Kharkiv, Ukraine
Famously known as the home of FC Metalist Kharkiv (didn't they play Everton a few years ago?) Kharkiv is one of those places you don't quite think exists. And certainly cannot picture.

The Ukraine was of course part of the former USSR. And like many of the other former states of the USSR, as soon as the people could leave, they did. Much of the country is depopulated. One of the other effects of the loss of the USSR was the loss of state wages to industry and infrastructure workers, such as, for example, road-menders. These twin effects do not combine well.

In a lot of the Ukraine, this doesn't matter so much. The countryside is highly depopulated but most of the people still there are still living in the way they did a hundred years ago, as you can see.



The difference between rural Poland or Russia and rural Ukraine is shocking. As for cities, Kiev is quite rich, L'viv is actually a beautiful little place, and Odessa and Donetsk are also, I'm told, very beautiful.

Kharkiv is not.

We arrived on a Saturday night and cruised into town down the long main road from Kiev, dodging drunks and vagrants who were wandering among traffic as if it wasn't there. Dogs lay dead at the side of the road. Potholes were everywhere and the houses looked more at place in a Bangladeshi slum than a modern European country, as Ukraine wants to become.

We found our hostel round the back of some shops and parked our cars there. The hostel was great by the way at $10 a night - if you ever happen to find yourself in Kharkiv I highly recommend it. It's the only one so you should find it if you look hard enough...

Then we went into town - it was Saturday night! Gotta be something on, right?

Wrong. The place was dead. There was one bar which charged some ridiculous amount of money to get in, and that's all we could find. In fact it was all we could bloody see, since there were no streetlights in Kharkiv. The only place that was lit up properly was the local McDonalds, by the train station. This is Ukraine's second biggest city, with almost 1.5m people - bigger than Birmingham - and it apparently has ONE BAR and NO STREETLIGHTS!

Oh, and in the morning we were prepping our cars to leave. One of the other doors around where we were parked opened, a man came out, vomited everywhere, sniffed a bit and went back inside.

What a beautiful place.
(cypherspace is not a toaster, Mon 2 Nov 2009, 16:37, 3 replies)

Oh I don't know
Her footwear looks fairly modern, if not slightly on the chavvy side of things. Do they have a JJB sports in Kharkiv then?

I think the main thing that lets this area down though is people taking their cows for walk using bits of string. If you want to be taken seriously as a modern European city at least use a proper leash when taking daisy for her morning walk. Unbelievable.
(TheManWithThePlan cussed your mum on, Mon 2 Nov 2009, 16:50, closed)

In view of the fact
Kharkiv (or Kharkov) was given a fucking good hiding by both sides during the war, and was the scene of 1 SS Panzer Corps epic battles to retake and hold the city, I'm not surprised it's a bit quiet, they've had enough excitement to last them for a long while yet.
(Rsoles, Mon 2 Nov 2009, 17:18, closed)

I've also been
to Volgograd. Kharkiv has no excuse really (but yes to the alt-spelling).
(cypherspace is not a toaster, Mon 2 Nov 2009, 17:59, closed)