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I spent a couple of days in Kiev, it's a very easy city to get around due to the underground train system, based around the same idea as the Moscow one - very deep, and very impressive! The stations are huge, well lit, and very airy.
I stayed in an ex-Intourist hotel called the Bratislava - on the edge of the city, but close to the Darnica underground station - the hotel had seen better days, but did have a character of it's own - and seemed to be a meeting point for some very interesting people in big shiny cars.
While in Kiev I went to see the Caves Monastery - a series of caves and connecting tunnels that have been dug out by the monks over a millennia. The interesting thing is that the mummified bodies of the of deceased monks are in the caves as well. The tunnels are very claustrophobic, lit by thin candles, and patrolled by bearded monks trying to stop the paying tourists taking flash photographs of their dead precedents.
Just down from the Caves Monastery, is the Defence of the Motherland Monument - a 72m statue of a woman clutching a sword and shield. The statue was erected in the Soviet era, and dominates the skyline of Kiev.
Although Kiev is miles away from any sea, it does have a beach on the side of the wide river that flows slowly through the city - and the locals make the best use of it - on a warm summers day it seems that most of Kiev makes it down to the river.
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