Kyiv, Ukraine. 16th - 22nd January 2022 (Plus a couple of extra days!)

I had always wanted to visit Chernobyl but to be honest I knew nothing about Ukraine let alone how to get to Chernobyl. I had looked at various options like crossing borders, trains, planes etc, but none seemed feasible. Then one day I came across a website offering Chernobyl tours, things started to fall into place!

My oldest son and myself like to watch Rammstein (a German rock band) and we have seen their show in many different European countries over the last 14+ years. Back in 2021 the lead singer Till Lindemann started a solo tour (you see where I'm going with this!) Ukraine, a country we have never been to and a chance to see Lindemann play in Kyiv, well this was just to good a chance not to buy tickets for! And as luck would have it my son also wanted to visit Chernobyl. The plan was complete. So the flights were booked, concert tickets purchased, an Airbnb was booked in Kyiv as well as a two day tour of Chernobyl, What could possibly go wrong!

2022, we were still in the grips of the Covid era, will we fly, wont we fly, can we fly, What paperwork do we need, are we allowed to travel!? There was so many if's and buts. Sadly a couple of weeks before we left the Lindemann tour was cancelled due to Covid but now we are now allowed to travel, so travel we must. 

So we went to Ukraine.

Due to the current situation in Ukraine I wanted to use this blog to show how Kyiv looked then, not as it does now. Many things are now different, many things no longer exist. We were very lucky to visit Ukraine, Kyiv and Chernobyl. We could have some of the last photos taken of these areas and we feel very privileged to have visited such a beautiful country when we did. It makes me sad that it will never look the same again, the same as we saw it and more so that some areas tourists will probably never get to visit again. 

I will write a separate blog for our visit to Chernobyl, but neither of these blogs will contain facts, figures and other local information.