Real Life Captured #292: Kiev Ukraine! Part Eleven (12 photos)
Hey there my Steemit friends! In this "Real Life Captured Series" I do my best to bring you exactly that; the real life captured from destinations all around the world! After Twelve years of travel experience my favorite thing to do is walk around! That's right, I simply like to go to foreign countries and walk around. I observe and photograph the people, food, culture, way of everyday life and bring it to you in this "Real Life Captured Series".
Kiev has turned out to be a very special place for me. I came for a couple weeks and ended up staying for a few months. I got comfortable here. I learned about the culture and the people and the longer I stayed the more I enjoyed it.
This is also one of the few places in the world that I've traveled to where I it's not immediately obvious that I am a foreigner. I have great grandparents who immigrated to America who were originally from this city and Odessa Ukraine as well. So my genetics are shared with these people; I look like them. They often start talking to me in Russian, only to be surprised that I respond in English.
Moreover Ukraine to me is a very solid second world country. The streets are not always pristine, neither are some of the buildings, you can see some poverty if you look close enough. There are many people with their own "third world" style stands selling whatever they can randomly throughout the city. I personally like this, the entrepreneurial spirit is strong here. In economies like this, if there is no job then you have to make your own job. This brings character to a city and culture as far as I'm concerned.
Ukraine is an absolute gem of a "Pay Less Get More Country". Everything is far less expensive here than western Europe yet there is little to no sacrifice on quality. This is what makes a great destination for a long term budget traveler like myself. Now come along and let's have a look at the real life, captured!
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how is it as far as being understood in English. I think i can presume you don't speak Ukrainian. is that even a language?
Honestly, it's not the most English friendly of places. The younger people can communicate basic stuff or better. The older people not so much. From Kiev East they speak Russian. From Kiev west towards Poland they speak Ukrainian. The main city of Lviv speaks Ukrainian, and culturally they are less like Russia and more like Western Europe, where as Kiev and east is more like Russia and less like western Europe.
More over, the war going on there with Russia, Donetsk, and Ukraine has many more elements of a civil war than many would think. One girl I was dating there is from the war torn Donetsk area. In the exact same city her parents grew up it used to be the USSR and her parents identify with Russia not Ukraine.
She was born after Ukraine's independence and she identifies with Ukraine. So in the same family there is a divide, let alone the entire country. Point is there is a large chunk of Ukrainian population that is actually siding with Russia, want to be Russian, want to use the Rubble, and have a Russian Passport, after all more than half the country speaks Russian, and anyone over 40, used to be basically Russian!
And on that note, I bid you a good day my friend. Wishing you the very best from Guayaquil Ecuador! -Dan
Hiya, @livinguktaiwan here, just swinging by to let you know that this post made into our Honorable Mentions in Daily Travel Digest #541.
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