Month: June 2017

I guess, almost everyone knows who is the president of USA. Ukraine is not a very powerful country and many people may not be even aware where it is situated. However, there is lots of going on in Ukraine. Maybe you heard words like “Orange Revolution”, “Euromaidan protests”, “2014 Ukrainian revolution” or “Crimean crisis” – that’s all from Ukraine!

As I already wrote before, it’s a travel blog, so I don’t want to write about politics, so I’ll only mention basic facts.
And look at today’s picture – it’s like saying – “Stop! I have a headache. No more politics.”. 😉

The history of Ukraine is closely related to Russia. Similar sentence can be written about some other countries, e.g., Estonia that was already described on my blog.

There were long periods when Ukraine was occupied by Russia. As an independent country Ukraine exists since August 1991, when got an independence from the Soviet Union.

Before writing this post, I was wondering what I was eating in Ukraine. I couldn’t really recall anything, so I though Ukraine is a big country, so food is also quite diverse depending on the area. Then, I asked my Ukrainian friend, what are her favorite Ukrainian dishes. Her answer sounded to me like describing some of typical Polish dishes. So that’s why I didn’t’ remember Ukrainian food, because it’s too similar to Polish cuisine. 😀 Of course, there are also many differences between Ukrainian and Polish food.

So what you should try while being in Ukraine?
according to my Ukrainian friend:
-Varenyky – boiled dumplings with mushrooms, potatoes, cottage cheese, or berries, etc.
-Borscht – soup made of beetroots
-Golubtsi – kind of stuffed cabbage
-Deruny – potato pancakes

p.s. Varenyky is my number 1. 😉

In today’s picture, you see a “place” where you can buy a traditional Slavic or Baltic fermented beverage called “Kvass”.

Ukrainian flag is very simple, it consists of two horizontal bands, a blue and a yellow one.
You can find different explanations why this flag looks like that. My favorite explanation says that Ukrainian flag represents a typical landscape of Ukraine – yellow field and blue sky. 🙂

Eastern Orthodoxy is the main religion in Ukraine.
Apparently, the number of “unbelievers” is getting higher in Ukraine (like in many other countries), but you can still see many people in churches.

While visiting Ukraine, pay attention to the characteristic style of churches. (An example is visible in today’s picture, later, I’ll show you more.)

Ukrainian is the official language of Ukraine.
I think Ukrainian language may be taken as Russian language. Well, there are some similarities (e.g., both languages use Cyrillic alphabet) but they not identical! The other thing that may led to this confusion – Russian language is widely spoken in Ukraine and many Ukrainians can speak Russian.

The population of Ukraine is quite high. The majority of people are Ukrainians, but there are relatively large minorities of Russians, Romanians, Moldavians, Belarusians, Crimean Tatars, Bulgarians and Hungarians (and other small ones) – so mostly people from the neighborhood countries.

Ukraine is a large country located in Eastern Europe.
Ukraine borders with Belarus, Hungary, Moldova, Poland, Romania, Russia, and Slovakia.
The country has an access to the Black Sea and Sea of Azov.

It was interesting for me to find out the origin of the name “Ukraine”. Well, it’s not completely clear, but many believe that it comes from the word “borderland” or “outskirts”, simply because of its location.

Welcome in June! 🙂

This month, I’d like to invite you to visit Ukraine with me.

I was in Ukraine in 2009. Since that time, many things have changed in this country. I’ll give you then basic information about Ukraine and show places I’ve visited. Some of these places are a subject of political dispute and cannot be visited as a part of Ukraine any more. However, I’m going to present them this month, because during my trip, they were considered as a Ukrainian soil.