This group of photos includes shots from around Kharkiv, and trips to Kiev and Poltava, with pit stops at museums, churches, and landmarks along the way. We start with something I've seen a million times in my life but I've never actually seen. The hammer and sickle symbol representing Russian communism has always been yellow on a red field and it wasn't until visiting a museum in Poltava that I actually got to see an authentic hammer and sickle positioned that way.
The train platform in Poltava...not a person in site.
I didn't hear any ambulance sirens so I think this guy made it down okay.
This is the Kharkiv River which flows into the Lopan River which eventually makes its way to the Black Sea.
Kharkiv's train station on a rare sunny day.
A giant patch for my patch collection of the official symbol of Kharkiv. We have cornucopia crossed with the Greek symbol for the staff of Hermes which I had no idea is called a caduceus.
Just walking to the train station in Kharkiv and saw this...
Turns out "it" was a mascot for a sunflower seed company and they were handing out free samples.
Ancient statues made by some of the first inhabitants of Ukraine.
Like the American mid-west, Ukraine has a rich wholly mammoth history and I was wonderfully surprised to stumble upon a mammoth skeleton at a museum in Poltava.
Ukrainian folk symbols.
From the same museum as the hammer and the sickle from earlier...this was in the section about the farm collectivization.
A mosaic in honor of Ukraine's sunflower tradition.
Another orthodox church...this one under renovation.
Another church but I'm not sure where...they are starting to blur together a little bit.
The awesome Rotary International bell which the club's president uses to call their meetings to order.
When I first read that you were going to the Ukraine I thought of the Mammoth DNA card you used to have on the side of your other blog.
ReplyDeleteI'm glad you got a mammoth fix.