Tuesday

Berika and I went shopping and ate at we all call “The Luby's of Ukraine” but we had no luck finding what we wanted. She was looking for a dress and I was looking for shoes and we found neither! We did note how much was imported and one of our tour guides told us later that Ukrainian women like to wear dresses and shoes like that as a sign of emancipation. I did take some really cool pictures on the way back of St. Vladimir's and our hotel at night.

Holy Trinity Day

So we had to go to work on Monday (5/24) but some people in the city did not. We did find places to eat and even some of the stores in the mall were open.
Also known as “Green Sunday” is 50 days after Orthodox Easter. This holiday is dedicated to the descent of the Holy Spirit on the Apostles after Christ's Resurrection. On this holiday people decorated their houses and apartments with Calamus and assorted green branches. This tradition comes from the ancient Judaism, in which Pentecost, the Feast of the Harvest was celebrated outside amongst flourishing Nature. People also go to a cemetery to visit the tombs of relatives and friends who have passed away. There is a custom of leaving bread and vodka on the burial tombs and it is considered a good sign to find that the food and drinks have disappeared upon your next trip to the cemetery. It is a very important religious holiday in Ukraine.

Public Toilets

So I have yet to have the pleasure to use these toilets that Joy, Lisa and Berika have but one of the first nights we were here they basically had to squat over a whole in the ground. Luckily if you go in a restaurant they usually have a pretty decent toilet. Well now I've had the pleasure of paying a grivna to squat over a hole in the ground. We mostly all have on one of are potty stops on the way back the Kyiv! Yes someone in our group did pee a little on their pants and it definitely made me appreciate toilets back home!!

The Road back to Kyiv

We saw beautiful country side and a stork in her nest on a water tower.

Gunpowder Tower

St. Andrews

In my picture all you can see is the bellfry but I'll give you a little background. There is the state emblem of the Polish Republic and the Lithunian emblem of the “Pogon” on the church. The first written evidence about the church goes back to 1460. It was reconstructed in the 1600s. In this church Hryshka Otrepiev nortoriously known in Russian history as the traitor Psuedo-Dmitri I, was married to Maria Mnishek. After the wedding he led the Polish Army to Moscow. Today it is a Greek-Catholic church.

Holy Trinity Church

Outside our Lviv hotel just across the street was this church.

Monument to Taras Hryhorovych Shevchenko

He was a Ukrainian poet, artist and humanist. He is regarded as the founder of modern Ukrainian literature and some what to the modern Ukrainian language.
An Example of his Poetry:

Testament (Zapovit)
When I am dead, bury me
In my beloved Ukraine,
My tomb upon a grave mound high
Amid the spreading plain,
So that the fields, the boundless steppes,
The Dnieper's plunging shore
My eyes could see, my ears could hear
The mighty river roar.
When from Ukraine the Dnieper bears
Into the deep blue sea
The blood of foes ... then will I leave
These hills and fertile fields --
I'll leave them all and fly away
To the abode of God,
And then I'll pray .... But till that day
I nothing know of God.
Oh bury me, then rise ye up
And break your heavy chains
And water with the tyrants' blood
The freedom you have gained.
And in the great new family,
The family of the free,
With softly spoken, kindly word
Remember also me.
— Taras Shevchenko, 25 December 1845, Pereiaslav.
Translated by John Weir Toronto, 1961.

The Black Mansion

The main part of the building was designed by Italian architects Peter Barbon and Paul Rymlianyn in a Renaissance style. It was the first pharmacy in the city (the Pharmacy museum is just a few buildings down). The sandstone brick exposed to the wind and rain have gradually acquired a darker tint. The mansion is more of a dark gray rather than a black but it was finally painted black. The little bench is where the security guard use to sit.

Pharmacy Museum

This is the only place in Lviv where you can buy “Iron Wine” which we didn't. It increases the content of hemoglobin in blood. The museum is an operating pharmacy.

Building No. 23 Virmenska Street

This building is decorated with the “seasons”.

Ivan Fedorov Statue

He was a Russian emigrant and publisher. He moved to Lviv in 1572 and worked as a printer and Saint Onuphrius Monastery. In 1574 with the help of his son he published the second edition of the Apostolos with an autobiographical epilogue and an Alphabet book. In 1575 he published the Ostrog Bible which was the first full version of the Bible in movsble type.

