Lviv the Next Chapter

So we have been a week in Lviv now and still lvoving it. Lots of walking, some drama and a few laughs. We lveave this Sunday.

The architecture of this European city (the Soviet footprint here is very small) is magnificent. Everywhere the eye falls there are magnificent buildings and wonderful parks. It does not have the grandeur of Vienna because it is not a rich country. So there is a lot of graffitti and many buildings need a little renovation. For me that gives it a bit of an edge and makes it feel lvived in (I will stop now. Promise). You will find plenty more of Lviv’s architectural glories in the slideshow at the end.

The first pictures are of the interior of the Bernadine Monastery, which is awesome. Lviv is full of imposing religious buildings.

The courtyard of the monastery is the setting for the Meat and Justice restaurant which is fabulous. Lviv’s best. Great food and quirky menu featuring pictures of instruments of torture and repression like the His ‘n Hers chastity belts pictured here

I should say something about Ukrainians and meat, for those who are thinking of visiting. A Ukrainain menu will typically feature beef, pork, chicken, veal and lamb. If you ask for a wider choice the waiter will probably ask “What you want venison as well?”

Just as there is no translation for ‘small portion’ in Ukranian, the same is true for ‘vegetarian alternative’. They will look at you and say “This is a restaurant. We only serve food here, Sir.”

It is not rudeness. It is just outside of their conceptual range. There are plently of Italian restaurants serving pizza and pasta but for Ukranian restaurants, eating out means Meat.

We decided to walk our magnificent fillets steaks off in the gloamimg with a wander around Rynok Square (Площа Ринок if you want get down with the locals). Actually since discovering that Google Translate allows you to store words in a phrasebook, life is getting easier. Top of my list is Горілка і тонік (horilka i tonik). If you know the Special K you will know what horilka means.

Night life is lively and colourful. The square, and the cobbled streets off it, swarm with pavement cafes of every type. Lighting is subtle (the joy!) and the feel is fin de siècle Paris or Vienna. Imagine Toulouse Lautrec, a girl on each arm, or Emile Zola coming through a gaslit archway on to the rain washed cobbles.

We came across a display of Tango dancing, which was fun. I should say here that in my opinion Tango dancing should not really be attempted by the Northern races. Tango dancers need fiery Latin blood coursing through their veins (think Al Pacino in Scent of a Woman). It is a question of temperament. Lvivians in a pasa doble don’t smoulder.

It’s not that the women are not beautiful and leggy. They are. But you get the feeling that they reserve their passion for clothes shopping. And the men either look like Alexei Sayle or as if they should be in combat fatigues. Still it was good fun and a lot better than I could do.

Next day was the football and we all know how that ended. We had arranged with two friends from Kalkan to hook up and watch together. For mutual protection as much as anything. John is half Ukranian and had bought a massive Ukranian flag as insurance.

The pre-match atmosphere in the square was great.  The bars were full. Music everywhere. Everybody was out. Ooh la! Such anticipation. We had booked in to a big bar on the square and had the first shots of horilka lined up. The excitement was palpable.

Then Kane sank a goal within the first minutes. The bastard. Not a thought for people trapped in hostile terrain. The atmosphere went from party time to dentist waiting room and it never recovered. We just downed the shots and had to look like it was no big deal as England punched them in.

Ah well! Looking forward to the semis now on Wednesday. We will be back in the UK in time for the final.

In between time the Special and I have done loads of walking through the city’s green spaces. Lviv is a very romantic city with beautiful parks for couples to wander in. And we are banking the opportunities for culture. Yesterday we watched a marvellous 5 foot nothing Ukrainian woman give a performance of Bach in the magnificent Lviv Organ Hall. She was dwarfed by the scale of the instrument but played it with absolute mastery. She ended with Bach’s Giant fugue in C Minor. Honestly it felt like a jet engine was taking off. We will be back there on Thursday for another fine concert.

Tomorrow a ride out on the tram to the lakes and then a visit to the Lviv National Art Gallery.

This is a city that to me feels young, optimistic and full of beauty. But there is darkness; in the graffiti and particularly in the faces of the older people who seem to live on the periphery, the old ladies who shuffle around with brooms and dustpans sweeping up every speck or the men sitting quietly on the benches in the parks. So on my agenda too is the Memorial Museum to Victims of Occupation (Soviet and Nazi). The building is a grim former detention centre used by the Soviet NKVD (forerunners to the KGB) who shot 1,000 prisoners here prior to the Gestapo taking it over  in 1941.

I shall seek out and feel a little of Lviv’s pain. Lest we forget

на здоров’я
Na’ zdorov’ya