Returning to a city you liked the first time around is a distinct pleasure, since you’ve started to find your way around. I already knew a bit of my way around the city center, and it only took a couple days to remember how things worked in general. And being here for two weeks means I can take my time. I’m still hopping around too much to ever really calm down — I’m not staying in one place for longer than five days until December — so I’m trying to relax.

I’m helped in that by my usual impeccable timing. Two days before I arrived two of my friends in the city gave birth. The day after I arrived another friend of mine got sent on a work trip to Finland. So I’ve been virtually alone.¹ Accordingly, I’ve been staying close to home; dinner out most evenings, snack food and soda for lunch, keeping to myself otherwise.

I did take an opportunity to see some of the sights I didn’t the first time around. Kyiv Pechersk Lavra was the highlight there. It’s a large complex of religious buildings — some really stupendous architecture and beautifully wrought interiors, but it’s really known for its caves.² The Kyiv Caves Monastery was founded in 1051 as a center of Eastern Orthodox Christianity. The monks carved out a rather shockingly extensive set of tunnels and crypts and altars and living quarters out of the rock, and when the monks died they would be interred in the caves. You can visit them, as their mummified remains are now regarded as “incorruptible relics” and solemnly placed along the narrow corridors in wood framed caskets fronted with glass.³ So you shuffle along, bearing a candle,⁴ through meandering passages barely wide enough to pass someone, and move past dozens of the caskets. Slowly, as you’re likely in the midst of religious petitioners who are praying, crossing themselves, and kissing each of the relics in turn. The experience is unforgettable, if nothing else.

The other thing I wanted to do was visit Rodina Mat, the Motherland Memorial, which was closed the last time I was here. It’s a huge sculpture of a woman holding a sword and shield aloft, taller than the Statue of Liberty, and built on top of the National Museum of the History of Ukraine in the Second World War. Like most Soviet monuments, there’s a lot of controversy over whether it should have been built in the first place — that’s a lot of steel — and whether it should be torn down.⁵

It has an observation deck, but based on the gestures of the woman at the ticket booth I eventually realized you could see that, or you could reserve a time to go up to the observation platform on the back of the shield. The next reservation was in 30 minutes, so I signed up for that. And I understood there was only space for two people⁶ on the platform, and I even got there was an elevator and then a bit of climbing. I wasn’t expecting carabiners. Access to the shield goes up the arm of the statue through a small tunnel, up the kind of ladder welded into the side of the thing like one might find leading into the sewers. The carabiners were latched to a rope leading all the way up; after getting strapped into the harness and hooked onto the rope you might not have been hoisting yourself up very quickly, but you certainly weren’t falling back down.

The view, as you might imagine, was incredible. And they had thoughtfully erected a wire cage around the whole thing, so you weren’t in any danger of slipping off.⁷ I would have liked to have spent longer up there, standing that far above the city, but you only get about 20 minutes before you’re shimmying down through that tube back to the ground.

The museum it sits on was formerly the Museum of the Great Patriotic War,⁸ and is currently in the process of being remodeled to feature the actual current war which is going on. It feels strange to say that; you don’t really get a sense there’s a war on by just walking around Kyiv. But there is, and as the exhibits there remind you, Ukraine has had a long, difficult, and ongoing struggle for independence. The world felt fixed when I was growing up; the map might change sometimes; suddenly there are two Congos, or overnight there’s a bunch of Baltic countries popping out of the former USSR. But it never felt like it was actually happening. Part of waking up, of being in the world, is connecting those changes with real events, real people being shot at or shoved across a border that didn’t exist a week before. Ukraine doesn’t exist. It’s just an idea, same as Russia or England or the United States. And if enough people disagree and turn up with guns to conclude their argument, well, here we are.

On the whole, I was domestic. I went out evenings to restaurants,⁹ sometimes stopped somewhere to get a cocktail, occasionally wandered around the city center. I also managed to restock some medication I had run out of.¹⁰ I hopped a cab to the airport¹¹ this morning, and am currently en route to London. Two weeks was long enough for Kyiv, I think, this time around. But I’ve no doubt I’ll be back again.

Next: London (LHR) to Tel Aviv (TLV)
Prev: Oslo (OSL) to Kyiv (KBP)

Footnotes

¹ I did manage to grab dinner out one night with a couple people, including one of the new parents.

² Well, maybe also the Microminiatures museum, featuring such items as a flea wearing golden horseshoes and a complete chessboard with pieces on the head of a pin. But mostly the caves.

³ They are rather tastefully wrapped in richly embroidered cloth, so you can’t personally attest how miraculous the preservation process actually was. Probably for the best.

⁴ They don’t have artificial light down there, but you can buy a candle to light your way. Have I mentioned how creepy this all is?

⁵ Among other things, there’s still a hammer and sickle on the front of her shield. It would be prohibitively expensive to remove, apparently.

⁶ Well, three, counting the escort who led you up there

⁷ I suppose I would have preferred open space and being latched onto the platform with the climbing gear, but you can’t have everything.

⁸ Which I guess presages yet another name change

⁹ Kyiv’s restaurant scene is still pretty great, even if it remains lousy for vegetarians. I did find a surprisingly fantastic vegan restaurant around the corner from where I was staying, and between the Italian, Indian, and Georgian options around I did fine.

¹⁰ I need doxycycline to prevent my face from breaking out. Ukraine sells it over the counter, which may be bad for the world’s antibiotic resistance but is a godsend for me.

Oddly enough, I only need it in small doses, below the threshold where it would have any antibiotic properties. I stocked enough for four months. No idea what I’ll do once I run out again.

¹¹ One of the advantages of having lounge access is that you can plan to arrive at the airport four hours early, so when you type “airport” into Uber and it decides you mean the tiny café on the other side of the city rather than the international airport you might otherwise be heading to, you still show up with three hours to spare.