My travel to Ukraine in 2019

On 15.05, a flight to Warsaw took off for Ukraine. Polish gloom stood out with dark air hostesses and darkly dressed travelers in the airport. There was a serious gloomy atmosphere.?

The arrival in Ukraine was light and airy. The Soviet-era hotel overlooked Maidan Square, but was surrounded by culturally valuable buildings with a small Orthodox church in wood that betrayed Scandinavian roots.?

The second day introduces the Orthodox world: visit to the St Volodomyr Cathedral in ochre yellow: 19th century built by Alessando Beretti in neo-byzantine style. Another world of religious people, women with headscarves and beautiful icons in which I recognise familiar faces. The many copper or gold-coloured elements, the many altars are meant to have an edifying effect on visitors, but they are of a different order than our churches, lavish with many women praying and kissing relics, devoutly burning candles and bowing for favours, always respectful with headscarves.?

A tour of the Jewish Podol district, where Golda Meir came from, and the city's former wall with its gateway, provided an introduction.?

Then we drove to the centre where beautiful old bourgeois houses, 19th century, reminded of St. Petersburg and bordered a large square with a Cossack equestrian statue in the middle: an identification icon of this population.

To the left of the square: a bell tower 17th century in freelance blue and white, entrance to the Sofia complex with a counterpart on the other side of the vast square and the rebuilt Michaelis Church in cobalt blue. The church itself was built in 1037 by Jaroslaw the Wise, plundered by the Mongols in 1240 and left in a precarious state until 1633, when it was rebuilt. The complex is the seat of the Russian Orthodox Church with an attached monastery, symposium buildings, bakery and another beautiful little church of Cyril (12 century).

The cathedral itself is a magnificent example of Byzantine architecture modelled on the Hagia Sofia in Istanbul. A unique colour scheme and alternation of towers: green, gold, white and brick red. A splendid combination of round forms, one wonderful sculpture, comparable to Frank Gehry's architecture in Bilbao of our time. Inside beautiful frescoes all over the walls with flower ornaments around the arches and rounded ceiling. Mosaics from other times and yet universal (large Madonna) and a wooden sarcophagus with Scandinavian-looking sober symbols, also crosses, touching with Christianity. The Vikings were here long ago and unfolded their empires.

The many gold and silver in the altar (if you can call it that) are incorporated into the whole, as are the founding paintings, Mary with the child and Jesus with the Bible. Painting surrounded by ornamental sculpted forms that reflect light frequently work as a symbol of enlightenment.

Then we walk around and past the Andreevsky Cathedral, v.b. of Russian Baroque, in emerald green, set with golden pearls, prominently situated on a hill by order of the Russian Tsarina Elisabeth. Too elegant with too much gold and bordering on decadence for me.

Finally, we walk to the Cobalt-blue Michaelis Cathedral, where monks lived and nursed the wounded from Maidan Square during the revolution. This cathedral has been rebuilt and is a counterpart of the St. Sophia Cathedral.

Afternoon visit to Baby Yar where 34,000 Jews were relentlessly massacred by the Nazis in a pit, with moving monument commemorating the dying. The sadness rises from the ground, sits in the leaves of the trees and takes root in the minds of those present. It takes shape in the winding figures of the memorial. Here the spirit of the past still lingers.

The third day in Kiev we walk through a magnificent complex of churches, monasteries, gardens, bell-towers, museums, several domes and a view from the high right bank on the Dnieper River of simply impressive splendour: the 11th century Pechersk-Lavra, seat of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church. We walk through a part of the underground system of corridors, with dead monks, prayer rooms and devotional chapels and again and again we are struck by the modest, head-covered believers burning candles. With us, so much faith.?The special geological structure that guaranteed a constant temperature was suitable for mumification. It was oppressively hot and young brothers in long black gowns appeared everywhere. What does this offer in these uncertain times? Meaning and structure? They maintain the complex and receive the many visitors. Our skinny guide, Anatoli, points out the edifying purpose of the many paintings in an altar, in many styles, including European, originally created to be pictorial for illiterates and to enlighten the mind in the lavish gold ornaments that framed them. Yet there is still a mysterious perfume for the soul about these works and their frames. They have absorbed and retained the emotion, the inspiration of their creators and continue to radiate it to their visitors.

