A long weekend in Chernobyl and Auschwitz

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Jun 4, 2015 | 11:27 pm

hauteboy

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Join Date: Mar 2001

Location: Austin, TX -- AA Life Platinum; QF Life Silver; UA Silver

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A long weekend in Chernobyl and Auschwitz

I recently returned from a long weekend trip to visit Ukraine and Poland. Pretty tame places compared with my usual adventures, though my plan was to visit Chernobyl and Auschwitz. I also tried to fit in a visit to Moldova and Transdniester, but having burnt most of my vacation this year already I didn't have the extra days and I just couldn't make the flight schedule work. I'm now planning on coming back to Europe to visit Moldova over July 4th weekend. That trip will bring my remaining countries to visit down to just 14.

I booked a one-way Austin-Kiev on United and used AAdvantage miles to return. There wasn't award availability coming back from Krakow on May 26th so I had to settle for a return from Warsaw. There is a high-speed train (2h40) from Krakow to Warsaw and tickets in First class are only $19, booked on http://www.intercity.pl/en/

Auschwitz gets very busy in summertime and it is advised to book your tickets ahead of time via http://www.visit.auschwitz.org/?lang=en. I booked a 10:30 English tour as a placeholder on the 25th just to be safe. I wasn't yet sure if I would rent a car or take the bus from Krakow. For Chernobyl, I booked a 1-day tour through Solo East for $115.

Flight itinerary:

Code:

MAY21 AUS-IAH UA
MAY21 IAH-MUC UA
MAY22 MUC-KBP LH
MAY24 KBP-WAW LO
MAY24 WAW-KRK LO
MAY25 KRK-WAW Train
MAY26 WAW-TXL AB
MAY26 TXL-ORD AB
MAY26 ORD-AUS AA

Jun 4, 2015 | 11:27 pm

hauteboy

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Join Date: Mar 2001

Location: Austin, TX -- AA Life Platinum; QF Life Silver; UA Silver

Posts: 5,467

May 21-22, 2015
Flight: Austin, TX (AUS) to Houston, TX (IAH); United Economy
Flight: Houston, TX (IAH) to Munich, Germany (MUC); United Economy
Flight: Munich, Germany (MUC) to Kiev, Ukraine (KBP); Lufthansa Economy
Hotel: Hotel Kozatskiy; Kiev, Ukraine ($29)
I managed to get in a few hours worth of work this morning before heading to the airport. Orignally, my flight to Houston was supposed to depart at 1PM with a 2-hr layover. On my way to the airport I got a text that my flight was delayed due to storms in Houston. We'd been getting a ton of (much-needed) rain here in Texas this month. The flight departure time kept getting pushed back further and further and checking arrival/departure gates was arriving in far corner of C to opposite corner of E in Houston. There was a 2PM flight departing to Houston at the next gate, I asked about getting on standby and they handed me a boarding pass. Good thing I took that chance as we ended up leaving 20 minutes before my original flight.

We arrived at the B-terminal in Houston and by the time I caught the Skytrain I had no time for the lounge as my flight was about to board. The flight to Munich was on a 767-400. I had managed to score an Economy-plus seat at checkin but hadn't realized it was a bulkhead row. No wories, the seat was fine and had a thin pull-out screen. I watched a few movies, American Sniper, Kingsman and Trading Places, which oddly had several scenes deleted.

United Y IAH-MUC

Arrived into Munich on time which gave me a few minutes to go relax in the Lufthansa lounge. Eventually wandered down to the gate to Kiev where we boarded via bus. I slept most of the flight, awaking to see the view of Soviet apartment blocks as we came in for landing. Immigration was quick and easy and I found my taxi driver after getting some cash from the ATM. The drive into town took about an hour with traffic. The weather was great, 80s and blue skies. Talked with the driver a bit, he said there are many refugees in town now from the eastern Ukraine conflict.

