Ukraine

Hello everyone!

Yesterday we still had lunch in Bucharest and then we left for Ukraine. Ukraine stands for ‘country of the border’ and is mostly known for its nuclear disaster in 1986 in Chernobyl.

Three main rivers cross the country namely the Dnjepr, the Dnjestr and the Donets.

Ukraine lies in between Russia, Belarus, Poland, Slovakia, Romania and Moldavia. It also has a big coast next to the Black Sea.

We chose not to pass through Moldavia because we already lost a lot of time. We entered Ukraine in the South via Odessa, near the Black Sea. Odessa is the 4^th biggest province of the country after Kiev, Kharkiv and Dnipropetrovsk. It also has the most important port of Ukraine. In Odessa we first visited the Potemkin Stairs. These stairs are considered to be the entrance of the city and are therefore the best known symbol of Odessa. The top-step is 12.5 metres wide and the lowest step 21.7 metres. The staircase is 27 metres high and extends for 142 metres. You can imagine we were really exhausted once arriving on top!

Later on, we learned that Odessa is famous for its therapeutic resorts, it also houses one of the most developed hospitals specialized in Eye Diseases and Tissue Therapy. Something to remember whenever our eyes decide to stop cooperating!

The last thing we visited was the Odessa Opera and Ballet theater, we were too late to order tickets for Swan Lake, but just seeing the building, with its Baroque façade, was enough.

We spent the night in a youth hostel and then the next day took a bus to Dnipropetrovsk. In Dnipropetrovsk there were not so many things to see. It’s the industrial capital of Ukraine and much more we actually cannot say about the city. The reason we travelled to Dnipropetrovsk however, was because we could follow the river to Kiev, Ukraine’s capital. Seeing Dnipropetrovsk is an industrial city, which exsports a lot, we decided to search for a small shipping company that could take us to Kiev. The realistic few of our group, said no one would ever take us on their boat, but after hassling some men, we managed to find one that would take us. He was an elderly fisherman who travels every day back and forth with his fish which he sells on the market in Kiev. All excited we jumped on the boat and took off for Kiev!

Once we arrived in Kiev, we thanked the fisherman and searched for a hostel. Crossing through the city, we could see a lot of ‘signs’, 'remains' of the Chernobyl disaster. Chernobyl lies at the North of Kiev, near the borders of Russia, Belarus and Ukraine. 

Sofie is going to tell you more about Chernobyl and the city of Kiev, which we are going to visit tomorrow, but I wanted to tell you something about an article I found concerning nuclear plants. The article explains Russia just signed for a new nuclear plant in Belarus which is worth 9 billion $, now, while Fukushima is still luring and Chernobyl is never far away in the minds of the people. The article also uses a little controversy, letting Leonid A. Bolshov say the the Japanese disaster will give the world a lesson. What he means is that it’s a shame that this had to happen before safety became an issue. Russia however reacts with a dry ‘Lesson learned’ as an answer to the contract they just signed for a new plant. I personally think it's awful to build a new plant while disaster, in such cases, is never far away...

Anyhow, this was it for today, keep on reading our blogs and see you soon because we’re almost there!

Julie Hamerlinck

Source article: http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9402E4DF1231F930A15750C0A9679D8B63&ref=ukraine

Other sources: wikipedia.com