Hi Folks,

Here’s another log, taking us through Odessa and up to Kiev. I am trying to get up to date so that when we leave Ukraine on July 27th or so, I will be current.

Some have asked what is on the ship’s stamp I use. It is just a self inking stamp I had made up at Staples, or Business Depot, costing about $20.00. It is a circular stamp with the silhouette of a sailboat in the middle. At the top inside of the circle I have S.V. VELEDA IV (S.V. for Sailing Vessel), and the bottom inside of the circle CANADA 348358, our registry number. It looks impressive to officials and they feel far more comfortable when I use it over my signature.

So far no two ports have required the same documentation, although the most essential document is the crew list, the back of which they stamp and write you into their port. You keep that document and give them at least one more copy for their files. Then when we wish to clear out of a port, the crew list stamped in is now stamped out and the next port and ETA is written on it, and returned to us. They may require another crew list again for their files out. However there is always much discussion about the format, and the bureaucrat we have always has to check with a superior and other papers may be required. Very time consuming and inefficient!

We are off to Balaclava in the next day or so with Veleda as it is in the same district as Sevastopol, and we SHOULD not have to check in there, but simply inform the Port Controller of our presence. We will go to Yalta by train or bus as it is in a different district and we just do not feel up to another entry and exit process. We can depart from Sevastopol for Turkey. If we were in Yalta we would have to check back in and then out of Sevastopol before heading for Turkey. So far I don’t think a single official has said welcome to our port.

We enjoyed Odessa and Kiev as described in this log and the next two on Kiev.

All the best,

Aubrey

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Log #32r Odessa to Kiev
At anchor off Mis Tendrovskiy
Northwest of Crimea
July 6, 2004

Odessa is a beautiful city and a large port. The marina is at the outer end of a large pier immediately beneath the 192 Potemkin Steps, a wide set of steps that sweep majestically from the port area up to Prymorsky Bulvar, an elegant boulevard with gracious buildings on one side and a tree clad park tumbling down the escarpment on the seaward side. The pier is home not only to the marina, but also to a cruise liner used as a floating hotel, in addition to a few disco and excursion boats astern. The centerpiece of the pier is the newly constructed Hotel Odessa and passenger terminal with grand plazas on the shore and seaward ends.

The ornate architecture of the buildings is impressive! I felt like a rubber-necked tourist gawking up at all the ornate facades, with their baroque, classical, and renaissance décor, not to mention the several gold, sky blue, and emerald green onion-domed cathedrals. I took several pictures of just buildings, and sometimes just the decorations, window treatments, and sculptures incorporated into the designs. It is not uncommon to see two caryatids (statues of classical figures used to support roofs, porches or balconies) straddling the arched driveway into or out of a building’s interior courtyard. The facades were festooned with columns, fluted, coiled, or tubular, topped with Corinthian, Doric and Ionian capitals. Windows were graciously capped with arches, or lintels often adorned with lion heads, gryphons, rams, serpents, or other animal figures. The roofs were edged with ornate friezes and cornices, some with gargoyles brooding at the corners. Unfortunately many of these gracious old buildings are now low cost apartment blocks, or businesses, derelict on their upper floors, their broken glass windows mutely gaping out from their bygone grandeur.

In many of the museums, some of which are former palaces, I enjoyed the ornate room treatments, the chandeliers, crystal and multi coloured ceramics, the ceilings fringed with gold moulding, and the corners adorned with fluted crests, gargoyles, seraphim, Corinthian oak leaves and lion heads, as much as I did the displays themselves. This was particularly true for the Sea Fleet Museum and the Regional History Museum. To our disappointment, one of the grandest buildings in Odessa, the Opera and Ballet Theatre, was closed for renovations and had a construction curtain covering the whole ornate baroque building. The Archeology Museum, housed in a former palace, has a dignified classical Greek façade supported by Corinthian columns, with a white marble statue of Triton and sea nymphs made more impressive by the cypress and other evergreen trees and shrubbery framing it. The building and front grounds are so beautiful that it was used by several wedding parties for pictures of the brides and grooms. The museum itself was extremely good, on the main floor. We saw a basement which looked rather shabby, and thought that the main floor was all there was. However in talking to a guide we were asked if we would like to see the gold room. Of course we would! She then took us downstairs, through the basement storeroom we had seen earlier, to an area in which there were many more displays, but not set in modern cases. She then unlocked a vault and let us in to a long room with fantastic gold jewellery, coins, vases, and statues from early Black Sea civilizations, the prize item being a 14th century BC gold vase from the Crete Mycenaean civilization, a display to rival the Hermitage in Russia, the Louvre or the British Museum. We took a long taxi ride out to the Museum of Partisan Glory to go through some of the 1000 kilometers of catacombs dug into the sandstone in the 19th century and used by the partisans opposing the Nazi occupation. The subterranean life endured by the partisans for several years during WW II was graphically displayed in the tunnels, shelters, kitchens, accommodations, defence and hospital areas on display. As with most museums, no English was used and so we had to depend on the minimal language of the two flashlight equipped guides to understand the sacrifice, hardships and bravery of the partisans opposing the Nazi occupation.

