Bukovyna Part II: The Land of Castles

Our second day in Chernivtsi, we got up bright and early to catch our bus to Khotyn, which is about an hour or so northeast of Chernivtsi. We disembarked in this small town, and asked around for directions to the fortress. Everyone pointed us in the same direction, but it was a long, cold, icy and treacherous walk through the town.

"Is that the fortress?" we joked.

Then, finally, we saw some signs.

Talia took this picture of us standing in front of the "Fortress" sign.
For some reason we all look really happy to be freezing!

After a bit more walking, we came to the crest of the hill where the fortress sits.

I believe that's St. Volodymyr guarding the entrance.

As Talia noted when she took this picture, Charitie and I got the posing sort of backwards. This little stray dog was our tour guide at Khotyn-- she followed us everywhere. Talia named her Jeanie.

"Khotyns'ka Fortetsya"

The main gate at the top of the hill.

Looking through the gate.

This landscape was so white that nearly all of us were snowblind by the time we returned. Not pleasant!

On the near side of the fortress, a church.

First view of the fortress. You can't see very well, but there are really neat whorl patterns in the brickwork.

Looking back at the entrance to the valley, a stunning view

 This is my "I'M AT A CASTLE!!!!" face :)

There was no one around, since we were the only people crazy enough to walk to this darn place in the depths of January. We paid the workers and then wandered around.

Inside the castle keep

The first tower we entered had torture instruments.

Talia stands in the Iron Maiden.

These signs had some great engrish. "Thorn could screw with the male screw and the victim of torture had to stand on the toe, till it had the force." XD

Then we went through the courtyard, and down into the dungeon.

Cool door.

Catapult, anyone?

Our faithful tour guide, Jeanie, followed us, even though these stairs were super steep and were taller than she was :)

During the spring and summer, this is apparently a cafe.

We spent quite a while at Khotyn, probably longer than we should have. Because of our time crunch (and also because of the really icy-dangerous roads) we hailed a taxi to take us back to the bus stop, where we jumped a bus for the hour-long trip to Kamyanets-Podilsky.

When we arrived in Kamyanets-Podilsky, we were all hungry and freezing. After taking a bus from the "new town" where we'd been dropped off to the "new town," we ducked into a cafe for some delicious Polish food. We didn't have much time before it would get dark, though, so we had to hurry on.

There were also some beautiful churches in Kamyanets-Podilsky.

Aside from L'viv, Kamyanets-Podilsky was probably the most magical place I've ever been. This entire city was built atop a fortress, many pieces of which can still be seen sticking up between buildings. The castle is high above the rest of the city, creating this uncanny sensation that you are stepping into a Van Helsing, or some other Dracula movie.

The fortress overlooks this valley city.

Beautiful church on the hill.

The other fun thing about Kamyanets-Podilsky is that you can climb all over the castle-- up in the turrets, along the battlements. AWESOME.

Talia told me to let down my hair, but it just wasn't long enough.
(also, this is possibly the coolest picture of all time.)

Along the battlements!

Through the arrow-slit window

Looking down over the valley from up on the battlements

Unfortunately, we didn't get to spend much time at the castle because it was getting dark and we didn't want to miss our bus. It is a place I definitely want to go back to, though, when the weather is warmer!

We made it back to the bus station only to learn that the next bus wouldn't be for another hour or more. So we went to a cafe beside the Avtovokzal (bus station) for a cup of tea. And this place was GREAT... they had a live chicken in a coop right inside the entrance. Probably the least sanitary thing. Ever.

Then our bus was late, and we had to wait in the freezing cold for about a half an hour. We were so cold and tired we started singing "if I had a hammer"...I really don't know why. Then when the bus finally came, we didn't get seats and had to stand for a while until enough people got off that we could sit down.

We finally got back to Chernivtsi around 8 or 9, then went out for some dinner. It had been a long day, and we needed some rest to get ready for our next adventure...

Bukovyna Part I: Chernivtsi

Apologies for the excessive delay. I had some issues with my university and it took time to sort them out. Now everything is better, I hope, and there is time to talk about my trip to Bukovyna, the land of castles.

The train curtains even have castles on them.

The name "Bukovyna" may be familiar to you from our Ukrainian folk-dancing days. Bukovyna is a region in southwestern Ukraine, containing beautiful Austro-Hungarian architecture, castles, and pre-karpaty snowscapes. We saw all of these things during our trip. It was really a very busy adventure.

On a Wednesday, January 24th, I caught a night train. Talia and I were supposed to be on the same train, but we didn't manage to actually find each other. I shared my coupe with an old dude who snored excessively loudly. Plus, the train was exceedingly hot. Needless to say, I didn't get much sleep. When I arrived in Chernivtsi on Thursday morning, I met up with Talia, as well as Joel and Charitie, who had come from L'viv and had arrived an hour or so earlier. The first thing we did upon arriving was try to find our hostel. This proved to be much more difficult than we expected. First, Joel hadn't printed out the reservation so we didn't have any confirmation number or phone number for the place. Then, when we checked our Lonely Planet guidebooks for the phone number, the man who answered said he didn't know anything about our coming to stay but that he would come to meet us. We thought that was a little strange, but waited for him anyway. When we actually met him, we found out it probably wasn't the right hostel, even though the guidebook said there was only one hostel in Chernivtsi. We thanked him and left, and went to an internet cafe to find the number for the hostel we had actually booked with. We didn't find out the whole story until we actually got to the right hostel, but apparently there had once been two hostels in Chernivtsi, both owned by the same person, and one had been run by the guy we first met, until they had a falling out of some kind, so now there was really only one hostel. However, that guy was still occasionally taking people in when he needed the money. It was all very sketchy. We were glad when we had finally found the right place.

