To be honest I never found out where the black sea ended and the Dnepr began. The delta is so wide that you can’t see any land if you’re in the middle of it, as we were presumably. Eventually though it was clear that we were back in the river as the familiar banks closed in and the reeds and trees and fields signalled the beginning of the vast Ukrainian countryside once again.
As we were having lunch it became clear that we were approaching a large town; industrial buildings began to line the banks and the off-white residential tower blocks could be seen on the horizon. Soon the ship stopped and turned sideways on to the river. We had a scheduled stop at a place called Kherson, so I guessed that this must be it.
The reason for the stop was to visit what the itinerary called ‘fishermen’s island’. There wasn’t a great deal of evidence of any island at this particular location, or indeed any fishermen, but I was prepared to have my doubts disproved. Shortly after lunch, two tenders turned up and positioned themselves alongside.
The Germans clambered across to the outermost one and were soon on their way, looking chuffed to be first as usual. We brought up the rear, so to speak, setting off down the river, back the way we came to the more rural outskirts. I hadn’t noticed that here, at least, there were little tributaries coming into the Dnepr at fairly regular intervals. From the big boat the reeds seemed to camouflage them, but at this lower level they were quite evident.
It was into one of these that we ventured, immediately plunging us into a relatively microscopic version of what we’d passed by so much of at a distance – the Ukrainian countryside. Here we could see the detail; the flora and occasionally fauna, the little riverside houses, the people. It was a sunny afternoon and very pleasant to be cruising along like this admiring the landscape.
At one point there was a sharp bend in the river and for some reason the German boat stopped here to let us go first. They all stared at us as we floated past, not looking too happy, and there was a small cheer from some of the English passengers as we ‘took the lead’, and waved ironically at them. After another fifteen minutes or so we could see a little landing stage and a slightly more concentrated group of buildings that formed our destination village.
It still didn’t look like an island to me, and as we got nearer I could see that there were a number of stalls set up by the landing point, and they didn’t appear to be selling fish. We docked first with the German boat alongside, using our boat as a bridge to get ashore. The stalls had been set up either side of the path from the landing stage to the village, so there was no escaping them. They were mostly selling Ukrainian ornaments, toys and clothing – I just kept my head down and followed Neela who was striding off towards the little houses.
It transpired that we were to partake of ‘afternoon tea’, local style, and eventually everyone got past the stalls and gathered in what appeared to be the back garden that served several different houses. They had set up trestle style tables, complete with ‘roofs’ and long wooden benches to sit on. The tables were laden with all kinds of sweet and savoury food and big jugs of fruit cordial, though none of us ever quite managed to identify which fruit.
Many of us were still rather full from lunch, but we all did our best to ‘tuck in’ and do justice to the hospitality, even though we weren’t quite sure what we were eating at times. Local children peered at us as we sat there and some of their mothers, who had set up the meal, stood and gossiped as they surveyed their western guests. I took quite a liking to some sweet, triangular shaped offerings that tasted very much like doughnuts and not at all controversial to the stomach.
After a while the ‘lady in chief’, for want of a better phrase, stepped forward with Neela at her side and a large glass in her hand. She was a tall, sturdy woman with rosy cheeks and muscular looking arms. Neela explained that she wanted to thank us for visiting their village and to wish us good health. At this point the woman held up her glass and it became apparent that it was pretty much filled with vodka. Na Strovia she exclaimed in a loud voice, tipped her head back and downed most of the vodka in one go.
At this point the other woman came round with trays full of shot glasses for us so that we could try the brew for ourselves. It was Ukrainian vodka, made locally and flavoured with a delicate fruit taste that belied the power with which it hit the back of the throat. After my first swig I quickly grabbed another triangular doughnut with which to soak it up, and finished the rest of my glass in careful sips. What I couldn’t work out was why hadn’t the woman at least fallen over after amount she’d downed in one gulp. She must be very used to it.
After our little ‘tea’ party, we were told that we had an hour to wander freely among the stalls in a further attempt to persuade us to boost the national economy. Thanks to the vodka they’d plied us with, I think some of our group were now ripe for the picking as they wandered back along the path, easily mesmerised by the many brightly coloured objects on display.
I was set upon by a jolly man selling archetypal Russian fur hats. He came up to me, plonked one on my head and then insisted that I admire myself in his mirror. Apart from the fact that it was real fur, which is enough to send a Westerner into a fit of angry letter writing, it made me look very silly indeed. I removed it from my head and thrust it back into his hands and must have looked rather annoyed, as he started to apologise. I sort of half smiled at him and decided to retreat back to our tender where I spent the rest of the hour watching the others milling about through my zoom lens and taking the occasional photo.
Soon we were heading back towards the Dnepr along a different branch of the tributary where there were some quite pretty looking houses and even one or two people fishing. Once we were safely back on the boat the journey up-river resumed and we left the town of Kherson unexplored. Apparently the women of Kherson are renowned for luring Western businessmen with their southern Ukrainian charms and relieving them of as much money as possible before abandoning them penniless and far from home. I don’t know if this is just a myth perpetuated by foolish businessmen, but I can’t really say I was sorry that we didn’t get the chance to find out.
