Category: Blog

L’viv is by far the largest city in western Ukraine, boasting a population of 730,000 and is located about 70 kilometers (40+ miles) from the border of Poland. You can call it L’viv (the Ukrainian transliteration) or L’vov (the Russian) or Lwow (Polish) or Lemberg (German) but whichever way you say it, it’s all the same place. L’viv serves as the capital of the L’vivs’ka Oblast and also as a sort of unofficial capital of the entire western region of Ukraine, which is a distinctly different part of the country in nearly every significant way.

(Lviv train station)

Politically, the west of Ukraine is more closely allied and desires closer ties to Europe, as opposed to gravitating back into the Russian orbit.

In religious terms, you will find a major portion of the country’s Roman Catholics residing in this region (a legacy of the Polish proximity and influence) although the Russian Orthodox Church still predominates.

Economically, agriculture rules in western Ukraine. In small villages you will find some people – though not all – farming the land much as they did in centuries past, tending hand-tilled fields with horse-drawn carts and plows and living a very simple life.

Continue reading “Western Ukraine Part 1-L’viv” →

The city of Odessa is located on the Black Sea in the southwest corner of Ukraine, and is  the country’s number one seaport and fourth largest city with a population of just over one million people.

(Sunrise, Odessa harbor)

As with most areas of Ukraine, the history of Odessa is rife with a succession of different rulers and conquerors sweeping through the region. It all began with a Greek colony, followed by various nomadic tribes, the Golden Horde, the Crimean Khanate, the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, and the Ottoman Turks among others. The city as it’s known today was founded by a decree of Catherine the Great in 1794 after the Russian Empire had defeated the Ottomans in the Russo-Turkish War of 1792.

Continue reading “Odessa” →

The only thing I regret about our trekking around the caves of Eski-Kermen is that it all went too quickly, the one downside to traveling with a tour group. You either stay with them or you’ve just lost your ride back to town. I would have preferred more time to simply poke around inside some of the other areas we only got to see briefly. The entire time I was bringing up the rear of our group, straying off for more photos from different perspectives and wanting to wander in some other direction than we headed. I later discovered there are guided hiking tours of the region available at reasonable cost, an option which would no doubt afford one greater opportunity to explore them in depth.

(Trees and rocks)

Continue reading “Eski-Kermen(part 2)” →