Kiev is a place that can easily give you a wow factor when you arrive. Coming from Belarus and the Baltics I thought the cities had a lot of huge churches, but Kiev easily beat them all. All over the city there are huge ones with golden onion like tops, usually lit up in the night and well blended in with the modern buildings.
Because unlike Belarus, Ukraine has been trying to break free from Russia and look more towards Europe, so it is a popular tourists destination for a lot of Europeans. When it is even cheaper than the Baltics and Belarus and has both traditional and modern restaurants and bars it is the perfect place to celebrate New Years Eve. Even on a regular weekday you would find a lot of people in the like huge clubbing complexes like “Shooters” if you want to meet foreigners or “Arena” if you speak a little Russian and want to meet mostly young locals.
During the days there was plenty to see too. Kiev has an interesting museum where they have the smallest of everything. Most things were made during the cold war when Soviet wanted to show that they could have the superlatives of everything and in the museum you see everything under magnifying glasses, like the Worlds smallest book. They also got a National Patriotic War museum and one in memory of the genocide that happened here during the Soviet Union.
One place that I liked in particular was the Lavra Cave church where you could walk through tunnels filled with dead people in glass coffins that Russian orthodox Christians would kiss and pray to. The whole area was huge and at the end of it there was a giant statue earlier called “Mother Russia”, but had after been renamed “Mother Motherland”. I have celebrated New Years on many cities and countries, but so far Kiev has been the best.