For the first day, we just hung around Chernivtsi. It is a beautiful city which some call the "little Paris of Ukraine." It had a lot of the same Austro-Hungarian architecture as you would find in L'viv, but many of the buildings were kept up much better, and had been renovated and painted. The overall effect was quite enjoyable, though I still think I like L'viv better.

Chernivtsi's main square

The famous blue town hall is on the left.

Chernivtsi's main synagogue, which was converted into a movie theater after the Holocaust. Chernivtsi's Jewish history, while rich, is also pretty grim.

Our main stop of the day was at Chernivtsi's famous university, which is a UNESCO World Heritage Site.

The chapel was the most eye-catching part of the campus

The tiling on the roofs was exquisite!

I made a visit to the Geography department :)

It looked like Hogwarts!

Then we ducked into the chapel itself, to see the inside. How gorgeous!

After our adventures, we had dinner and returned to the hostel to rest up for the next day's adventures: CASTLES!!!

Ukrainian Christmas

On my last day in L'viv, I met Mariana at the bus station and we took the hour-and-a-half ride to her grandmother's village.

During my stay at her house, I never went hungry! Every moment I was being offered tea with pampukh, poppyseed bread, and cake, or enjoying an enormous meal. The first night, since it was Christmas Eve, we had the traditional Ukrainian Christmas Eve meal of twelve courses; starting with garlic dipped in salt and pickled herring and ending with кутя (Kutya, a dish made with buckwheat, honey, poppyseed, and raisins). In between there were various vaguely familiar dishes of mushrooms, potatoes, stewed cabbage, and so on.

Early Christmas morning, Mariana and I got up and went to the village church for mass. Though crowded, it was a beautiful service. After a nap and a hearty lunch, we went on a short walk around the village and down to the river with Mariana's uncle.

The village was small, but pretty.

On the day after Christmas, we took the bus back to the city. Mariana's sister waited with us.

We waited a long time for the bus... it was really cold (-7* C/ 19* F)!

After the long bus ride back, I had to wait almost an hour for a bus into the city. At one point the correct bus came, but another was already stopped where I was waiting and I didn't see it in time to flag it down. By the time I made it to Charitie's apartment in the center, I was freezing!!!

Charitie and I went out to dinner at a new restaurant in L'viv with Russell and another L'viv Fulbrighter named Steven, to say goodbye to Russell, whose Fulbright term was up just a few days later. We also stopped by the Pampukh festival on Rynok square. Pampukh are traditional Ukrainian Christmas donuts, filled with various delicious things. Mariana's grandmother had made hers with poppyseed filling, but at the festival I was able to try one with apricot filling and one filled with cream. So good!!! This should totally be a tradition in America too.

I had tried to get my train ticket for the same day, but there hadn't been any available, so I had to stay an extra day in L'viv. It turned out to be good, though, because I didn't get into the city until evening and was tired and hungry. That night I slept in the same apartment I'd stayed in before I left for Mariana's, then the next day caught my train back to Vinnytsia. I was in platzkart, third class, sharing a car with a TON of high school students who had been on an excursion to L'viv and a few other places. Fortunately, the woman sitting next to me was their chaperone, and she was nice and chatted with me, assuring me she could understand me even though I was terribly mixing my Ukrainian and Russian at that point (starting to speak surzhyk like a native, haha).

It was such a relief to get home and rest! And Mariana's grandmother had sent home with me copious amounts of cake and poppyseed bread, along with five poppyseed pampukh. Om nom nom.

Back in Vinnytsia, I was finally able to take care of some important business that had been put off in my absence. With Tanya's help, I got my boots repaired (they'd been broken ever since I ran after the train when leaving for Turkey) and picked up the care package my parents had sent for Christmas, which had been waiting at the Meest office in Vinnytsia.

Words can't express how thrilled I was with this spread. God, I miss Dr. Pepper!!

I also met up with my student Tania a few times to help her with an application for IREX, which is a program that enables foreign students to study in the U.S. After one of our sessions working on her application, we took a walk around the city to enjoy the holiday decorations.

The main square was all decked out for the holidays. Even the hideous Soviet eyesore that is the administration building had been transformed into a magical winterscape.

In the park by the tower there had sprung up a Christmas Festival similar to the one I'd seen in L'viv.

Then we walked down the street to the main park, where the city's main Christmas tree was standing. In an earlier entry, I posted a picture of this tree being built. Now it was fully decorated, and rotating, too!

The giant tree even rotates!

At the base of the tree.

As we walked around enjoying the beautiful decorations, Tania and I bought some солодка вата-- cotton candy.

On another adventure, she helped me to buy my train tickets for my trip to Chernivtsi, and we walked all the way from the train station back to the center of town.

On the way, we passed the building of the Ukrainian Ministry of Defense.

Outside the Ministry of Defense. This one's for Paul :)

 During the few weeks between these two crazy trips, I also did a little shopping with Karis. We went to the main bazaar and to the expo-center near my house to find some fleece-lined tights. I also did a lot of knitting. I made a hat!

...all of which was good, because I was about to embark on a my fantastic but extremely cold and crazy adventure to the Bukovyna region!