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Kiev, Ukraine: Is it really a 'charming' city, like the Associated Press says?
I had to laugh earlier this week when I read the Associated Press' gushing ode to the Ukrainian capital, Kiev.Shining with Orthodox golden domes that rise from forested hilltops, crisscrossed by narrow cobblestone streets, and speckled by quiet, leafy parks, Kiev draws visitors with an Eastern European charm.
Cobblestone streets? Leafy parks? OK, the city's got some of them -- but that's not the Kiev I remember.
What about the choking traffic and car horns, the crosswalks that are mere suggestions? The air, redolent with smoke and industry? What about the lines, the surly shopkeepers? The taxi drivers who pounce on you outside the train station and smile through gapped teeth as they haggle the price to your destination (one cab driver, learning I live in Berlin, smiles and points earnestly to the dashboard on which a swastika and a set of Nazi wings are affixed)? What about the hawkers and babushkas who pluck hectoringly at your sleeve in equal measure along wet, reeking underground passageways. What about any of this? It's the stuff of sidebars in such stories as the AP's.
During a month crisscrossing Ukraine last fall, I spent a great deal of time in Kiev and the grimy realty of the place, the evidence of the Moscow elite coming in and buying things up, eclipsed those quaint cobblestone streets and what were some pretty stunning monasteries and catacombs, which the AP somehow things encapsulates the city. But so what, you say? Who wants to read about the reasons why one shouldn't go to a place?
For me, all of the above makes Kiev more worth visiting, if only to see if these two poles -- bona fide tourist attractions on the one end and a city unprepared to meet the demands of tourists on the other -- can ever really meet.
The AP makes Kiev sound like a tourist destination, in the same way Prague is a tourist destination (ridiculously, the New York Times actually named Kiev the "next Prague" a few years ago, not realizing how far it still has to go to earn the renown of the Czech capital). I can still see Amna Cernychika, shaking her head and smiling in her office at the Ministry of Tourism, confiding in me: "I think we are not ready to attract so many people from western countries, because they will be disappointed of the situation here, of the level of service."
Such articles as the AP's, reprinted on CNN.com, talk down to readers, and they condescend in their assumption of what readers are interested in -- while glossing over, if mentioning at all, other aspects of a place that are apparent to a traveler after 30 minutes. The flip side of the coin deserves proper airing, too.
Kiev is expensive in the way that Moscow is expensive, meaning unreasonably so. Yet it is with a certain degree of pride that locals will brag about this expense. Kiev is not trying to be the next Prague. It's trying to be Moscow's little sister, a place of excess and new money, a place where status equals where you shop and eat and what you drive, a place that wants to happily combine all the rich trappings of western states with the stubborn holdover of old fashioned, frowning Soviet unhelpfulness. The couples strolling Khreshchatyk -- Ukraine's "main street," lined with Hugo Boss and Louie Vuitton -- do look fetching, but the happiest people I saw were at the terrace bar of Kiev's 5-star Hyatt, the deep-pocketed businessmen and speculators who were closing deals at the tables around me.
Kiev is many things, but 'charming' it is not. It is drab and picturesque, fraudulent and honest, uninviting and tempting. You'll come out on one these sides or the other, or maybe somewhere in between. But either way you'll have to encounter both.
Filed under: Ukraine
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
Raul Apr 25th 2008 7:31AM
Wow Jeffery. Nice reply to the AP article. I thought they were talking about some secret Kiev (Kyiv) they built somewhere else.
Anyway. I think your Blog took it too far in a different direction. I didn't recognize the Kiev (Kyiv) you wrote about either. I have only one comment regarding that and that is your "surly shopkeepers" comment. I don't know if you had bad luck or you just don't travel well, but I have never had that problem in Kiev (Kyiv) .
I've been coming here since 1999 and I've been living here since 2002. Overall, I would say it can be a very pleasant place to live.
But here is the bottom line for tourists. (I hope this saves someone some valuable vacation time.)
In my humble opinion, Kiev (Kyiv) is not a tourist destination.
Come for family, come for friends, come for work...but don't come as a casual tourist.
Lastly, it's Kyiv not Kiev.
Jeff Apr 25th 2008 9:46AM
Hi Raul,
Thanks for reading. Don't know what to say as to the surly shopkeepers; perhaps I did have a run of bad luck, by I stand by it as, if nothing else, simply my experience. I would, however, stake some money that if you plink 10 people down in Kiev, a few will encounter some. Anyway, the main point I was making is to give equal weight to the flip side of a place. Reading the AP article, people turning up in Kiev are likely to say 'huh'? Did I take it too far in the other direction? Perhaps - again, I can only write about my own experience there, and you can tell that I had to ultimately pick between a positive or negative impression of the place, I'd choose negative. But that doesn't mean it's not an interesting place, as I say.
