Ukraine: Journal Entries

Chernivtsi Universy
image source: heritage.org

      Today, Annie and I arrived at our second destination- Ukraine. We left Norway after lunch and took the plane here, which took around two hours. The first thing I proposed we do was to go visit Chernivtsi University, a public university in Western Ukraine, since I've read that it's one of the 'leading Ukrainian institutions for higher education', which I thought seemed interesting. Another major reason was that it was listed by UNESCO, or the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization, an agency of the UN that sponsors special programs to promote education, science, and many more. Anyways, after we arrived at the Chernivtsi International Airport, we walked to the city center then took a trolleybus 1.5 km northwest to Chernivtsi University. The structure of the university, as expected, was amazing. Compiled mostly of red and grayish blue bricks, the wings of the university stood magnificently around a huge courtyard; I almost thought it was a castle when I first saw it. A lot of people tried to talk to us when we were exploring the insides of the university but we couldn't understand a thing they were saying, so we left after another few hours or so for our next site- the National Art Museum of Ukraine.

     I was quite skeptical about it, actually, since the National Art Museum of Ukraine was in Kiev, which was almost thirteen hours away from Chernivtsi by train. Thirteen, could you believe it? However, Annie insisted that she had to go there no matter what, so we ended up spending thirteen hours of our precious time in Ukraine on the train. (And I thought spending two hours on the plane without television was bad.) On the way there, Annie showed me a brochure of the museum which, luckily, was in English. Founded in 1996, the museum used to be called the City Museum of Antiques and Art, and it was only until 1994 did the museum reach an international level. I don't really know how to describe it, but the exterior of the museum gave off a kind of ancient artistic kind of feeling. Well, you can just see it for yourself:

National Art Museum of Ukraine
image source: encyclopediaofukraine

Doesn't it look amazing? Of course, the outside wasn't the only part that looked amazing- the inside was stunning too. There were many different types of art by many different artists; the only thing in common was that they all looked absolutely astonishing. Well, I'm not sure if it was worth the long train ride, but it certainly did make me feel a lot better.

Andreevsky Church at night
image source: visitkievukraine.com

     Annie and I actually planned to visit some orthodox churches which are apparently quite famous in Ukraine, but we ended up not having enough time to do so, which was quite disappointing. However, I managed to find a brochure at the National Art Museum that introduced me to orthodox churches a bit more. It was a brochure of the Andreevsky Church in Kiev, and it had lot of interesting facts and details about both the church and the religion practiced. Orthodox Christianity was accepted then widely spread in Europe by Prince Vladimir the Great in 988 A.D, and it is the religion that around seventy percent of Ukrainians practice today. One of the major accomplishments were that they translated the sacred writings in the Bible into Slavonic so that more people could actually read and understand it. The brochure also provided many pictures which just made me want to visit more, but oh well. We'll be heading to San Marino in a few hours, so there's no time to spare.