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Chernihiv
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Chernihiv
February 22, 1999
Hi Mom,
We'll we went on our road trip and saw more churches. We went to the town of Chernihiv, northwest of here. It was about a two-and-a-half hour drive each way. It seemed like the only day trip we could have since the town around here are either pretty plain or pretty spread out. we saw churches because that's the only historic things that seem to be reasonably preserved. I know many of the churches were destroyed by the Soviets but it seems anything else really old, like houses or palaces, was destroyed too. The churches that survived did it by being made into museums.
Anyway, Chernihiv (Or Chernigiv. Or Cherniv.) is as old as Kyiv but a lot smaller - maybe only 300,000 people instead of 3 million. The drive up was on a flat and boring road. The same flat and boring road I use going to Slavutych (where I'm going tomorrow). Here we are arriving at Church #1. The walled enclosure had two churces, one from the 12th century and one from about 100 years later. There was also a school and "dorms" for the people (nuns? and priests?) who ran the surrounding farm.
Unlike most churces we've been in, this one was active as a church. There was a service going on when we wnet inside the "newer" church. It was just like a story of a mid-evil church. The sancristy was walled off with just some open ornate double doors giving a view of the priest at the altar. No pews. The attendees wqere wandering around listening, crossing themselves ("backwards" -- up-down-right-left unlike our up-down-left-right) and lighting candles. Yuri, our driver, bought us candles at every church we went to so we joined in . We certainly thought of family back in California wne we did that. This church also had beggers inside and outside the door so we gave away a few kopecs too.
The next church was a women's monastary. Unlike the first stop, this was very quiet. We could not get in the main church (being repaired?) but we wnt into a chapel in an adjoining building. Here, Yuri got the story from a young priest. The monastary had just been reopened three years. It was closed the 20 years before that and, for most of the Soviet-era, it had been a "sports club". But the church had originated somewhere around the 12th century so I guess the Soviet intrusion was just a blip historically. It was very peaceful up here.
We got back into our car and went to the main historical park in downtown. There were several churces here as well as a museum. One church had an extensive collection of 18th and 19th century icons on display. Thta was pretty impressive. The museum showed artifacts from the early settlers including the "Kyiv Rus" (who became the Russians after the Turks pushed them back up to Moscow.) There were even some displays of the vikings who were invited by the Rus people to settle along the Dniper river. So Norwegians even made it to central Ukraine.
The park was really quite nice. Along the bluff above the river there were cannons from a couple hundred years ago. The combination of cannons and churches gave a real sense of history here. Altogeher there were 6 or 7 churces, most over 600 years old. Like churces go here, some are fairly simple but nowadays many church interiors are getting redone and they get filled with icons and gilted diplays.
Finally, we went to lunch. (More importantly, we went to a place that had bathrooms. THAT's a real problem with travelling around here. There's no such thing as public bathrooms.) Lunch turned out pretty good but we definitely have to get more Russian under our belts. Yuri helped us but his "food English" was pretty sparse so we ended up getting what was easiest to order. In the end we had soup, salad, a main course and coffee. The whole bill was 66 hryvnas, about $16. That was a real bargain compared to Kyyiv prices because it was a vary nice restaurant with tablecloths and everything!
We didn't make it home until after 7:00pm.. The last hour or more was in the dark and I was very glad Yuri was driving, not me. The roads here are tricky enough in the daylight but at nightthey are a real struggle.
That's it. Today is work and tomorrow and Wednesday I go up to Slavutych. It's a shame this trip happened when it did because Gabby is in town but "the girls" will have fun without me I guess.
Take care and we're thinking of everyone.
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Originally sent February 22, 1999. Re-formatted for the web June 2, 2001.
This page created on a Macintosh using PhotoPage by John A. Vink.