Sunday was a wonderful day, the sun was shining brightly and Larissa took us to visit her Dascha and meet her husband and parents. A Dascha is a country retreat and garden. Most people in Kyiv live in big apartment blocks with no gardens. At the weekends and during holidays they escape from the bustle of the city to their country Daschas. Larissa’s is about an hour drive out of Kyiv, on a park of Daschas near a big lake and water meadow. Her Dascha is a small three roomed house, only used for sleeping. In the garden is a small kitchen area and shower room. They spend most of their time in a gazebo in the garden. The garden is full of blossoming fruit trees and beautiful flower beds. They also have an area where they grow vegetables. Everyone is very proud of their Daschas and gardens, and it is a habit to take a stroll around the other Daschas to admire the gardens and pick up tips for growing flowers and vegetables. We had such a relaxing day. Steve spent most of it fishing from the edge of the garden, which directly overlooks the lake. He didn’t catch any fish but we saw lots of frogs, crayfish, birds and insects. It was just lovely. Larissa’s family were extremely welcoming and cooked a huge meal for us, and Steve was happy as there was plenty of barbequed meat!
Monday was also a holiday. We stayed mostly around the zoo, which was completely packed with visitors. On a conservative guess, we think there were at least 12-14,000 visitors over the weekend. As we were later told, we were wildly wrong with this guess. There were actually about 50,000 over the four days!!! The queues to buy tickets were immense, and the zoo was just crammed full of people eating ice-creams! We took a bit of a walk in the heat of the afternoon. Steve had seen a decommissioned army tank near to the zoo so we wandered along to find it. These things are always further away than you think. Anyway, Steve was happy and we made our way back through a big leafy park, stopped for a beer and our groceries and back home again.
We have just had such a great weekend. I don’t think I have been so relaxed since our last holiday – our Honeymoon in Sri Lanka. Just what we needed.
Monday was also a holiday. We stayed mostly around the zoo, which was completely packed with visitors. On a conservative guess, we think there were at least 12-14,000 visitors over the weekend. As we were later told, we were wildly wrong with this guess. There were actually about 50,000 over the four days!!! The queues to buy tickets were immense, and the zoo was just crammed full of people eating ice-creams! We took a bit of a walk in the heat of the afternoon. Steve had seen a decommissioned army tank near to the zoo so we wandered along to find it. These things are always further away than you think. Anyway, Steve was happy and we made our way back through a big leafy park, stopped for a beer and our groceries and back home again.
We have just had such a great weekend. I don’t think I have been so relaxed since our last holiday – our Honeymoon in Sri Lanka. Just what we needed.
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