I was staying at the Kozatskiy Hotel right on Maidan Nezalezhnosti (Independence Square), the site of the protests last year. The Kozatskiy was an old Soviet style hotel with dim hallways but my room was nice enough with aircon (though never did find a remote), TV and a view across the square. There is a McDonalds two doors down and a hostel next door where my friend stayed a few years ago.

Kozatskiy Hotel

I was still tired so hung out in my room for a bit before heading out about 5PM. Luckily it is summer here and stays light until after 9PM. My first stop was St. Michaels Golden Domed church, just up the hill from my hotel. The church is gorgeous eggshell blue with several gold-leaf domes. The church was destroyed by the Soviets but rebuilt after independence. There was a male choir singing inside which sounded amazing.

St. Michael's

St. Sophia church was a few blocks away. It gets its name from Hagia Sophia in Istanbul. I arrived just a few minutes too late as the church was already closed (last entry 5:30PM), although the grounds and belltower were still open. I clibmed up the belltower for a great view. I headed down a few blocks to the Golden Gates, one of the original gates to the city. There was a park here with a restaurant. Along the way there were guys selling coffee (and beer?) out of the backs of trucks. From the gates I headed back past St. Sophia towards St. Andrews church. The church is at the top of a hill with a steep descent down to the low-lying part of town along the Dnieper river. I was keeping an eye out for postcards as there were rows of vendors here selling magnets, shirts, dolls, pretty much everything but postcards.

St. Sophia Belltower

St. Sophia

Poshta - mailbox

Coffee truck

For dinner I went to the 'Black Piglet' (Chorne Porosya). I fumbled my Russian and they brought me an English menu. At the top of the menu was printed 'MEAT AND BEER. IT IS VERY GOOD'. I figure you can't go wrong with that and ordered the Pork cooked in beer dish. Quite tasty but a bit small of a dish so I left a bit hungry. I wandered back down to the Maidan and down through the underground shopping mall. At the other end was an ice cream shop, just the perfect treat. The Ukranian currency fell 50% last year and prices have started to catch up.

Dinner - Pork and beer

Last edited by hauteboy; Jun 5, 2015 at 12:20 am

Jun 5, 2015 | 12:15 am

hauteboy

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Location: Austin, TX -- AA Life Platinum; QF Life Silver; UA Silver

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May 23, 2015
Hotel: Hotel Kozatskiy; Kiev, Ukraine ($29)
Looking back at it, 1986 was a crazy year. The Challenger disaster was in January, and Chernobyl was in April. I also had some devastating family issues that year.

Today was set aside for a full-day trip to Chernobyl. The SoloEast tour company picks up from outside the Kozatskiy hotel, very convenient for me. Breakfast at the hotel was a bit odd with macaroni and meatballs on offer and didn't start until 8AM which didn't leave much time. People were already waiting on the tour at 8:15 and the guide showed up wearing a Hard Rock Chernobyl shirt. I just had to have one, they sell them for $20 and luckily he had my size. The trip to Chernobyl requires long pants/sleeves. I had forgotten but luckily had my fleece with me. Another guy showed up in shorts and t-shirt and he had to borrow some pants. We had a pretty big group, nearly 20 people. We finally set off about 9AM for the 2hr drive to the exclusion zone. Along the way they showed videos and documentaries about the Chernobyl disaster. They had taken a control reading in central Kiev, background radiation there was 0.12 micro-Sieverts/hr.

We arrived at the border to the 30km exclusion zone where we had to show our passports and don our long-sleeves. The guide mentioned that the roads and buildings were decontaminated, but the ground and dirt surrounding was still 'hot' in many places. Passed through the town of Chernobyl itself, which is still several miles away from the reactor. Workers still live here on an on/off rotation. Our first stop was an abandoned kindergarten, with creepy dolls and barren beds. Most of the buildings in this town had been demolished. After the kindergarten we drove to a panorama of the 6 reactors. There were two reactors that were under construction at the time (5&6) and the cranes still are there to this day. In the middle were reactors 1&2 and then finally the building containing 3&4. Even crazier, I never realized that the other reactors continued to operate up until 2000. Behind reactor #4, was the huge arch of the new sarcophagus, nearly complete. Eventually this will cover the old sarcophagus and be used to dismantle the old reactor.

