Chernobyl

The next day I visited Chornobyl

This is the monument to the first respondents and fire fire fighters that died

Entering town

This is the town itself. It was evacuated after the reactor melted down. Though people were allowed to come back to get their things at a later date

They were preparing for their May day parade that never happened

The Amusement park that was to be opened on the May Day, it was never used

Swimming pool

One of the schools

The reactor itself

The cooling ponds were stocked with Cat Fish. Nobody is allowed to fish there now so they have grown to immense sizes.

On the way out we were all tested for radiation

That evening I dropped Okcana at the Train Station. The forecast said rain for the ride back to Moscow. She didnt have any rain gear so opted to take the train. Then I drove back to Moscow as quickly as possible!

Kiev WWII Museum, Radina Mat and Chernobyl Museum

The next day we woke up and decided to go see the WWII Museum.

These tanks are parked in front of it

This is leading up to the museum

The museum is underneath this statue, Mother Motherland or Radina Mat

This is probably the most famous exhibit they have. A pair of gloves made out of human skin

This is the hall of Soviet Heroes

They wouldnt let us go to the top of the statue because it was to hot but we could go up to the base of the statue

That evening we went to a Ukrainian restaurant and ate Salo, raw pig fat

This is the Urinal at the restaurant

The next day it was raining and of course we didnt have an umbrella so we improvised.

Went to check out the Chernobyl Museum. It was a very good museum very informative

Then just walked around Kiev and looked at the different buildings

Also saw a monument to the people who were starved in the 1930's in Ukraine during the Collectivization of the farms

Kiev City and Babi Yar

So after finding the apartment we had reserved for the night we jumped on the metro and headed into Kiev.

This is the Golden Gate. Its the last gate remaining from the fortress that used to surround Kiev.

A cool building on a street corner

St. Sofias Cathedral in the Distance

The top of St. Sofia

Khreshatyk is the main street they close on weekends and turn into a pedestrian only street.

This is Babi Yar where over 30,000 Jews were killed by the Nazi's in 24 hours.

They were killed in this ravine and then buried. Towards the end of the war Soviet Prisoners where forced to dig up the bodies and burn them to hide the evidence.

Alexandrevsky Cathedral

In the Podil District

Moscow to Orel to Kiev

Well we got off to a late start this morning. Got hung up right in the middle of rush hour. Even cutting through the traffic as best as possible it was miserable. A very hot and sunny day we were baked in the traffic leaving Moscow.

Our goal was to get to Tula and check it out. We finally made it mid afternoon.

The police checkpoint that is outside most larger cities

After we found a place to stay we went out around the town. They had an outdoor exercise park

They had a Kremlin that we wanted to see but it was under renovation so we just walked around checking things out,

The next morning we continued down the road towards Kiev. We didnt know how the roads would be so our goal was just close to the Ukraine Border.

A mound with soldiers from the war.

We stopped at a little roadside cafe for lunch. In the back there was a small museum of things that people had found and brought here.

A little further down the road we came across some kind of mining operation

We made great time to the border and decided to just cross today and get a hotel on the other side

The crossing was no problem but ever hotel we found was full so we kept going through the harvesting of the fields.

Finally we found a place that had an open room. We had a great dinner of potato pancakes and went to bed!

We were only about 100 miles short of Kiev so the next day it was an easy short trip into town.

A bus stop