Friday

On this first day in Kyiv I want to see the river, and I’ll need a coffee quite soon and then some breakfast.  I walk for what seems miles and miles.  I buy a coffee from a kiosk and find a bridge across the Dnieper and pass a half built bridge, rusting away, going nowhere fast1.

I find, and eat, delicious potato pancakes at Druzi (the smoothies are rather good as well), and admire churches and cathedrals.  I walk through Podil, down cobbled streets, Kyiv is built on hills2, I never knew.  The city bustles around me as I wander aimlessly, following my nose3.

dnieper view
The Dnieper

Returning to the flat I take a nap and dream of bridges.  I wake refreshed and ready for the evening.  I grab a coffee at the Golden Gate and wait out a sudden rain shower.

I walk to the Klaipeda ‘gastro bar’ to meet my friend Sergii.  He’s not there.  Text messages pass between us, he’s at the other branch of the bar, across town!  Never mind, he says, I’ll come to you.  We arrange to meet in a the ‘Craft v Pub’ bar on the corner.  Sergii joins me, we have a drink and then walk back to the Klaipeda but there are no tables free.

Sergii phones the other Klaipeda (the one across town we were supposed to meet up in originally) and they do have tables, Sergii books one.  We take the metro up to the other Klaipeda (exciting!), find the bar and settle in for a slap-up meal and an uncertain number of beers from Latvia.

Sergii walks me back to my flat.  A glorious night.

Footnotes and further reading

Footnotes and further reading
1 I was later told that the bridge was a pet project of an oligarch, I can’t remember the details but it involved missing monies and corruption, as you might guess.
2 For some odd reason I had imagined Kyiv to be flat but, as with Rome, it’s a city defined by its hills
3 Psychogeography‘, if you want to get all Situational about it

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