2022
THE AIM OF THIS MEET-UP
This meet-up had several great tasks: accessibility, meeting of Kyiv LG and 360 master class walk.
Our itinerary included: The Maryinsky Park, Museum of Water, National Dolls theatre, Kyiv New Walking bridge, Volodymyrska Hill, St. Michael's Golden-Domed Monastery and Korchma Taras Bulba Restaurant.
On our way we checked the accessibility options of the places we visited and found out that in most cases there is an access to the museums and sightseeing points on our way, but it is not indicated at all.
As a result, we took all types of pictures, including spherical, posted them on Google Maps and wrote the reviews, paying special attention to accessibility.
HAPPYYYY PARTICIPANTS
Naturally, this meet-Up became possible only to the great work of Kyiv LG participants, and it is a big honor for me to introduce them.
@GLG_BVF (Volodymyr), a biologist, professor emeritus of genetics at Taras Shevchenko Kyiv National University, for two years being «on vacations» now with his main hobby in macro and landscapes photography. Starting from this 360 Walk Meet-Up Volodymer wants to master 360 spherical photography too!
Thus, due to Volodymyr we had a fascinating small private lecture on genetics and professional photos at the same time! Youhuuuuu!!!
@AntonKuts (Anton), a former lawyer and advocate who changed his profession to become an IT programmer. Currently he creates websites and leads seminars on different topics, such as How to change your professional life! So if you were thinking about it, here is an expert ;)!!!!
Anton is found of Google Maps since long time ago, actively updating the information, writing objective reviews and posting great pictures. Thus, Anton has an amazing collection of mural photos, that you can find on his Instagram profile, dedicated to this beautiful Kyiv art trend.
@JuliaM, an IT developer and accountant! Julia’s hobby is anime (Japanese cartoons) and manga (Japanese comics), she loves to update Google Maps, to read and to travel across Europe and CIS!
Julia has several degrees and continues to broaden her mind with new courses, being specialized in several fields at the same time. The funniest thing she shared with us was the dress code that was demanded to the graduation ceremony in United Kingdom university, obliging you not only to wear certain brands of clothing but also to be allowed to come with a partner who should be exactly 15 cm taller (!!!). Yayks.…
@nkiriljuk (Nick), literally a Map expert since he is specialized in cartography, being a PhD student at Institute of Geography of National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine. Nick has lots of interesting hobbies, such as exotic fruit tasting, playing chess, guitar (singing, composing), video editing, he is found of prehistoric paleontology and the secrets of Universe! Nick leads a great FB page, dedicated to prehistoric fauna and flora on the territory of current Ukraine. Being a professional cartographer, Nick also shared with us some stunning secrets of Maps creation so he has a direct connection to the world of Maps!
@AnastasiaK, brand manager in fashion industry, teacher of English & professional dancer who explores all possible dancing styles! Anastasia is and a newcomer on Google Maps and has discovered LG community just recently and deeply impressed with its work and contribution!
@RedCatZs (Tania or Foxy), computer systems analyst and toy maker (!!!). Friends and relatives call her Foxy because she loves foxes very much and because of her beautiful red hair too! Tania is the hero of this meet-up since she will participate in the Connect Live 2019 (!!!) and she is looking forward to meeting other Local Guides from around the world!
She adores to watch Discovery and National Geographic programms, they inspire her for new travels. On Google Maps she likes the most to upload photos and to check information.
Foxy is found of incredible process of wool toys handmaking that you can see on her Instagram Page. She makes mostly small animals and likes to add special details to these miniatures, emphasizing uniqueness of a toy, for example, she used a 3D printer to make chair for a sheep!
& Me, @uavalentine, your passionately in love with active lifestyle and now accessibility and 360 photos on Google Maps!!!
ACCESSIBLE ITINERARY
All of the participants were born in Kyiv, and they adore this legendary city, full of history, architectural and natural beauty, where on every step of the way you can find traces of glorious and majestic breath of the past centuries.
Our itinerary started from the 130 years old Mariinsky Park, a real pearl of all Kyiv gardens together with amazingly beautiful Mariinsky Palace, a masterpiece of the XVIII century in baroque style.
The park is huge. One can find here Ukrainian Parliament (Verhovna Rada), Dinamo Football Stadium and even a summer musical theatre, known as “The Seashell”, where salsa dancing classes, slassical and jazz concerts, open-air festivals are held all summer long.
The pride of Mariinskyi Park is the Mariinski Fountain. In the past it served not only as a decoration of the park, but as a drinking well.
