An Auspicious Beginning

It was fall of 2008 when I landed in Kiev, en route to Russia.  I was reading a spy novel where the hero had just done the same and I had images in my mind of narrow streets and dangerous car chases.  The reality of Kiev was so much more than I expected though.  My first impressions are best described through my travel log at the time:

Monday September 22^nd 2008

3:39 AM Local

The jet lag rattled me awake this morning at about 3AM. I've had one full day in Kiev and I'm heading out to Moscow on Aeroflot this morning. My flights were all brilliant. No waits, no problems at the borders. I arrived in Kiev Saturday in time for a short nap and some dinner: Borscht of course, and a nutty tasting veal in wild mushrooms.

Sunday it rained. And rained. And rained. But that being said it was still beautiful out. I walked a little further away from the hotel than Saturday night, and Kiev is really quite impressive. It suffers none of the fates as Georgia; it is modern, full of beautiful architecture, full of shops, gardens, churches, nice cars and gorgeous women.

Kiev is probably the sexiest place I've visited so far in my travels...perhaps even more than the France-Italy border. Women are generally attractive, but almost exclusively in good shape and they largely dress to emphasize that. Perhaps half the female population wears high, and really I mean HIGH heels and boots. High fashion jeans, skirts tops...it's a living rock video.

And unlike a recent trip to Vienna, where of course fashion is also king, the women here...actually the people here, all touch. There is no safety bubble around them, couples stroll through town not only holding hands, but really engaged in one another's physical space. Romance is alive and well in Kiev in a way I haven't seen for years. It is heartening.

Of course the men drink enormously. Many of them are drinking all day and all the time, and everywhere you look are groups of guys with the countenance of hard drinkers. They look like Russian bad guys in American movies.

I toured through St. Sophias cathedral today, an 11^th C cathedral topped in the Russian Orthodox style (I think?); huge church built of really thick stone walls that gave it a primal presence that I sometimes prefer to the finer architecture of later European styles. Not as grand and soaring, but easier to conceive of the massive challenges the masons had to overcome to build such places. Or maybe it's just the presence.

On my way back to the hotel, I watched the Renault race car demonstration on a street that had been cordoned off for several kilometres. I gathered at the sidelines with thousands of others, under umbrellas in the rain, and was rewarded with the shockingly loud screaming of a jet powered car ripping by us at speeds that looked like they were trying to achieve liftoff.

I actually downplayed my impressions of the women for the travel log which was being read by a number of people who's first interests may not have been as focused as I was.  Suffice it to say, that this was my first breathless moment.  I was incredulous.  On the cordoned off rainy streets of Kiev, there were stunning women everywhere - and dressed in a manner that set my pulse racing as fast as the cars.  It was just so much to take in; I was gawking foolishly, almost injuring myself trying not to miss anything, when one of the Renault race cars would go screaming by and I'd breathe again with a whoop and a grin.

It was, to say the least, an auspicious beginning.

JF