Tszyu and kangaroos. We followed him to his restaurant where we befriend his mates, one of whom was described as a "sexy Tartar terrorist" and took a seat at his restaurant while we waited for the meat to be cooked outside on an open barbeque. Inside we entertained ourselves with the local sommelier who walked around selling wine out of 500ml coke bottles and we watched as the meat was cut up with an axe outside. The same axe that was used for firewood. We dined, sumptusously. In fact we dined so well we went up again today to eat.

I should add that while it isn't exactly t-shirt weather at sea level it's still quite a shock to get in a cable car for fifteen minutes and emerge amidst mountains of snow.

More Goings On in Crimea

SIMFEROPOL: Yesterday we were supposed to go to Sudak. We got up really early, went to the central bus station and then made an enquiry upon which the bus station attendant yelled some things, confounded my elementary Russian, wrote some things on paper and then a kindly Russian lady came around and said some more things, pointed a little and then we walked outside confused. The gist of it seemed to be that there were no buses to Sudak. Disappointed, we would not be defeated though, and instead we got on the first bus to Bakachasary to visit Chufat-Kale and Khan's Palace.

Khan's Palace is a moderately interesting mosque complex that Catherine the Great spared destruction because she found it romantic. It was also imortalised by Pushkin. It was also shut but we managed to sneak in a back gate and none of the maintenance works seemed to mind our presence so we pottered around. A little underwhelmed we continued up the road to a small monastery that has been built into the side of a cliff. We stopped for lunch and Jacqui took her turn reading "the book" and came across a small reference to a second bus station from whence buses to Sudak departed. The penny collectively dropped as we suddenly understood everything the two women had been trying to tell us.

Our spirits lifted we continued up a winding, stone track to Chufut-Kale, one of Crimea's famous cave cities. We spent most of the afternoon perched across this enormous rocky outcrop with breathtaking views of the barren valleys beneath us. You can scramble in and out of various homes, climbing up weathered staircases, looking out of cliffside windows into the valley hundreds of metres below. There are even a couple of tombs to be visited. Again these are stunning vistas whose magnificence can't be conveyed in five minutes of snatched internet time on the way to dinner. (The Uzbek restaurant again!) I'll post pictures at some stage. We got back to Simferopol safe and sound and ate the worst dinner since we've been away. (Not the Uzbek place!)

I'm Starting to Like this Town

SIMFEROPOL: Blogging last night I might have left the impression that I wasn't a fan of Simferopol, I've changed my mind. It's not a city that announces it's charm but when it does reveal it, it really does make you smile. There are no tourist sites here, though they do have an amazing Uzbek restaurant but the city has a fantastic vibrancy. Four of the central streets are blocked off to pedestrians and teenagers mill about, while other people shop in various malls hidden beneath the main roads. And last night I had to run a gauntlet of drunk, celebrating football fans and wild dogs scavenging for food in the market to get some water and cigarettes. Brilliant.

Nuff Said

SIMEFEROPOL: In the interest of brevity I'll say this much: in Romania we caught a minibus down to Sibiu. It's a lovely European city with a charming old town (have all those endless LP's seeped into my vocabulary?), a cool bridge, a couple of nice churches, an old town square the size of a couple of football fields and an art gallery that features pictures by Brueghel, Duhrer and others. Nuff said.

The Painted Beauties

SIMFEROPOL: We spent our last two nights in Romania in a place called Suceava which has exceptional access to, what are collectively known as, the Bucovina Monasteries. The four churches we visited are decorated, inside and outside, with frescos depicting things like the last judgement, the lives of various Orthodox saints, Biblical geneologies and scenes from the life of Jesus. The Northern faces of most of these have been worn away by four hundred years of winds whipping down from Siberia however the less exposed facades are remarkably preserved. Some of the pictures, especially those found inside the monasteries, would not look out of place in the big museums of Europe. We had a wonderful guide, who was also our hostel owner and dinner companion, who not only took us to the monasteries but also a black pottery workshop, a restaurant serving one of the finest chicken soups I've ever eaten and a tour of the stunning snow capped, fir tree speckled hills of Northern Romania.

Fur Coat No Knickers

SIMEFEROPOL: As I write this I'm in the Ukraine and I've paid for hours of internet though if my travelling companions grow tired of my blogging I'll have to love you and leave you. This evening is our fifth night in the country so far after spending two in Chernivitsi, one in an overnight train from there to Odesa, had the day walking around, and then caught another overnight train down here. We were only supposed to be here for two nights - it's a bit of a shithole but good for daytrips - but the block we were renting the room from left us playing cards and drinking coffee for three hours so we had to postpone one of our daytrips. The city itself isn't much to look at, it's basically a working town that serves as a transport hub for the more popular coastal destinations, but we're having fun anyway. We've eaten Uzbek food and wandered through some underground markets.

Yesterday we were in Odesa for about ten hours. Enough time to find some fantastic bars, visit the famous Potemkin steps (from the movie), a small museum in a hotel where Isadora Duncan, Mark Twain and others stayed, look out onto the Black Sea and observe some Yankee blokes shopping for Ukrainian brides.

The previous day we kicked around Chernivitsi and visited an enormous, sprawling local market that retailed everything from biscuits to televisions, and just about everything in between. Then we lazed around the hostel until we got on the train. The previous evening I went out and got shitfaced with the hostel owners then saved one of them from being beaten up by his hulking Ukrainian neighbour. (Kind words, not fists, I can assure you.)

During the day we visited Kamyanets-Podilsky, a town famous for the huge gorge (about fifty metres deep, fifty metres wide) that enclosed the old town. From atop the gorge you can see a small river that snakes through it as well as rope bridges and even a waterfall. We checked out a couple of churches there (including one where the Christian victors had erected a statue of Mary atop a minaret built by the vanquished Ottomans), ate lunch and visited the big ticket item: a large castle built on the other side of the gorge.

Not the most impresive castle I've ever been to, however it was very hands on so we spent a couple of hours dodging the mud, climbing the ramparts, and even firing a crossbow. Then we walked back through the appropriately named Tank Park (it features a tank) and watched the thousands of birds that swarm black in the dusky sky like bats.

And that's what we've been doing so far in the Ukraine. Tomorrow we visit Suday, a fortress on the Silk Route, as well as the bay of Novy Svit, the day after it's a small cave city and then on to Yalta where I hope to guarantee a postwar peace.