The Park is easily accessible for wheelchairs, cause it has vast roads easy to ride, even though in some places the paths go up on the small hills so that might difficult to handle.
Then, our accessible path guided us to the Museum of Water, a place with exhibitions of the history of Kiev's water supply system and waste water options in contemporary Kiev. It has an accessible way to the entrance, even though there are no signs to show it.
Right next to the Museum of Water there is the National Dolls theatre. It is a real 90 years old fairy tale castle on the top of one of the most beautiful slopes of the historical part of Kiev. The path to the Theatre is accessible by the long trails.
Following our itinerary, it was challenging to get to the Friendship of Nations Arch, but still you can do it, just taking longer accessible path.
From here we easily got to the newly built Walking bridge, where you can see left bank of the city with its endless Truhanov Island, the Dnipro River, and even a neighbor town, Brovary.
This bridge lead us to the historical sight called Volodymyrska Hill.
Volodymyrska Hill is one of the most popular places in Kyiv for locals and tourists due to its spectacular views over the river. Since 1853 there is a monument to Volodymyr the Great, who is credited with establishing Christianity in Eastern Europe in 988.
The park is accessible and can lead you directly to the St. Michael's Monastery, originally built in XII century, destroyed in XX century and reconstructed again in XXI. Its blue color and shining golden domes became a symbol of the ancient and new epochs.
The Monastery is accessible with its beautiful park, bell tower and Holy Well. Here one can hear nice melody from the Bell tower every hour.
Right in front of the St. Michael’s Cathedral there is the oldest original cathedral in Kyiv, called St. Sophia, built in 1037 and named after St. Sophia’s Cathedral in Constantinople. This majestic complex has 13 cupolas, representing 12 apostles and Jesus Christ, opened as a Museum with medium accessibility level on most of its territory.
TRADITIONAL RESTARANT
The culmination of our meet-up was a great dinner in the traditional Ukrainian restaurant “Korchma Taras Bulba”. “Korchma” actually means the “bar” in Ukrainian, and Taras Bulba is a famous character from the Ukrainian literature.
This restaurant is one of our favorites in Kyiv, cause you are able to taste delicious Ukrainian food being dressed up in tradional Ukrainian festive clothing, such as "jupan" (jacket with embroidery) for men and "vinok" (flower crown) for women.
The restaurant has a medium level of accessibility since there are 2 steps of stairs to get to the terrace and inside of the restaurant. But once you are there, it has enough accessible place and tables.
Due to number of traditional dishes we ordered, our table covered almost half of all Ukrainian cuisine:
"borshch" or traditional Ukrainian soup;
"deruny" or potato pancakes;
"vareniki" which are basically like ravioli, that can be filled with different stuff, like meat, mushrooms, all kind of berries so can be used as a main dish or as a desert too;
“zrazy” or potato pancake filled with baked cabbige, mushrooms and/or meat;
“oseledets” or salty herring, combined with mild touch of creamy potatos.. Mmmmmm, couldn’t be a better choice!
To conclude, it was a wooooonderful meeting, full of incredible impressions, knowledge sharing, veeery delicious food tasting & great accessibility and 360 master class experience!
SHARING LINKS
You are very welcome to explore several Google Photo Albums, lists and video from this meeting:
- Personal Photo Album by @GLG_BVF.
- Google Photo Album By all of us.
- List of Kyiv LG Meet-Up places with comments regarding the accessibility
- 360 panoramic pictures can be found on my 360 Google Photo Album that I started from this Meet-Up and continue to add 360 pictures anywhere I go.
And video:
By this post we would like also to accept #TeamChallenge for #TeamUkraine too and ready to start this great work together!
Big big hugs and gratitudes to all the participants and to @Jesi & @PaulPavlinovich for assecibility & 360 inspiration, to @FaridTDF, @JaneBurunina , @Ant_Bad_Yogi for constant support, and to all Google LG community for a great job you are doing!
See youuuuu very soon again!
Yourssssss,
Kyiv LG Team
Hello @uavalentine it's really great to see you back on connect with the recap post of your meetup. Loved the detailed explanation of your meetup recap and very well shot pictures and collage of Lg's. Hope you all had a great fun and enjoyed the meetup
Hi, @uavalentine
What's a beautiful recap!! Thank you for sharing the detail, great smiles and photos:-)
I will share this in our local community soon. Thank you!
JAPAN LOCAL GUIDES
@uavalentine Wow!!! Excellent meet up!! You have been in a lot of amazing places!!
I love the way you introduced the other members of the team!! Congratulations!!
Buenos Aires, Argentina | 