The next stage of the journey was the long haul back to Kiev with only one more scheduled stop in-between. A large chunk of it was made that night while we ate, drank and slept once again and by the morning we were nearing Zaporizhia once more. After breakfast a lot of us went up on deck to see the enormous hydro electric dam that we’d driven across a week ago. It then occurred to me that we’d be going into the lock – one of the deepest in Europe – which I’d missed on the way down due to being in bed.
Sure enough we closed in on the entrance which looked tiny at first, but gradually took on a more imposing air as we drew nearer. Soon we could see a massive chamber before us, relatively thin but with huge black walls towering up to the sky. As we floated in it was like being incarcerated in some great dark tomb, particularly when the lock gates closed slowly but surely behind us. Nothing much happened for what seemed like ages, and then slowly, almost imperceptibly, our boat started to creep upwards towards the oblong of sky above.
I’m not sure exactly how long this took, but it must have been at least twenty minutes. Considering the amount of water that had to be shifted I suppose that’s not bad. The best moment of course is when you can finally see over the sides of the lock and inspect the new horizon before you. In this case it was the dam, from the ‘up-river’ side of course, to our left and some rather elegant looking cranes up ahead on the right.
For the next several hours we cruised along pretty uneventfully. I spent my time vaguely recalling some of the minor things we’d seen on the way down and still looking out hopefully for anything of interest that I might have missed. Finally, just before 4pm, we arrived and docked at the Ukraine’s third largest city, Dnepropetrovsk.
A city tour was scheduled, so I decided to join it despite the fact that, as far as I could discover, it was noted only for industry and commerce. That’s these days of course; the city had originally been quite literally commissioned by Catherine the Great and had at one time been called Yekaterinaslav, which I must say I prefer.
It had also at one time been full of architecturally attractive buildings, but from what I saw this is not the case now. It was the most strikingly Soviet place that we visited throughout the trip; its long main thoroughfare is named Karl Marx Street. I did find it a rather grim place, though not because of any signs of poverty or dilapidation. On the contrary, there’s supposed to be quite a lot of money here, and I would imagine that it’s a good place to be these days if you’re a successful businessman or woman. It just seemed to have a very oppressive atmosphere and very little colour or character.
The one exception to this was a smallish stretch of parkland (called October Square Park) with the forbiddingly named Svyato-Preobrazhenskaya Cathedral at the end of it, shimmering in rose and gold. Even here though, they feel the need to display some old Soviet military-ware which the local children seemed to find a lot more attractive than the cathedral. The other main religious building, the Svyato-Troitsky Cathedral, is now rather squeezed in between other buildings, or rather has had lots of buildings built up close to it, which somehow seemed to sum up the whole city and its claustrophobic atmosphere.
After we’d seen these wonders we were given the final official shopping opportunity of the trip. Dropped of in Karl Marx Street, we could either admire the statue of Lenin or laugh in his face and wander bourgeois style through one of the modern shopping malls. Poor old Lenin – they’d even allowed McDonald’s to occupy a building almost next to him which he now seems to point forlornly at in a final futile gesture of defiance. I don’t suppose Karl Marx would have been too happy to have such a commercial street named after him either, but at least his theories about the death of Capitalism could still come true, so he may yet have the last laugh.
I looked around for things to photograph as usual, but didn’t find much inspiration. In the end I became slightly fascinated with a big screen in the middle of a nearby pedestrian street that was showing pop videos – but only because there wasn’t anything else to do. Actually the fascination was with watching the locals watching the screen and their reactions, which varied from amusement (young) to downright puzzlement (old) at the latest video wizardry being displayed. The rush hour was just starting, so I abandoned this dubious pastime and crossed the road back to where our coach was waiting before it became too dangerous, or actually impossible to do so.
Eventually we made our way back to the river and I was relieved to be out of the throng of this city that was so familiar in some ways, yet very strange in others with its Soviet legacy still so prominent in amongst the Westernisation. I wasn’t sorry when we weighed anchor and sailed away from this place, even though my guide book assured me that the night life was very good. Very good for whom I wondered.
Most of all I was glad that this wasn’t to be my final impression of the Ukraine. Tomorrow was our last day for sightseeing and we would be doing this back in Kiev, which is so entirely different to Dnepropetrovsk, presumably because it never suffered the fate of being a centre of heavy industry and the Soviets had been much kinder to its historical legacy.
As for the Dnepr, it is a mighty river and it flows through a country which is equally mighty in its expanse of rural landscape which, through agriculture, has been both its success and its downfall depending which era you care to examine. The river has been at the heart of this history as a natural highway and I was glad to have travelled much of its length to get a glimpse, perhaps just a bit more than a glimpse of what remains of hundreds of years of Ukrainian endeavour and what is now growing out of it.
Kiev | Zaporizhia | Odessa | Sevastopol | Yalta | The Dnepr | Return to Kiev
