{"id":6813,"date":"2018-03-02T14:32:30","date_gmt":"2018-03-02T14:32:30","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/martinblack.com\/?p=6813"},"modified":"2018-03-02T14:38:28","modified_gmt":"2018-03-02T14:38:28","slug":"ukraine-2018-the-road-to-the-east","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/martinblack.com\/oldsite\/2018\/03\/ukraine-2018-the-road-to-the-east\/","title":{"rendered":"Ukraine 2018 :
The Road to the East"},"content":{"rendered":"

Ukraine is a large country<\/h2>\n

In 2016 I visited Lviv in the west.
\nIn 2017 I went to Kyiv in the centre and then south to Odesa.
\nThis year it’s the turn of the east; Kharkiv and Poltava.<\/p>\n

It was a hard decision.<\/strong><\/p>\n

I wanted to return to lovely Lviv and then take the bus to\u00a0Zalishchyky and gaze down at the town from the top of the Dniester canyon.<\/p>\n

\"Zalishchyky
Zalishchyky and the Dniester<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

I wanted to traverse the Carpathian mountains, from the Polish border to far Bessarabia.<\/p>\n

\"The
The Ukrainian Carpathians<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

I wanted to tour the south, from Odesa to Mauripol via Huliaipole, where I’d drink a toast, and pay my respects, to the memory of Nestor Makhno.<\/p>\n

\"Makhno
Makhno monument in Huliaipole<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The road to the east (\u0414\u043e\u0440\u043e\u0433\u0430 \u043d\u0430 \u0441\u0445\u0456\u0434)<\/h2>\n

But it were the partisans of the east who lobbied the hardest. Having a friend in Kharkiv was the clincher.<\/p>\n

Kharkiv, a big city, the second city, not really on the tourist trail. Home of my favourite young Ukrainian writer, Serhiy Zhadan.\u00a0 I can imagine Kharkiv as a punk rock city (note: I have no evidence for this as such). They like a drink and a good book out there in the cold, cold east, my kinda place.<\/p>\n

\"Writer
Writer Serhiy Zhadan and his band \u0421\u043e\u0431\u0430\u043a\u0438 (Dogs) in Kharkiv<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

But I also wanted a few days elsewhere and that’s when Poltava presented herself.<\/p>\n

Almost equidistant from Kyiv and Kharkiv, Poltava is a city of which I knew nothing. A few hours research delivered some enticing findings. A restaurant called ‘Crazy Bacon’, a major battle that changed the face of Europe for ever, the many connections to Nikolai Vasilievich Gogol, a river (the Vorskla), a football club (also\u00a0Vorskla) and a balcony from which Adolf Hitler once made a speech.<\/p>\n

What else do you want?<\/p>\n

\"The
The balcony in Poltava from which Adolf Hitler made a speech (1942)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Yes, the east, the road to the east, it’s time for the east!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

My plans for visiting Ukraine in 2018<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":6814,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[150],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/martinblack.com\/oldsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6813"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/martinblack.com\/oldsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/martinblack.com\/oldsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/martinblack.com\/oldsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/martinblack.com\/oldsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6813"}],"version-history":[{"count":26,"href":"https:\/\/martinblack.com\/oldsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6813\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6845,"href":"https:\/\/martinblack.com\/oldsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6813\/revisions\/6845"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/martinblack.com\/oldsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/6814"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/martinblack.com\/oldsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6813"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/martinblack.com\/oldsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6813"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/martinblack.com\/oldsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6813"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}