Kiev is a city stock full of awesomeness, in a literal sense. Beginning at our Boheme Soviet intelligentsia flat, the shiny and bustling Maidan square, to the golden churches and cathedrals and monumental government buildings, quite often we would come around the corner, suddenly stopping with a "wow" on our lips.

Most awesome was the visit of our good friends Anna and Tim, who took +30 hours of train travel on themselves. Together, we walked an estimated 15 kilometres a day to make the most of it.

If you are into churches, Kiev is your place. Being the ancient capital of the Kiev Rus, the precursor to what is now Russia, Ukraine and Belarus, it has some of the most important holy sites of orthodox Christianity. The most memorable are monastery caves. Now "covered" by a huge monastery complex overground, it started as a series of caves, which are now filled with glas sarcophagus' of former monks. Pilgrims come here and process through the narrow corridors, stopping at every coffin, doing the signof the cross several times and kissing it. Walking along those pilgrims in the dimly lit environment was quite unsettling.

Another thing Kiev has adopted from former times is Soviet grandeur. Just the government buildings alone are hugely monumental. The ample monuments, commemorating the victory over Nazi Germany or the victims of the Holodomor, the man-made famine of 1931/32, are quite impressive. And towering it all, is the 100 meter tall statue of "motherland", with sword and shield, sporting the well know hammer and sickle. The friendship arc, to symbolise the ties between Ukraine and Russia, on the other hand, has quite newly drawn crack on it. All about symbolism.

By the way: Ukraine has to be the most patriotic country we have visited so far. The blue and yellow of the ukrainian flag is visible everywhere in the city. On the big info screen over Maidan square, in countless flags on buildings, in the seats of the Olympic stadium, even on fences surrounding buildings sites, or just concrete pillars, everything is painted yellow and blue. Understandable, maybe, as the conflict in the east of the country is still going on, killing people every day.

That this country is at war, only shows in details, like soldiers off duty walking among the normal everyday citizens, or the occasional as for the armed forces.

But even so, Kiev so far was, as I said, awesome.