An early morning. I woke up before Sara and crept to the kitchen. I was unable to open the apricot yogurt. It was sealed tightly in some sort of canopic jar, a plastic prison. I applied a great deal of pressure to it, and snapped off the handle, but there was no accessing this yogurt. I chose to seek my fortune elsewhere.
Delightful little solo morning photowalk, the late-night town had transformed into a worker's paradise with busy folks in suits navigating the slender pot-holed sidewalks with great agility. Blue suits and skinny ties. Marvelous overcoats and high heels. Briefcases and enviable handbags.
A coffee shop owner made an X with his hands when I walked in. The universal symbol for "closed!" I was like, "coffee?" and he was like, "Tic tac toe, motherfucker. Do you speak it?"
Endangered myself slightly on a skinny little roadway trying to capture the mural of a tiger. It was stylized in a most Eastern European way. Angular and strange. He was raising his paw to the answering raised hand of a professor. Tile had fallen from the wall on which he was painted, and it made a beautiful and forlorn scene. I stood in some construction material, ducked when a truck roared by, and got the shot.
Further on was a sweet little park with statues of various birds designed to appear as gentlemen. They wore top hats and had walking sticks tucked underwing. Charming. The trees were hung with Easter eggs, and a cleaning crew swept the paths with branch brooms. A thin little wind tugged at my sweatshirt.
I wound my way around past a Soviet-era hospital, almost Brutalist with its blocky columns, and found myself in a cold little plaza. Poked around in an underpass for art and discovered a great miracle. The trailer-hitch snail from last night was, in fact, a coffee cart. It's shell opened to reveal an espresso machine.
I bought some for very few hryvnia.
Thus fortified, I returned home to see if Sara was ready. I found her clean and struggling with the Impenetrable Yogurt. Neither our combined strength nor brain power could extricate it. We imagined ourselves as skeletons in the street, the unopened yogurt pristine 'mongst our blanched and fallen ribs.
She dressed and we got coffee at a proper cafe. I read the Kyiv Post. We made our way to where the action was. A little art park tucked away behind an imposing wall of buildings. Such a place this was. Such a place it is. Massive works of functional whimsy.
A huge Alice in Wonderland climbing structure with a caterpillar slide and an enormous hat to climb in. Children climbed into the Cheshire Cat's head and waved from inside his smile. Benches shaped like large-mouthed creatures lay further on. In the distance, the domes of St. Andrew's beckoned.
Parents smoked while their children scrambled around on tiled snakes and donuts. Further on, a statue-group depicting four toddlers peeing, with the pee represented by solid metal arches, each a different color, gave us unending delight. We had gone there to find this specifically, and it did not disappoint. We took turns walking under the arcs.
In a field strewn with discarded Tarot cards, we sat on a bench shaped like a watermelon and planned our next few moves. It was to be a walk to St. Andrews, a slide down Souvenir Alley, a peek at the Bulgakov museum, lunch, and a Metro ride.
Stray dogs, very healthy seeming, cavorted as we headed off. I turned a card over with my toe, revealed the Two of Swords and got superstitious. We hurried away and took a circuitous path down busy boulevards and through a canyon of painters to find the winding path around St. Andrews, a teal and gold church which made a striking portrait against the blue sky.
Old women and charismatic dad-bods sold nesting dolls here, and necklaces, and cooking spoons. Most looked shipped directly from the Tourist Warehouse or were part of a So You Want to Sell in the Street starter kit, but there were a few treasures.
A few flint-faced Russians got a little pushy, reaching across our bodies to ring bells and shake dolls. It felt aggressive, so we moved on
I helped two young lovers take a photo in front of the statue of Bulgakov. Vendors sold old coins and Soviet medals. Men played backgammon and sold books. We had traveled very far by this point, and somewhere near the tracks of a dusty tram we stopped for lunch.
Cute little diner with a streak of subversiveness. The servers wore bright yellow uniforms and signs on the wall read things like People Suck and I Kissed a Girl And I Liked It. Sara had the perch, and I had the carrot juice.
Down a mottled sidewalk, a quick crunch across the gravel, and we were at the Metro station. Very understated and efficient. No frills, but not run down. Past the turnstile, a blue and yellow train roared up, and we took it toward the Maidan.
It was deep, this station, and the escalator out was a vertiginous trial. The handrail moved at a different rate than the stairs, so your arm would drag past your body and threaten to pull you down. A cool experience, but a little sick-making. I was happy to find Independence Square at the top.
Dude ground through "Let it Be" on the bagpipes, which filled the air with a kind of melancholy battle-whine. Women in fox and Minnie Mouse costumes trawled for tourists. Bustling public space opening to a large square with enormous monuments and the site of much recent history.
It was here the people gathered in 2014 to protest corruption in the government and demand reform and a path to joining the EU. They were shot by snipers, the leader was driven out, and Russia took advantage of the chaos to invade Crimea. Much of this had an effect on the US election in 2016. More on this later.
Boys with hawks and pigeons tied to their arms pestered us for photo-ops. We blanked them, but the long day and the stress of their harassment made us long for home. We left without really covering the place. Will return. We'll return.
The way home was a master-class in caryatids, and we took many photos, our sleepy eyes lifted to the viewfinder.
We passed the Golden Gate, a majestic former entrance to Ancient Walled Kyiv. Isolated from the wall and buttressed with new wood reinforcements, it looked a little like a spa or park toilet. Corkscrewy walk home where a nap awaited. Sara read while I slept.
She had bought some yogurt capable of being opened, and we shared it. It was creamy with a sour taste, and we're now quite sure it was, in fact, sour cream. We sat on the couch and ate a container of sour cream. Is what happened.
I wrote a little, she read some more, and we went back out for dinner. It's a late-night town and finding salmon steaks proved simple. After a quick meal, it was back to the 24-Hour grocery.
We needed picnic supplies for Chernobyl.
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