Exclusion zone

Dos and Don'ts

Abandoned kindergarten

Chernobyl

The town of Pripyat was the next stop. This town was built for the workers at the plant and received some of the highest doeses of radiation.. indeed we passed through a still-hot zone (5+ uSievers/hr). The town had only been built in 1970, so it now has been abandoned for twice as long as it was inhabited. Nature has definitely taken over and it can be hard to see the buildings now behind the trees. We walked through the main square where there used to be a supermarket and restaurant before arriving at the amusement park. This park was scheduled to open just a few days after the disaster, so it was never used. The skeleton of the ferris wheel still looms overhead and there are decaying bumper cars under twisted roof beams covered in vegetation. The open area here still has hot areas as it was used for a landing point for helicopters attempting to extinguish the fires.

Pripyat

Behind the amusement park was the sports field... we didn't even realize we had walked over the running track due to it being so overgrown. After the track we went to an abandoned swimming pool and high school. The whole place felt very creepy. All the windows were smashed out and the buildings had been fairly well looted. The high school had a floor covered with gas masks and empty rooms with creepy dolls everywhere. We also went into one of the residential apartment buildings to see what remained.

Pripyat

It was lunchtime by this point so we drove to the canteen near the nuclear plant. Background radiation here was back to 0.12 uS/hr but we still all went through radiation detectors before chowing down. Food is safe as it is brought from outside the zone. Nearby was a canal... mutated or not there was one huge catfish. We drove up to the monument overlooking reactor #4, only staying a few minutes as exposure risk here is still high.

On the way back to Kiev, we did a detour to see the 'Russian Woodpecker.' This was a huge over the horizon radar that operated in the 1980s. Nearly a km long, the radio pulses it generated interfered with ham radio and airline navigation for years. Now silent and alone. Some people are daring and have climbed up into the antenna, but none of our group seemed up to it. It was a long drive back into town and I crashed in my room for awhile before heading out for dinner.

Chernobyl town sign

Going through the radiation detector

I wanted to try some traditional Ukranian food and Spotkyach fit the bill. I ordered borscht, potato pancakes and dumplings (pierogi) along with a shot of raspberry spotkyach (liqueur). My eyes were a bit bigger than my stomach though as the borscht alone was worthy of a meal. I debated dessert but was totally stuffed at this point.

Borscht, Potato Pancakes and Dumplings

When checking my maps I noticed there was a funicular behind St. Michaels church. The cars run up and down the hill for 4 hryvnia. There was a metro station at the bottom where I caught it back to Maidan. The metro station here was incredibly deep like those in Moscow. I wanted to see the 'Friendship Arch' so wandered to a nearby park but the arch was not lit up tonight. Back to the hotel to crash.

Funicular

Kiev metro

Jun 5, 2015 | 1:26 am

JohnRain

Join Date: Jun 2009

Location: Geneva, Dubai, Paris

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Posts: 1,880

Fascinating TR, hauteboy. The pictures of the high school are surreal. The doll and the gas masks make for quite a creepy combination.
Looking forward to the rest.

Jun 5, 2015 | 2:01 am

offerendum

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Location: Germany

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I´m always fascinated by Chernobyl-reports! It´s also interesting, that still Soviet-hotels remain in their old "glory". Thanks a lot!

Jun 5, 2015 | 5:04 am

TOMFORD

Join Date: Jun 2012

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Posts: 5,018

Nice, I love some of those shots of creepy decapitated dolls.

Jun 5, 2015 | 6:43 am

grandgourmand

Join Date: Jan 2014

Location: yyz

Posts: 1,642

Amazing photos. I saw a trailer for a Chernobyl documentary the other day talking about how nature has taken over in some place.

so...how big was the catfish?

