Zaphorozhye, home of the Cossacks!

Trip Start May 03, 2010

Trip End Jul 21, 2010

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Where I stayed

Mikael Lomonosov

(Zaporizhzhya hotels)

Flag of Ukraine Zaporizhzhya, Ukraine
Wednesday, June 30, 2010

Zaporozhye is another small provincial city situated along the shores of the Dneiper River. We didn't get to stay long here as again, there is not much set up for tourists at this stage in the city's development. We did however get to visit a very interesting museum that gave us an overview of the history of the area. One thing that we were quite surprised by was the fact that a lot of the artifacts that have been found in this particular area look like viking relics.

After the museum we went and saw a Cossack horse show on the island of Khortitsa, which despite being extremely touristy was exceptional. The entire show was in Ukranian, but i think that actually added to the performance. The men were all extremely fit and strong, and their understanding of comedy and timing was pretty good.

That night the in-house band played an evening of traditional Ukranian music, which was surprisingly good! Previously we had gotten to chatting with two of the musicians and discovered that they had both trained classically and were just working on the boat to pay for their living. It's a bit of a sad fact that there is around 20% unemployment in the Ukraine, and the rate of under employment is also high. This leads to people with high qualifications either leaving the country if they can afford it, or taking on jobs that do not fit their qualifications (i.e. doctors working as labourers, etc).