Restoration

The Soviets painted everything blah colors like icky green and yellow. When this statue was restored it was discovered that the original color of the building was blue.

The Krushelnytska Opera House

It is the only edifice in Lviv printed on the national currency (the twenty). It was built in 1896. It sits where the former Holukhovsky palace once stood.

Museum of ethnography and Crafts

The “Fortune” Statue is located inside. We bought lots of cools arts and crafts stuff. I got a real blown out egg that is just beautiful!! The museum is no longer open so it serves as a place to buy cool stuff and see a few statues.

Monument to the Polish Poet Adam Mickiewicz

Built on November 30, 1904 and was placed on the square bearing his name. It represents an allegorical winged Genius handing a lyre to Michiewicz.

The Jewish Quarter

Pidvalna Street area towards the City Arsenal. In the 14th century when there was hardly any living space part of the Jews moved into the “city in the fortress” while the rest stayed in the Krakiwske outskirts. There are remains of a well that was once used by the community. The city plummer would turn off the water and demand extra taxes because of all the extra money in the Jewish Community. The Golden Rose synagogue supposedly had a large mosaic rose on the floor. It was wiped away by the Nazi's and there is a very nice Jewish restaurant called the “Golden rose” in that area. We also saw another former synagogue memorial on the second day in Lviv.

Leopold Ritter von Sacher-Masoch

There is a restaurant with a rather odd statue of him in front of it and some of us took pictures with it and when you take a picture you put your hand in his pocket. Then I found this on Wikipedia: Leopold Ritter von Sacher-Masoch was an Austrian writer and journalist, who gained renown for his romantic stories of Galician life. The term masochism is derived from his name.

Prince Danylo

In 2001 a monument to the founder of the city was unveiled.

The Boim's Chapel

The chapel was built in the 1700s and was a part of the cemetery that surrounded the Latin Catholic Cathedral. King Stefan Batoria invited Yuri Boim to settle in Lviv. According to his will only 3 generations of Boim could be buried here.

The Rest of the History of Lviv

After the Astro-Hungary revolution (1848) the Head Rus Rada (the first Ukrainian political organization) proclaimed the unification of all Ukrainians into one nation. They demanded that the Austrian government divided Halychuna into two seperate territories (East- Ukrainian Region and West- Polish Region). They insisted on introducing the Ukrainian language as the language of instruction in all schools. The Rada only opporated until 1851 but they managed to establish a cultural and educational organization, The People's House in Lviv and publish the first Ukrainian newspaper.
World War I turned Lviv into a battlefield between the Austria-Hungarians and the Russians.
In September of 1914 the Russian army occupied Lviv. Troops stayed in Lviv for 9 months and the city was visited by Russian Emperor, Nikolay II. Metropolitan Andrey Sheptysky was exiled to Russia. During their retreat the Russian army confiscated a large amount of cultural and material valuables. The country was restored to the Austrians. Taking advantage of the situation a group of Austrian officers of Ukrainian decent took the city under their control on November 1, 1918. The whole city broke out into street wars between the Ukrainians and the Poles. The Ukrainian troops surrendered on November 21, 1918.
In 1920 the Bolshevik calvary attempted to break Lviv's defense. Starvation, epidemic diseases, social conflicts, and other hardships badly hit the population. Under the Riga peace agreement, Lviv became a part of the second Polish Republic.
At the beginning of the second World War Lviv was caught between the German troops pressing on the western boarder and the Soviet troops crossed the eastern boarder at the Zbrootch River. Lviv's fate was decided in 1939 when the two signed a secret protocol of Molotov-Ribbentrop. Lviv was given to the Bolsheviks who persecuted and repressed the people. The people of Lviv greeted the first German squadron with flowers when the arrived. At the onset of their invasion the Nazis blew up all the synagogues and decimated some of the Europe's oldest Jewish cemeteries. They set up a ghetto and embarked on a systematic entermination of Jews. 1944 the Soviets restored power but no one greeted them with flowers and ruled until the 1990s.

The First Gas Lamp

The first gas lamp was invented by two pharmacist Ignatsi Lukasevych and Johan Zeh and was lit in the “By the Golden Star” drugstore in 1853.
These status represent these men.