Kiev Local Customs

In spring and summer time it is popular to spend WE outside the city, to be closer to the nature.
Country house is a very good place for that.
We have ours at about 60km from Kyiv, forest, river and meadow are at our disposal and in summer time we enjoy it with our friends.
The pic was taken there, near our house.
We were going to make a fire and prepare some coffee,, paying Robinzons:)))

The last Sunday of May is officially declared here as the day of the city. It is widely celebrated, the streets are overcrouded, concerts and shows are everywhere. All this feery ends with the big artificial fire in the centre of the city

One of the most important cultural tip is to drink a 'TALLER' beer in a pub!!
Well, of course it´s joke although I like that beer.
If you want to learn more about cultural tips, visit my Etiquette page (Travelogues)

Cheers!!

The plain-dwellers, future Ukrainians grew rye and barley and kept a few cattle on the side. But the main drawback to living on the plain was exposure to new migrants arriving from Asia. The forests were relatively safe. The natural products of the forest, notably furs, honey and wax, were so plentiful that the forest-dwellers generally had surpluses available for trade. It was their surplus wealth and trades rout via the Dniepr and to some extent the Volga that attracted the Vikings.
According to the Russian Primary Chronicle, a medieval history ,Slaves invited new rulers themselves: “Our land is great and rich but there is no order in it. Come and rule us”. The invitation fitted in perfectly with the Varangian desire to monopolize lucrative trading route between the Baltic and the Black Sea. The main artery of this largely river-borne trade was the Dnipro River. Prince Rurick of South Jutland made himself master of Novgorod c.862. His successor, Oleg, shifted his attention to the south, seized Kiev (c.879), and established the new Kievan state called Kievan Rus.> For long voyages these early Russians built a light, open vessel called a lodya. Oleg, with a fleet of lodyas, launched an attack against Constantinople, called Tsargrad by the Slavs. His victorious campaign proved the might and independence of Kievan Rus. According to the Chronicles, Prince Oleg 'hung his shield upon the Gate of Tsargrad' and sailed back to Kiev with the treasures of his conquest.

Varangian were only a military elite and it was a case common throughout history of conquerors being assimilated by the numerically superior conquered. Though the Kievan aristocracy were Scandinavian, they created the first Slavic state and more importantly, the first Slavic culture, adopting Cyril and Methodius’s Cyrillic alphabet. Of the settlements which the Varangians deigned to rule over, Kyiv was the most valuable strategically. It was accordingly declared “The Mother of Russian cities” and became the Kievan Rus capital. Oleg united the Eastern Slavs and freed them from the suzerainty of the Khazars. At the time the Khazars conquered the Volga Bulgars and the Crimea, levied tribute from the eastern Slavs, and warred with the Arabs, Persians, and Armenians. In the 8th century the Khazar nobility embraced Judaism. The Khazar empire fell when Sviatoslav, King of Kievan Rus', defeated its army in 965. The Khazars are believed by some to have been the ancestors of many East European Jews.

Merchants and craftsmen from far and wide soon gathered by the Dnipro River and settled in the Podol, the lower town, which became the center of commerce. Kiev slowly grew through the centuries into the great, majestic and Royal City of Kiev. From earliest times the life of the Slavs has been connected with water. Like most ancient peoples, the Slavs built settlements near rivers and lakes. Fishing provided an important food source and waterways became main transportation arteries. Even in a rough-hewn boat it was easier and safer to travel long distances than it was to cut through a dense forest. By the seventh century boat construction had sufficiently advanced to allow the Slavs not only to navigate rivers but also to venture into the open seas. They sailed to Thessalonica, Crete, the southern coast of Italy, and, at the very walls of Constantinople, engaged the Byzantines in naval battles. Among the most famous of the ancient trade routes was the one called 'from the Vikings to the Greeks'. To a large degree Kiev and Novgorod, the principal cities of Ancient Rus, flourished because they were located along the waterways of this important route.

According to legend here was the very place, the Starokievska Hill, where the Apostle Saint Andrew , centuries earlier came as a missionary to Scythia. He had raised a cross on the hills of Kiev and predicted that here a great city would rise one day with many churches to the glory of God. And so the prophecy was fulfilled. On the picture - Andriivska (St. Andrew) Church.

The Scythians eventually had to make room for new migrants arriving from Central Asia, and it was the overflow of these tribes – notably Huns, Goths, Visigoths and Vandals – across the Danube that spelt the end of the Roman Empire in the West. At that time, Northern Europe had something special to offer the markets Of Byzantium and Western Europe: amber from the Baltic shore, furs and honey from the Russian forests and fair-skinned slaves. In 4 – 6th century AD Eastern Slavs migrate from the Carpathian Mountains area into what is now Ukraine and western Russia settling first along the Dnipro (Dniepr) River. They built a network of embryonic city-states; Kiev(Kyiv) was the most significant among them. Another group of Slavic tribes moved south to the Balkans and came to be recognized as Southern Slavs or “Yugoslavs” while those in the West took on the national identities of Poles, Checks and Slovaks. The first split in the homogeneity of the Eastern Slavs was between those who elected to remain on the steppes and those who ventured into the northern forests.

Around the same time as the Scythians arrived on the Ukrainian steppes, Greeks, mainly from western Asia Minor, established colonies around the Black Sea Coast. The two groups traded, intermarried and sometimes fought. Much of the famed Scythian gold work was crafted by Greeks. On the picture - remainings of the famous Hersonesus colony near modern Sevastopol.