Jun 5, 2015 | 11:13 am

DanielW

Join Date: Jul 2013

Location: Dubai

Posts: 3,300

Any how many eyes did the catfish have

?

The borscht and dumplings must have been a tasty intro to Ukrainian cuisine. I guess the lunch in the exclusion zone was ok after a few sweeps with the geiger counter too

.

Maidan Square is a bit tidier than last year. Are they still selling Putin toilet paper

Jun 5, 2015 | 11:44 am

Madone59

Join Date: Nov 2009

Location: 6km East of EPAYE

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Posts: 9,575

Wow, the Chernobyl photos are so cool! Thanks for sharing, and for ingesting a little radiation for us

- if you don't mind sharing, what was the cost of that tour?

Last edited by Madone59; Jun 5, 2015 at 3:45 pm

Jun 5, 2015 | 1:16 pm

#10

flyingbee

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Posts: 999

Very interesting and fascinating report.
Thanks for sharing.

(sorry brain is broken - Friday night after a hard week and can't write properly!)

Jun 5, 2015 | 1:32 pm

#11

hauteboy

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Join Date: Mar 2001

Location: Austin, TX -- AA Life Platinum; QF Life Silver; UA Silver

Posts: 5,467

May 24, 2015
Flight: Kiev, Ukraine (KBP) to Warsaw, Poland (WAW); LOT Economy
Flight: Warsaw, Poland (WAW) to Krakow, Poland (KRK); LOT Economy
Hotel: Hilton Garden Inn Krakow Airport ($55)
Today was going to be a busy day. I had the morning to spend in Kiev before catching a 2:45PM flight to Warsaw, a 7-hr layover, then a late night flight to Krakow. This morning I planned to visit the Lavra Cave Monasteries with a guy I met on the tour yesterday. He was an American that had lived in Russia for 8 years and was staying at my hotel. He said he got quite a bit of questioning when coming from Russia to Ukraine. Before breakfast I arranged a taxi from the hotel to the airport.

We took the metro one stop before walking the rest of the way to the churches. Arrived just at 9AM as they were opening. The price was 50UAH. A private tour was quite expensive for foreigners or we could join the cheaper Ukranian/Russian speaking tour. Today was Sunday so there were lots of worshippers here, and all the women were wearing headscarves. We decided to skip the tour and just wander around the grounds. The church was impressive, topped with gold-leaf domes. We wandered down behind the church to the caves entrance. The caves were filled with niches containing altars and glass coffins of saints/priests/etc. Worshipers would walk through the tunnels and kiss the glass. There was a 'tourist' route but we snuck through the longer 'prayers only' route. The tunnels were smooth white walls, and not much lighting other than candles.

View of Dnieper River

Lavra Church

About 11AM I headed back to the hotel. I arrived back sooner than expected so decided to go try out Kyivska Perepichka which LP guide says was a Kiev institution. They serve sausage wrapped in fried dough. It was a few blocks walk away from the Maidan. The LP mentioned there is usually a line but there were only a few people waiting when I arrived. Back to the hotel, checked out and caught the taxi to the airport. The airport today was busier than when I'd arrived a few days ago but I managed to get through security pretty quickly and stopped by the Diners Club lounge for awhile.

Kyivska Perepichka Sausage dough

This was my first flight on LOT. The Embraer flight was quick and my watch gained back an hour on arrival in Warsaw. The next challenge was trying to find a place to drop my bags.. I would be back in Warsaw tomorrow evening and didn't want to haul my big bag around Krakow and Auschwitz. The problem is the lockers only took coins and noone seemed to have change. I ended up carrying my bag down to the train station, hoping to stash it in the Warsaw train station instead. There are ticket kiosks there where you can buy the train ticket, but none of them seemed to accept my 20 Zloty note, gah. As I was fiddling with the machine and trying to get change from a nearby store, the train departed, leaving me with a half hour wait before the next one.

