Kiev Just for the Chicken

So we left Moscow in a big hurry, it was great don't
get me wrong, but the whole trip was like a whirlwind.
I particularly liked that we went to see Lenin and
Stalin’s (who has more flowers than anyone) graves and
then went to the huge shopping mall across the way
(which if Lenin ever wakes up from his nap will be the
first thing he sees, complete with Nike Swoosh). We
board another sleeper car bound for Kiev and our first
interaction with Russian Border guards. Surprisingly
(especially after a month of living in Russia) they
just let us go, stamped our passports and said "have
fun in Ukraine" no money requests, no pat downs
nothing.
We arrived in Kiev at 8 in the morning, first thing
we see?? A 250 foot Russian goddess with sword and
Soviet Sickle and hammer. IF you know anything about
soviet architecture you know this screams Stalin's
brainchild (everything over the top soviet i.e. the
cool buildings were done under Stalin, perhaps that's
why he has so many flowers). You can just see him one
night, dead drunk "hey guys how about this let's build
a huge Russian woman, like 100 meters tall with a huge
sickle and hammer, and plop it in Kiev?? Then they'll
never be able to escape the Soviet Yoke" well maybe
that's not word for word but if you throw a few -skis
in there I’m sure it would translate. After attempting
to rent a apartment from a babushka unsuccessfully
(something about 5 Americans on spring break turned
her off to that idea) we settled on the hostel which
was conveniently located in the center of nowhere.
Chad and I tried to find a place to eat breakfast...
yeah like 4 mile walk and then it was just McDonalds.
However we quickly realized that the reason we
couldn't find anything was that we were a little off
on our time... i.e. 2 hours off we though that people
would be up and moving but it was in reality only 8 o
clock we thought it was 10 (nothing really goes on in
Russia before 10 unless it involves alcohol).
Also we found out that like many Russian villages
there aren't so many restaurants as house restaurants
and house hotels, which would essentially mean that
when your kid moves out of his or her room for college
you put up a hotel sign in your window, or if you like
to cook you put up a restaurant sign (most of the
places we went like this had no menu but seemed just
to decide what you would want, and you either said yes
or left, there was only one option per person, but
every table got a different dish) Our first day we
went to St. Sophia, a copy of the Constantinople St.
Sophia although I get the impression that the one in
Constantinople is massive and has an immense dome,
this I imagine due to snowfall fears was like a
miniature. But the interior was the best we've seen
yet, mostly because the Russian definition of
restoration was paint a new fresco on top so they're
all painted in like 1902 (seriously the concept of
real restoration has just hit here our art history
teacher talks about it like it's a marvel of science).
We also went to a monastery nearby (Russian and
Ukraine are out of control with churches and
monasteries, people say the communists destroyed a lot
of churches and monasteries but surely it must have
been because there simply was no room otherwise, each
city tour starts with "before the communists we had a
lot of churches now we only have 600" every two feet:
onion dome.
After the first day we were rather churched out, but
the second day we decided to go to the "monk caves" in
yet another monastery supposedly very creepy, you buy
a candle as your ticket, you have to rent a guide, a
must see, at least this is the way the guide book
describes it. Well so we get there, nice monastery per
usual, we find the cave entrance, buy our candles and
get into a tour group. Yep it's in Russian, yep for
the first 40 minutes we are trying to avoid an
international incident as we're all led around
expected to kiss each icon and pray (we were in a
group with two portly Russian monks) finally after
we'd abstained from every religious activity, and
there were a lot the tour guide says "what's wrong?
are you catholic??" so that made things a little more
awkward. Finally we get to the cave part, we light our
candles, jarrod and I get all excited and ... well
someone should rename this sight "monk cellar" it's
probably above ground, totally lit up inside, it's
whitewashed smooth walls and completely covered
bodies, the only interesting thing about this sight
was watching the portly monk try and wedge through
these incredibly cramped quarters and kneel down and
kiss each coffin(I certainly couldn't have done it, I
really still don't understand how he was doing it, I
think it was an optical illusion, but it almost made a
believer out of me)
After this tour (mind you we still had to listen to
the tour guide explain each saint or monk and their
deeds in a language we couldn't understand, and of
course we were stuck behind the whole group, there was
no escape) we sprinted to the huge "Mother Russia"
statue, even more impressive up close, complete with
an eternal flame (now extinguished, something I’ve
never seen before) and a huge ,soviet military display
where for 30 cents you could mess around on a soviet
helicopter, complete with cheesy gunfire sounds. and
we got to see a couple of the huge Russian missiles
which I imagine were once pointed at my dear North
Truro military installment(don't worry Uncle Ellery I
took plenty of photos for you).
Our final day in Kiev was spent going to the souvenir
market and Bulgakov's house, which mind you I haven't
read any of his works but from the look of the
abundance of medicine bottles and the creepy
psycadelic light display might have enjoyed whatever
drugs were available at the time (not to mention there
is a head shop across the way) curious to say the
least. Oh and yes one last thing, about the chicken,
does anyone know what Chicken Kiev is?? I didn't until
I ordered it the first night, turns out they take a
chicken breast, wrap it around a stick of butter,
bread it and deep fry it!! I think that answers a lot
of questions about the former soviet state now doesn't
it? back in St. Pete's where it's now possible to get
your feet wet ell