Alushta and the Yalta Zoo

Still being hung on by my little helpers...

We stayed in a well-advertised but slightly more primitive than we thought cabin in the “town” of Alushta, about 20 minutes from the thriving metropolis of Yalta. The coastline is really lovely, reminding me a bit of Wellington with its steep hills and narrow beaches. This being Ukraine, however, it is still chilly in May, so we largely ignored the sun-bathing sights. The hotel was called the Green Mussel “Zeleny Mis” or maybe the Green Harbor-Protrusion. My Ukrainian is still shaky. The photos on the website looked good, and the room itself was excellent. What was not mentioned was the substantial renovation of the hilly and mud-covered driveway and paths to the cottages. Since it was wet and rainy, this meant a lot of dirt. And they said they had a restaurant. Which apparently they did, if one was willing to stretch their understanding of that phrase, and include a restaurant a 5 minute drive back towards the main highway. Whatever, we are easy customers, and bring our own bananas and yogurt and breakfast bars everywhere for just this type of emergency.

Our first outing on the Monday was to the Yalta Zoo. You may remember from way back that the Kyiv Zoo is an abomination, and actually lost its accreditation as a zoo during our tour, due to the death of a large number of animals, including an elephant and some monkeys. But we had heard that the manager of this zoo was serious about animal well-being, and really criticized the Kyiv Zoo. So we gave it a shot, hoping it wouldn’t scar our young charges for life. As you can see, it was an excellent mix of animals, amusement park, and weird and anomalous sculptures and rococo architecture. Just what one would expect. And so, we all rode plaster camels and elephants, stood in plaster kangaroos and pretended to be eaten by alligators… and basically just monkeying around (ha, ha, get it?)



The amusement park aspect was the most interesting for our big girl (I though the white peacock was quite cool, myself), especially the bouncy castle (or batuta in Russian.) So we rode the ferris wheel and watched her jump on the batuta for half an hour. From the ferris wheel you could see down the gorge to the water, and get a sense of why Crimea is a tourist destination, and why the Russians fought many wars to keep their warm-water entry point for their navy.

Yalta - Of Castles, McDonalds and Just Chillin'

 (I'll edit this and make the pictures the right way around, once I am not being hung on by two dependent humans..) Our next port of call was Yalta itself. Keep in mind, as my dear husband did since I kept reminding him, I had been to Yalta once before – 15 years ago. Wow – a lot has changed, and yet nowhere near as much as I had hoped or expected. If they really want to attract tourists (other than Russians) they need to renovate, develop a service culture, and stop being corrupt. Hey – it could happen… So there are examples of famous architecture, and also examples of more familiar architecture (photo of McDs food.) The central area of Yalta is a sweeping expanse of concrete boardwalk. There are hawkers and buskers and strollers and rides and kiosks, hotels and cruise ships, and lots of variety. We had a nice walk, despite the gloomy weather.


We headed back in the direction of our hotel, stopping at the scenic overlook for a brief break in the clouds, which let us shoot a photo of the harbor in all of its majesty. We then stopped at the ??? Castle, which unfortunately contained no princesses. Since our kids were small, we opted out of the tour since I was afraid the little “destructor” would trash the 18th century furnishings, or run amok, as she is wont to do. So we toured the gardens and took some photos again of the coastline. Everyone was getting tired, so we ate dinner, headed to the hotel, and set off the next morning for the quick drive back to Simferopol. The only hiccup was the damage to the car we had to pay for. I argued (it ended up being about $50) but in truth, we did bounce the back bumper as we made a 270 degree turn straight down to get to our hotel. So there was a scratch, albeit under the car. Not a good ending, but the flight was easy and we were back in Kyiv in time for dinner, and our dear teenage son had neither burned down the house nor appeared to have a party, although I’m still suspicious on that last point…

Final (Sniff!) Embassy Playgroups

It was with great sadness that we started counting down our last Wendesday afternoon playgroups with the Embassy kids.  I managed to stop by Abby’s house for one in early May, and snapped some shots of the girls, well, running around.  Here’s a good one of Lyuda and her girls.

We love Lyuda!

Crimea - From Simferopol to Alushta

Although my plan had been to meander slowly from the capital of Crimea down to the tourist-laden coast, stopping at the majestic ancient cave city of Bakchisaray and taking in a stroll along the port of Sevastopol, home of the Russian Naval Fleet, this was thwarted by extremely tired children.  We ended up doing what we in the State Department call a “windshield tour” of the city. 

We drove up to the overhanging cliffs and past the restaurant hawkers at Bakchisaray. 

We stopped in Sevastopol just long enough for Aaron to walk along the river, capturing photos of the ships and a pro-Russian group waving their flags.  (This was May Day after all.) 

I enjoyed an ice cream, blissfully for once, since the girls were asleep and couldn’t each eat half of my share. 

Kiddie Vodka Shots

After a trip to the Botanical Gardens, what better than water out of shot glasses.  Largely because they were the only glasses available in the room. Bottoms up!

Crimea - Simferopol, Land of.. Not Much

Crimea is the peninsula in Ukraine that sticks out into the Black Sea.  Long known for its restorative health properties, due to the fresh sea air and fresh water, it is home to a number of sanitoriums (no, not for crazy people - like 19th century spas.) Due to a happy coincidence, I was in Simferopol for a Friday and Saturday conference for defense attorneys (on land law, and all in Ukrainian, so you can imagine how much I got out of it!)  But it was the perfect excuse to invite Aaron and the girls down Saturday night, to celebrate the May Day holidays, since Monday and Tuesday were days off.  Their flight down, already scheduled to get in at the ungodly hour of 11 PM, was delayed for ridiculous reasons, and they didnt' arrive until 1 AM.  Poor kids!  Thankfully, Simferopol airport is pretty small, to say the least, (the baggage claim is outside - it's a wall that you can walk around, that has a donut shaped baggage carousel - pretty funny!) and it was a domestic flight.  As a result, I was able to sweet-talk myself past the guards and out on to the tarmac to get in the plane and help Aaorn off-load sleeping kids.  Try that in America!

Anyway, On Sunday morning we had a lovely (?) breakfast at my hotel - which was definitely not a spa.  And then we walked across the street to the Botanical Gardens.  They had been busily planting of the May Day holidays and it was beautiful.  They do take their flowers seriously here, I tell you. 

And here is my dear husband, practicing his Ukrainian woman super-cheesy pose.  

Don't look behind you - there's a killer pigeon, which kept following us around, even though we had no food!

Super-stroller - built to withstand the squirming of not one, but two children! Unfortunately, the kid on the bottom was not so designed...