Video about Kiev, Ukraine

When Hans posted this video below, it reminded me of several friends I have back in Kiev… I hope they are okay.

Daily Photo – Kiev before the storm

Here’s a photo I took back in the good-old-days, before the storm passed over Kyiv, Ukraine. I just finished processing this one, and it was sitting in my archives for a few years, still unpublished. I was reminded of this when +Hans Zimmer recently posted a video about all the chaos there… so I decided to dig deep into my Lightroom and find a photo to work on… It was a peaceful night when I was there, and the city was alive and full of life. I hope it is one day again soon.

Kiev before the storm

Photo Information

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• Date Taken2007-01-31 18:06:41
• CameraNIKON D2Xs
• Camera MakeNikon
• Exposure Time1.8
• Aperture5.6
• ISO100
• Focal Length20.0 mm
• FlashNo Flash
• Exposure ProgramProgram AE
• Exposure Bias+1

This basilica in Kiev has this wonderful black base that really lets the gold and trimmings pop and shine. There is also that little tiny chandalier there, which you may not have noticed!

This is the ornate entrance to a huge religious complex in Kiev. The sky was overcast and the same color as the white of the buildings. I happened to catch a little bird up there as you can see.

I was asked in the Flickr comments of this picture if I get scared while carrying around an expensive camera and tripod around with me. I replied no, not really. I keep the tripod cocked on my shoulder. It’s big and metal and I think anyone knows that an assault will be repelled by the business end of that tripod. It leaves a mark.

This is Cathedral of the Dormition at the Pechersk Lavra in Kiev. It was cold and my tripod was like holding on to liquid nitrogen.

The cathedral was built by a group of Antonite monks from Constantinople on top of a complex network of caves under the Berestov Mount overlooking the Dneiper river.

The second photograph is of the backside in different light much later in the day.

In the last few moments of twilight in the middle of winter, we left the Lavra (distant right) to go into this little restaurant to have some hot chocolate. We sat up in that little round area at the top and they brought us a tiny mug full of super-thick chocolate. It was barely even a liquid, but it was burning hot. You could tell that if you let it fully cool, it would actually turn back into a solid.

This very unusual and moody old fortress, the Golden Gate, sits obscurely in the middle of old Kiev. It is unlike anything I have ever seen, and I still don’t know what to think of it. It wasn’t pretty and it wasn’t well-formed… it was just… kinda… there. But picture-worthy? Sure!

Cinderella is not Russian is she? I know she really likes shoes, and so do Russian women, but she is more into glass than fur.

Speaking of which, Ukrainian women have some of the most outrageous boots you have ever seen. I really need to grab some shots of these things. They are more crazy than anything Chevy and Dan would wear in Spies Like Us, and twice as wild as anything Harry and Lloyd would wear as part of their apres-ski ensemble.

I walked around the city on a bitter-cold morning after a long night of deep snow and found this gold-and-green domed orthodox church sitting silent in these woods. I did not see anyone else around, so I snapped a few pictures through the woods from across the way.

This is the same church that was almost destroyed by the Germans in The Great Patriotic War, which we call sweet sweet WW2. I told my Ukrainian/Russian friends that those Germans weren’t so tough after all, and they did not find any Great Patriotic War humor funny at all.

They found it even less funny when I did my John Cleese Hitler-walk around the forest claiming the land as my own.