Actually, it's Kiev, not Kyiv, in English. For some reason, we've taken to calling the city by its Russian name (Kiev) rather than its Ukrainian one (Kyiv). You'll notice the habit of English-speaking media habit of calling places by their English names. So, in newspaper datelines it's always Cologne, not Koeln, Prague, not Praha (in Czech) or Prag (in German), Kiev, not Kyiv, etc.
Take care!
Peter Apr 25th 2008 9:22AM
That AP article must have been written by the same guy who wrote the Lonely Planet Colombia guide without visiting there.
Charles May 23rd 2008 2:09PM
The Kiev I know is a pretty good place. I like the restaurants, the opera house, the theater (sometimes), the river, the nightclubs. Hotels are incredibly expensive if you go to the Hyatt and that type. I stay in a private rental apartment, at 1/4 the hotel price, with a huge jacuzzi, bedroom, living and kitchen, right in the center of the city. I have 2 taxi drivers who speak a little English who drive me when I need to get around. I guess if you are poverty stricken, Kiev is not a good place to be. But then where is? Prices are no higher than in the USA for good restaurants. Theater/Opera is a bargain compared to USA. Smelly underground? Never noticed that, as most are lined with shops and flower stands. Crosswalks? What problem when you just walk down and under the street to get across. What problem can that be. But if you are a tourist, go to Disneyland. They are set up to give you a good time.
David Oct 13th 2008 7:30PM
Kyiv or Kiev? Kiev as you noted is the Russian spelling. Kyiv is the Ukrainian spelling. Since the city in question is the capital of the Ukraine I think the enlightened should use Kyiv. Actually if I remember correctly both the State Department and the AP put out a press release last year that Kiev would henceforth be known as Kyiv. If you are a Russian speaker feel free to continue to call Kyiv, Kiev.
The service sector seems to still be following the old Soviet model - surly is indeed a good word to use. However every year it seems to be getting a little better.
And of course the Kyiv we are talking about is that of the city center. There is a whole other Kyiv on the left bank.
Nancy Beelen Apr 19th 2009 6:58PM
Hello?
In July we're leaving for Charkov.
We still have one problem to solve.
Finding a place to stay over night in the district of Kiev.
Can you help us?
Was there a camping to stay on because we 're traveling by camper.
Thanks
Nancy
Joe Nov 27th 2009 11:54AM
Hmm.Kiev CAN be a wonderful place. It has some extreme beauty but its also suffering because its in an international no-mans land. The place is an economic mess, despite the property bubble. I've found Russians to be wonderful ( or sometimes not so)
But Ukrainians seem to be blunt and charmless compared to Russians - atleast in my findings.
All the advancements of the Russian Federation seem to have passed the Ukraine by.And therein lies the problem of the Ukraine.Reunification with Russia, and an end this sick nonsense from West Ukrainians of glorification of Nazism, would solve many of these problems.
My grandfather was from Kiev, so its a special place to me.But sometimes I can see why he left.
Angie Mar 29th 2010 7:24PM
Then your grandfather's side of the family probably had origins stemming from Russia based on your russophile commentary. By the way, my grandparents are from Western Ukraine and were sent to either work in slave labor camps in Germany during WWII or to concentration camps and they were not Jewish. Please stop spreading stupidity.
Slava Aug 24th 2010 7:40AM
It seems to me that you dwell too much on the negative and that that eclipses everything positive. Yes, there is a large divide between the rich and the poor in Kiev, but you cannot forget that Ukraine has had a difficult history and that people have gone through some tough times, thus you can't really blame some of them for being 'surly'. However, this has started to become slightly less evident each year and the people (especially in the more expensive shops, retaurants) are in fact very nice and helpful. You must have been quite unlucky in your shopping!
The monaseries are beautiful, the parks are incredible and unmatched by anything I have seen in Europe so far and the city is just steeped in history. The hills make for incredible views across the city. The subway is the best in the world: the stations are very clean and are like palaces and the trains run efficiently every 1 minute! You can walk down the street at nightime and feel safe, unlike many other cities, even London which I live in. There are sandy beaches/attraction park in the middile of the city which feels like a holiday resort, how many eastern European cities can boast of that?
As for tourism, I agree that the western market is not catered for, but with the approaching EuroCup (or something big to do with football, I don't know) much more effort is being put in to tourism to make the city more accessible. And just because there are 'babushkas', 'haggling taxi drivers' and the odd 'surly' experience, that should in no way turn your attention away from the beauty because the aforementioned are to be expected in every big city.
You can look at any city in the way you looked at Kiev (ignoring all the goodness), I mean, even in New York, the poverty, the underground, the rough areas are as bad, if not worse than those of Kiev!
I live in the UK but I own a nice apartment in Kiev with incredible views and I love the city! I'm attached to the Kiev by a sort of melancholy nostalgia and I wouldn't trade that for anything.