    
Marv Feldman
Senior Member
Username: Marv
Post Number: 488
Registered: 02-2005
| | Posted on Monday, September 25, 2006 - 11:54 am: | |
SHIPBOARD LIFE
For the next four days, we cruised down the Dnieper River in a leisurely manner in the direction of the Black Sea, transiting several impressive locks (lowering our riverboat some 10-20 metres each time). This voyage took us past lovely daschas (holiday homes for the wealthy), picturesque islands and villages, and polluted industrial cities and towns. We waved and exchanged greetings (the Ukrainian world for "hi" sounds like "private" so other passengers thought Marvin was getting personal) with both fishermen in their little boats and locals on the riverbanks!
The ship's company did a very good job entertaining us with a Ukrainian dinner and lectures on Ukrainian language, culture and history; classical and Ukrainian folk music concerts and multi-channel, in-room live satellite TV. Of course, our chief source of stimulation was live dialogue with the on-board Ukrainian tour guides and fellow passengers, where we noted the contrast between English (in group tours - every minute organised) and independent travelers like us who were pleased to have free time to look "just around the corner".
Today, you don't have to be a rocket scientist to visit Dnipropetrovsk - but once you did, because this was where the USSR built its ICBMs. No longer a "closed" city, Dnipropetrovsk (1.2 million) was our first stop. Considered Ukraine's wealthiest city, it is now an industrial hub with much polluted air belching from numerous smoke stacks everywhere. Nevertheless, it has lovely parks, flower-filled gardens, a superb History Museum, a palace, churches, war memorials (including Afghanistan), an attractive waterfront esplanade and a main thoroughfare (Lenin St.), awash with pricey boutiques. There is even talk that the city's (Soviet-era) name may revert to its original one (Ekaterinoslav) - given by Prince of Princes Potemkin in honour of Catherine the Great.
Our last stop before arriving in Odessa was at the small provincial town of Nova Kachovka where we strolled down the main street, past the "Soviet Realism" style Town Hall (formerly Communist Party HQ) to the Palace of Culture. Both buildings are still adorned with the red star, hammer and sickle, and statues, stained glass windows and ceiling frescoes glorifying Communism and Lenin. All eye-opening!
Happy traveling,
Marv
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