We were museumed out after two days and planned a trip to Kiev. The Ukraine is not good for tourist information centers. However we found a good travel agency in the passenger terminal, Municipal Odessa, and Anna, the lady we dealt with, spoke good English and was most helpful. She arranged our train tickets for us, giving us prices for the different classes and recommending a private first class compartment (Spalmy vahon). This cost twice as much as third class sleeper (Platskart), but as train fares are quite moderate we went for the first class sleeper. It was only $100.00 (Canadian) for the two of us for the overnight train from Odessa to Kiev, return. She also recommended a few good but economical restaurants in Kiev, and would have made hotel reservations had we wanted such. Instead we preferred to take our chances for a more economical homestay when we arrived. Anna came down to Veleda with our tickets and brought her husband and daughter along to see the boat. We were very pleased with her service and would recommend it to anyone wanting to visit Ukraine. She can arrange visas, hotels, trips, tours, entertainment, and whatever travelling needs a visitor has. For example when I asked about a computer shop that could help me with my Bluetooth connection, she looked up in her large reference file and gave me the name of a specialist and the store where he worked, as well as detailed directions on the free city map she gave us. If anyone is considering the Ukraine this agency may be contacted on the internet at www.municipal.odessa.ua or E-mail at municip@eurocom.od.ua.

The computer chap was quite helpful. He showed us a few variations to use to get it to connect up, but was unsuccessful in its final stage. As our laptop does not have an infrared port, he tried with an infrared adaptor. When installed, it seemed to work with our mobile, but still would not connect. Finally, we checked the local access number we got from AOL by dialing it directly. We got a person, not an internet line! The problem is not the Bluetooth, but AOL! We bought the infrared adaptor anyways, but AOL does not have functioning local access numbers in Ukraine. I have sent two messages to AOL support lines asking for any up to date functional local access numbers. Each time I get a supposedly personal message giving me gobbledygook about different versions of AOL, and global net and other AOL systems, but not what I asked for, namely serviceable local access numbers in Ukraine. So I think I have a functional hookup to my mobile phone, but probably won’t be able to test it out until we get to a country with working local access numbers. We had trouble in Turkey, Syria and Lebanon trying to use AOL local access numbers. I am not impressed with AOL help or support lines. We also cannot use their 1-800 numbers from overseas. So I am stuck using aol.com at internet cafes, and even then I am frequently frustrated being unable to send, timed out, or other problems associated with the different computers I am using. But enough of my computer woes; on to Kiev.

We caught a taxi from the foot of the pier to the train station, but got ripped off for 30.00 Grivna as we did not establish the price beforehand. It should not have been more than 10.00 Grivna. However 30.00 Grivna is still only $8.00 Cdn. We boarded our compartment about twenty minutes before departure at 2130 and were most happy with it. We had brought a bottle of wine and some smoked duck and chicken, and luxuriated in our private compartment. It even had a TV, but the only channel was of the companionway so we could see who was coming and going. It was clean and neat. Even the washrooms were acceptable. However, the ride was noisy and very bumpy, and I wasn’t able to get much sleep. Each car had a lady attendant who collected 20.00 Grivna for the bed service, and provided tea, cookies and sweets shortly after our departure and in the morning about an hour before our 0730 arrival. It was a pleasant and for us, a luxurious night travelling to Kiev.

We had packed light, with a small backpack for me and a shoulder bag for Judy, so we were quite mobile. The train station in Kiev was a bustling affair with taxi drivers soliciting fares, but we saw few if any of the babushka ladies offering home stay rooms. We decided to head for the hotel mentioned in our Lonely Planet Guide, but as we approached it, we were approached by a friendly babushka (lady) who indicated she had a good apartment, far cheaper than the hotel. OK, let’s see it. Off we went with her for several blocks. We were initially afraid she would put us into a cab for a ride to the outskirts. She spoke no English, but was quite jolly and pleasant. After a ten minute walk she took us into a modest ten story apartment block and up to the 7th floor, in a rickety old elevator with no light inside it. She showed us into a modest apartment with kitchen, including gas stove and sink with hot and cold water, bathroom with sit down toilet, bath and shower, a living room with two single beds and a TV, and a small balcony off the kitchen. We could have all of this for only $40.00 (US) per day (It would cost over $100.00 a day at the hotel we were going to she said.). For Kiev, that was a bargain, and so we said OK. We had a base to explore Kiev.

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