Chapter 2 - Walk around the city

The second weekend I was in Kharkov one of the teachers I met, Julia, invited me to go to an art exhibition. We met at one of the metro stops and proceeded to walk first to the central market to buy me a new alarm clock as mine had just broken. The central market is huge, crowded and filled with ten stalls all selling exactly the same products for a difference of one gryvnia. You can get food (freshly picked or killed), electronic goods, household goods, heels and soles for shoes in case you need to repair your own. Basically anything you can imagine or can’t even imagine, you can get here.

After that we walked back to the central part of town, past the opera house and a little park with a fountain that when functioning creates a mirror-like surface, thus giving it the name of "Miro-jet". Arriving at the museum we walked through the small two-room exhibition displaying photography by a Ukrainian artist that depicted life in various parts of Ukraine. There were pictures of Cossacks, Tartars, men playing violins and accordions in the Carpathian Mountains, beautiful girls seen through decaying windows in Lvov and parades of firemen through tiny towns. It was a lovely little exhibit.

Not wanting to end our day out quite yet, Julia and I walked to Gorky Park where we took the cable car ("rope road" in Russian) across the forest and ended up on the other side of town. Then we walked back and popped into a coffee shop (first one I’ve actually seen here) and had a coffee while the rain had its way out on the street. Finally walking back the rest of the way we eventually made it to Lenin - a central landmark. We then departed at the same metro station where we had met. In all we had spent the better part of a day together and about 5 hours of walking, which was the most I’d done in one stretch in a long time so needless to say I was absolutely beyond tired. But it was one of the best days I’ve had here so my worn-out limbs were well worth the experience of speaking Russian with someone and learning more about the city.