Izmail / Kitslitsa Part I

The road in Kitslitsa.

Monday morning we took a marshytka, which is their version of a Greyhound bus except its about half the size and half as comfortable, further south to a town/small city called Izmail. We had lunch at this little pizza cafe thing and went to a very decent size grocery store (for here) to pick up some food to take to Kitslitsa. We met V there, and since he is from Ukraine, he bargained with the taxi drivers to get a good deal to drive us 30 minutes out to Kitslitsa. Finally, after asking many drivers, he found one who was willing to go. The roads haven't been repaired in 8 years, so you can imagine they aren't in the greatest shape. The taxi we took was a 1985 Lada, which frankly I expected to fall apart halfway there!

V & L's cat. 

It was so nice to see V & L again after seeing them how many years ago in Ohio! The kids are all grown up, and I guess I have too! They have this cute little house with chickens and dogs and a cat. In the back they have two greenhouses where they grow cucumbers to sell. I helped them pick them Tuesday evening and they got quite a lot, and they pick them twice a day! V also has bees that he was moving to a field with lots of flowers, so between cucumber and honey, they keep busy.

Tuesday evening V & L's two daughters gathered up some girls their age (between 13-17) and we walked down to the lake and took some photos. Their names were: Anna, Anna, Inna, Marina, Marina, and Maria. My name didn't really fit in... The lake was very beautiful at sunset and we had a good time. 

Wednesday morning we hitch hiked back to Izmail, which ironically was a better ride than the taxi was! We spent the morning and early afternoon shopping at the small bazaar there. The pizza cafe we went to earlier is right by the bazaar, so we returned there for lunch and actually ended up going there 3 times that day for drinks and snacks. Before getting on the marshytka back to Odessa, we stopped in and visited a deaf lady who has three kids. The youngest is only a month old.

The bus ride back to Odessa was much nicer than the way down! It was in the evening, so it was much cooler and I actually think I slept for a bit. The road goes through the country of Moldova for about 15 minutes, so when you get to the border, the military guy gets on the bus and counts how many people there are, and then when you get to the other side, another military guy gets on and counts again to make sure nobody is escaping into Ukraine.

Village life

From Odessa we took the night train back to Kiev. We lucked out on our train ride down and our roommates were two very nice women. On the way back however, we ended up with two guys, which actually was fine. I ended up sleeping better that night, maybe because I was more used to the train by that time.

Kitslitsa is such a charming village! Everyone is so nice and village life is fun for a short period of time.