KBP airport lounge

LOT Y KBP-WAW

Eventually the next train arrives and I arrived at Warsaw Centralna station about 4:45 PM. I found a locker for my bags and started walking towards the Warsaw Uprising museum, hoping to make it there before they closed (they stop selling tickets at 5:30PM). As it turns out I could have taken the metro or a tram... but luckily arrived just before they closed. Even better luck, the museum was free on Sunday! The museum documented the uprising by the Polish Home Army against the Nazis in 1944. This was different from the Ghetto uprising in 1943. The Nazis reponse was brutal, they quickly put an end to the insurrection and proceeded to systematically destroy nearly every building in Warsaw.

Warsaw Uprising Museum

I caught the metro back one stop and went by the Ghetto Wall monument... one of the few remaining segments. There was a plaque here saying that some of the bricks were in the Holocaust museum in Washington, DC.

Metro

Warsaw Ghetto wall

The Hard Rock Cafe was my next stop... I've been to at least 50 of them around the world and have far too many shirts, but ended up buying another one. I was starving by this point too so just ended up eating at the restaurant. I debated going up the Palace of Culture and Science, the tallest building in Poland, built in Stalinist style similar to the seven sisters in Moscow. I was pretty worn out at this point though so just ended up catching the next train back to the airport and popping in the lounge for awhile. The LOT flight to Krakow was very quick. The Krakow airport is currently under renovation/construction and they have halted the trains to town center. I had booked the Hilton Garden Inn Krakow Aiport so I didn't have to bother trying to get to a hotel at midnight. The hotel was over near the new terminal which was a bit of a walk. The HGI was brand new but had a eye-hurting razzle dazzle pattern on the carpets. Not too much a bother though as I crashed pretty quickly.

Palace of Culture and Science

Hilton Garden Inn Krakow Airport

Jun 5, 2015 | 2:32 pm

#12

SanDiego1K

Community Director Emerita

Join Date: Oct 2000

Location: Anywhere warm

Posts: 35,597

We visited Chernobyl three years ago. It is quite a surreal experience as your pictures show so articulately. I realized though that it wasn't my tragedy when I checked out of our hotel. We stayed at the very nice Hyatt Kiev. On checking out, the young lady at the front desk asked how we had spent our time. We had seen a lot of great sites in Kiev, and enjoyed the city thoroughly. I rattled them off and added Chernobyl. She said "Oh, I can't visit that. It hurts too much." It was the same reaction I had to visiting the site of the former World Trade Center. I couldn't possibly in the years following 9-11. In a way, her reaction brought the site too life even more than our visit.

Jun 5, 2015 | 4:07 pm

#13

worldtraveller73

Join Date: Oct 2010

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Chernobyl is certainly an interesting place on my list. It's probably one of the few places in the world where you can see what happens when things have gone horribly wrong.

Looking forward to the rest Hauteboy ^

Jun 5, 2015 | 11:15 pm

#14

xcalibir

Join Date: Jul 2012

Location: Murder Mitten

Posts: 298

Quote:

Originally Posted by worldtraveller73

Great trip review!

I'm from Detroit and I think only certain parts of Detroit (i.e. Packard Plant) can match the total destruction and devastation of Chernobyl.

Jun 6, 2015 | 8:53 pm

#15

TPJ

Join Date: Jun 2008

Programs: TK*G (E+), IHG Plat Ambassador

Posts: 7,884

Quote:

Originally Posted by hauteboy

I debated going up the Palace of Culture and Science, the tallest building in Polandt

For the record the tallest building is Poland is not even in WAW - it is in WRO: Sky Tower - 212 meters, Palace of Culture and Science - 188 meters.

PS> It is all about the roof level and it is all about proving that Stalin's gift is not the nation's tallest building

PS> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sky_Tow...roc%C5%82aw%29

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