After a visit to the imposing monument to the dead, the artist poignantly translated the suffering of the 10 million starved into images: a bleeding bird, its wings caught in a steel mesh and copper nails, rods in a long wavy row like ears of corn, which are supposed to represent the many perished. Two subdued angels lead to the monument past a starving child. Stalin unscrupulously drove 10 million Ukrainians to death by starvation because they refused to give up their piece of land and switch to agricultural collectivism, the palpable horror of a dictator and of communism.

Then we visit the 2nd World War Museum, the Nazi Museum. A young historian leads us around among the many relics and photographs of those affected. The pain and suffering is in the walls, in the objects in the mothers who lost 5 sons and can be felt by those who tell about it. The involvement is great, war is not over. It hangs like a poisonous black cloud on the mind and body of the young generation.?Injustice does not float away.

The last day brings a playful visit to the palace of the fugitive Yanukovich. Magnificent gardens with imposing buildings on a kind of water reservoir, more .

His taste was not to my liking. Everything expensive, elaborate, wood from Lebanon and inlaid, crystal tables, a box room, gymnasium, private chapel, curiosities, mother-of-pearl vases, a stuffed crocodile on the table, parvenu at the top, discord everywhere.

?The gardens were a relief, with giant dacha and a modern white guesthouse for Putin, (he has never been there) on a rustling brook with high banks and a little bridge, lovely surroundings. Nature doesn't scald you, it orders itself to beauty, improves man.

In the evening, we left for Lviv, arrived in the pouring rain and hobbled from the bus with our suitcases to the hotel. An old city, one monument that does not allow cars, belonging to the Austro-Hungarian Empire, so the Habsburgs and later Polish, belonging to the Unesco World Heritage and familiar European. Magnificent old bourgeois houses, Renaissance churches, Baroque mixed with strange elements like the Armenian church, more of a yard. Influences of the Italians.(Italian garden like in Tuscany) An imposing opera, with big Rynok square and an unforgettable icon museum: the Andrey Sheptystsky Museum. I have never seen so many icons in a row, brilliantly coloured, with magnificent stories, ranging from the sophisticated professional, classical Virgin Mary with the child to the free (naive ???) canvases or panels expressing man's belief in other times and what occupied their minds: hell and heaven, motherly love and death.

After a few days of departure in pouring rain by night train at 8.40 p.m., arrival in Odessa at 8.30 a.m. A special experience, an incessant clattering and shaking of a somewhat old train that stops nowhere.?Quite cosy. Cradled in sleep.?

At 4.30 a.m., at the crack of dawn, a glimpse of the passing landscape. Light green vegetation everywhere with openings of farms: Chagal-like pink or yellow wooden houses with ornate white windows in a huge green setting. And flowers in the yard everywhere: purple irises, again and again, like Van Gogh painted them.

Arrival in Odessa a city founded in 1240 by a Turkish Tartar : called Hacibey, domination by the Turks until 1789 and then conquered by the Russians and in 1794 called Odessa, 4th largest Russian city, with Mediterranean appearance. It was built by Italians and mainly by a nephew of Richelieu, with wide French streets. The enormous charm of the city is immediately noticeable , a mixture of east and west , of Turkish , Russian and European , later Polish art deco . It is a beautiful city with 19th century opera and ballet theatre , neo-gothic palaces and magnificent 19th century rich people's houses , reminiscent of Paris , St-Petersburg equivalent . There is an immense amount of restoration work to be done, but how about attracting capital? First, a long-term stable government. Or will it be Russian moneylenders?

The world-famous Potemkin Stairs (Fr. Buffo) have been ruined by a contemporary banal mishap of a construction that would be better off falling into the sea.

The Museum of Fine Arts, a classic pink palace of a Polish count, houses interesting impressionist and earlier works: such as Vrubel and Repin, and lures with interests in ancient nobility, seen in 19th century portraits and a peculiar underground connection to the Black Sea.

Our 19th century galleries also find their counterparts here, beautiful sculptural arcades with exclusive shops.?

Furthermore, beautiful parks and a magnificent, monumental Art Deco palace in dark green, from 1900 already, by a female Polish architect.?

A walk along the Black Sea in the wide park next to it with a wide avenue and a large penetrating sculpture, along the intriguing portrait of Pushkin in front of the current city hall.?

He stayed here for a long time. A confrontation with a rich Russian past.

More works from this series "Travel to Ukraine">>

Gabri?lla Cleuren 03/06/2019