Kiev. Ukraine

Once again we challenged time and reached the airport 4 minutes before check in closed. I guess the act of rebellion we had witnessed on the streets over the few days settled in our hearts, or it could simply be the bottles of vodka we drank till 3am the night before.

Kiev felt like a forgotten city, in which when you walk the streets talk to you, the grandeur and the historical significance of the city yells messages that only your eyes can hear. The beauty lay in the churches and the castles of this magnificent place.

This is the first city my Co-Captain and I arrived which was covered in snow. The temperature dipped to minus 20 degrees during the night, safe to say our drinks were kept cold.

We arrived at possibly the worst time to visit. The streets filled with rioters and civil tensions at peak. My Co-Captain and I had to explore. We walked the streets which to our amazement were barricaded everywhere by protestors to keep the Military out. There were people everywhere, some on the barricade out posts, preparing food and supplies in tents and others simply chopping wood for fire, they all had tasks in this revolution. We walked to a point and stood there, after 5 minutes of standing there a local asked us where we were from, a conversation ensued, in the end we discovered we had been loitering at the area which was most prone to Military attack! It was then very kind of him to take us to where the actual fighting had been occurring.

At this point we saw things that resembled a movie, Molotov cocktails being thrown, fireworks being shot at police, raging citizens, fire, chanting and finally Tear Gas being unleashed. We carried on observing. I joined the chanting. We saw the home made catapult brought in, that thing was insane. It was fun and games till the Tear Gas hit, after coughing our lungs out we decided to head back home.

What surprised us was that aside from these crazy protests it was business as usual, you could walk the streets safely and go about your daily activities, people were even carrying batons and baseball bats in shopping centres. A fascinating sight. However a heap of places had been shut due to this. We carried on and bought rabbit skin hats (haters going to hate) and fit in with the locals.

The following day we visited one of the scariest places in the world. The Chernobyl Nuclear plant. Words can not describe the utter eeriness of this place. As you walked around the abandoned town (previously home to 50k people) you could see how lives were shattered when they had been given 2 hours to evacuate never to see the homes again.

We had several radiation checks throughout the tour to ensure our radiation levels were safe and asked not to touch anything (which I admittedly broke several times). My Co-Captain also decided is a good idea to pee on the plant which I didn’t disagree with. We left this place which now had urine on it, deeply disturbed and decided to head out later.

That day happened to be the first day the law was going in action. It was also the independence day. People were going crazy. 3 protesters have been shot and 2 NBC reporters have been shot at point blank range. It was crazy the streets were filled with people. Even the bus didn’t drop us home. Reception has told us not to go out anywhere.

As an executive decision and it being our last night in Ukraine we decided against common advice. My Co-Captain started getting ready and I went to get cash out. As I walked to the ATM I heard a gun shot. I hurried back to find out another protestor had been killed. Fearing death the executive decision was reconsidered and revised.

KIEV: The City Torn for Freedom