Poltava

Poltava is sort of a 'big village' between Kharkov and Kiev but it has some interesting history. For some reason there were a lot of Swedes down here in 1709 and they were fighting the Russians together with the Cossacks. In Poltava they lost a big battle and after that Sweden was no longer a great power.



This is a 4 star hotel room in Ukraine. Italian style. When we had breakfast we were thrown out of the restaurant because they found out that the president's wife was arriving. On every corner outside there were suddenly policemen.




A cap took us to the museum of the Poltava battle but it was closed. For one moment we thought he had left us completely alone 7 km outside of town, but he came back shortly after.




On the way back we walked around in the outskirts of Poltava.




Downtown.




There was this shooting 'tent' in the middle of the streets. As it turns out, I am pretty good with a gun.




We saw some very bad 'spiritual art'. The interesting thing was that in all the exhibitions we went to they would only light the room that we were in, and in this place they would turn the lights from one end of the room to the other every time we crossed the middle. I wonder if they do this to save energy or to keep people employed, or if it is another example of the efficient spirit that you will also see in restaurants when they take your plate the same second that you put the last piece of food on your fork.




We saw this very photogenic old swimming pool. It is steaming because the air is very cold.




Fun is over.




Many places there was garbage lying on the ground and like in Kharkov there were dogs running around freely.




This restaurant is kind of fancy. Still has decorations from Valentine's day. We had some good borsch and the people over there are frying a fondue dinner.




His name is Atu and he works at this second hand shop. He studies at the technical university, has a wife and a kid and lives in a one room apartment. He does not have a car and he does not like Ukraine. But he thinks Italy is good. We were they first foreigners he ever spoke to.




Anna got this beautiful dress very cheap. When she is wearing it everybody is staring and they don't even mind that we can see them staring. Another thing Ukrainian people seem to find very funny is the fact that Anna likes to wear gloves.