provincial town
Today, July 10, we made a trip to Kyiv in order to entertain our nine-year-old son. Visits to the Planetarium, the Museum of Natural History and a walk along Khreshchatyk were planned. I will not write about my son's impressions, I will tell about my own. PLANETARIUM: A huge building in which there is little left of the actual space theme, three huge globes, a model of an alien, a model of a space station - EVERYTHING. But there is a bunch of various diverse exhibitions and shops. Bought tickets for the movie at 11 am. Paid 115 hryvnia (2 adults and a child). They showed a primitive short movie about the planets of the solar system and the constellations of the Zodiac and the same primitive cartoon about fish. The girl at the checkout was not able to explain anything plainly and tell. And in general, inside the Planetarium needs repair and reconstruction. Although the toilet there is quite tolerable, you can visit without shivering. A visit to the PLANETARium made a depressing impression on me and did not like it: poor, boring, not interesting, the level of the province, not the capital. NATURAL MUSEUM on B. Khmelnitsky Street: renovation is underway and the first floor is closed. We paid 56 hryvnia for two adults (the kind grandmother cashier did not take money from the child). The exposition is good, there are many different dioramas, skeletons, stuffed animals, birds, fish and many other interesting things. We all especially liked the paleontological and zoological museums. I recommend that you can spend the whole day there and learn a lot of interesting information. But.... the state of collections, exhibits, information boards, display cabinets, ceilings, walls, etc. is depressing, everything is dirty, dusty, dilapidated, tattered. The toilet in the museum is creepy, dirty and smelly. And this is the capital's museum? Shame. Maybe they will repair the building and update the exposition. We dined at the BUBBLE HOUSE. Well, what can I say about this institution - an inexpensive institution, convenient for tourists. The interior is pretty, a kind of nineteenth-century manor house with fake fireplaces and bookcases. Two salads, three mashed potatoes, a portion of borscht and bread chips cost 62 hryvnias. The borsch was delicious with three large pieces of meat, the salads were ordinary, and the mashed potatoes turned out to be tasteless with a "chemical" aftertaste. A glass of beer cost 10-90, and a piece of cake 12-50. Everything was fresh. As experienced tourists, they took with them homemade sour compote and cooked chicken and cheeseburgers in a special way. Saved a lot on lunch. KIEV METRO: everything is marked with desolation, the ceilings and walls are covered with rust spots and drips, it stinks of dampness, dirty. Pickpockets tried to rob us very rudely, we had to "teach" a young thief a little. After our demand to call the police, the gang disappeared, lost among the passengers. The mood was spoiled, although all the money remained intact. CITY STREETS: Kyiv itself disappointed. With each visit, he likes less and less. Remarkable old buildings are being demolished and in their place absurd tasteless buildings are erected that disfigure the city. All this Kyiv new building of the period of independence - pompous, tasteless and stupid turns Kyiv into a kind of Big Khatsapetovka, provincial in the worst sense of the word. And the quintessence of all bad taste and Kievan absurdity is a column of multi-colored granite (shouldn't they have scraped together the same color) doused with vulgar samovar gold with a figure of a peasant woman at the top, apparently symbolizing Ukraine. And yet, I practically did not see ordinary grocery stores or grocery stores on the streets, some boutiques, expensive cafes. You won’t run out, as before, for bread and milk to a shop near the house. Where do the people of Kiev buy products? Photos with pigeons on the Maidan N-sti - pure money scam, after you take a picture and the child strokes the dove, they will demand money from you (we were demanded 80 hryvnias). The rest of the lads with the pigeons had to be rather rudely pushed away from the child. Our Kyiv, as it is not regrettable to write, has lost all its beauty, charm and metropolitan chic. A provincial town, a town of bad taste, kitsch, and nothing else to say.
