My sister and her husband are Peace Corps volunteers in Moldova, a
small country nestled between Romania and Ukraine. In July of 1997 my parents
took my wife and me to visit them in Moldova and then on a 12 day cruise
on the Black Sea and up the Dneiper river to Kiev. Here are some pictures
from that trip:
Woman in cheese house. This is a scene from inside
the cheese house in the market in Chisinau, Moldova. What a huge chunk
of butter!
Chisinau market. A view of the vegetable section
of the market in Chisinau, Moldova. Notice the man with the cabbage leaf
on his head.
Trash can on fire. While waiting for a trolley-bus
the trash can started on fire. It smelled terrible but it was fun to watch
the paint on the sides bubble.
Lunch in a village. We went to a village that my
sister and her husband had stayed at during their training and we had a
nice lunch underneath the grape leaves.
Weird hatching baby. This strange sculpture was
at the sea terminal in Odessa where we started our cruise.
Potemkin Steps. Steps made famous in the movie
The Battleship Potemkin.
War Statue. This huge statue overlooks the harbor
in Sevastopol.
Lenin and bird. This statue of Lenin in Sevastopol
seems to be training a seagull.
Swallow's Nest. The castle is called the Swallow's
Nest and is currently an Italian Restaurant. The old boat made a nice picture.
Cossack. Traditional cossack dances in Zaporizhzhiya.
Lenin. In Zaporizhzhiya the statue of Lenin in
in the official 'hailing a taxi' pose.
Bread and salt. Traditionally bread and salt are
offered to visitors. Here we were received bread and salt at a collective
farm near Kherson.
Sunflowers. A field of sunflowers grown for oil
on a collective farm near Kherson.
Sunset on the river. A beautiful sunset on the
Dneiper River as our boat cruisedinto the evening.
Taras Shevchenko. The Ukrainian poet asked to be
buried on a bluff overlooking the Dneiper river in his poem Covenant
and so he was at Kaniv.
Dneiper River. The Dneiper River as seen from
Shevchenko's grave. Our boat can be seen also.
Old cottage. The original museum to Shevchenko
started in this beatiful little cottage.
Musician. This man was playing folk songs outside
the Shevchenko museum.
Performers. This is my favorite picture. These
people were performing for money aalong the path to Shevchenko's grave.
Mysterious international symbols. This sign was
one of the first things we saw in Kiev and we never figured out what it
really meant (although we had many guesses).
Bizarre menu. The boat we were on had pretty good
food, but one day we had a strange combination of meals. This menu doesn't
tell you that the pizza I got had fish on it!
St. Sophia. This is a beautiful church in Kiev
dating to the 11th or 12th century. Inside were wonderful mosaics.
Bell tower of St. Sophia. The bell tower at
St. Sophia. Most churches had free-standing bell towers.
St. Andrew. The church of St. Andrew in Kiev.
The apostle Andrew is supposed to have planted a cross here in the 1st
century and predicted that a great city would grow here.
Foreign Affairs Building. The Ukrainian Foreign
Affairs Building in typical Soviet style architecture. The hammer and sickle
is still present because the Communists are still the majority.
Fresco. This fresco was outside the Cave Monestary
in Kiev.
Cave Monastery. There were many churches inside
the Monastery. We only got to go into a little bit of the catacombs and
saw only 2 or 3 mummified monks.
View of Kiev. The churches are all in the cave monastery
and contrast with the Soviet War statue of the woman with the sword.
Traditional house. A traditional central Ukrainian
house. We saw this at an open air museum near Kiev.
Traditional barn. A traditional cental Ukrainian
barn at the open air museum.
